Poem

Watching a Former Lover Make Tea

A palmfull of tea berries, the mortar,
the pestle.  Cardamom seeds.  Ginger.
A pan of milk heating.  Snow
on the windowsill.  Darkness.  These
mean an evening of talk.  Largely
of the past, those gone.  She will ask
as always, in her smallest voice,
if my best friend truly loved her.
And I, comfortable with my familiar
lies, will put my arm around her,
and say whatever it is I say.

Comments

[David]

Very enjoyable; a nice poem for tea-time. Three thoughts:

Line 1. Surely not 'palmfull', which isn't a word; but is it 'palmful' or 'palm, full'? I think that the second is more metrically sensible. The semantic irregularity in it, too, parallels enjoyably the relationship of the pan of milk to the snow and darkness.

Line 4 seems the least good. It stands quotidian and makes the bits it touches quotidian too. There's a change of punctuation into it and in it that would make it exciting, but at, I'm afraid, too great a cost in preciseness.

Lines 9-11. That of comfortable familiar lies is the most powerful image of the poem. It seems a bit underplayed.

I would say that the poem is very enjoyable in its overall effect. The interplay of the objects in the first four lines is particularly rewarding.

[Scoplaw]

David –

Thank you for your comments, and I’m glad you’ve enjoyed the poem to some degree. With that in mind, I think your criticism is largely high-flown bullshit. Perhaps it’s meant well, as a kind of compliment to the poem, but I do think that the emperor has no clothes. While it’s not particularly politic to point out, for the Muse’s fair heart and out of respect for my craft, I think I need to respond to several points you’ve made:

Line 1. Surely not 'palmfull', which isn't a word; but is it 'palmful' or 'palm, full'?

Why isn’t “palmfull” a word?

I think that the second is more metrically sensible. The semantic irregularity in it, too, parallels enjoyably the relationship of the pan of milk to the snow and darkness.

I’m afraid I don’t follow your point about “metric sensibility”; what exactly do you mean by this phrase? Leaving classical metrical structures and formations of subjective "sensiblity" aside for the moment, the most obvious analysis of stressed and unstressed syllables in this line would view, “A palmfull of tea berries, the mortar,” as clustering three groups of stressed syllables – palmful, tea berries, mortar (distinguishing primary and secondary stress from tertiary stress, of course). The introduction of a longer pause via “A palm, full of tea berries” would completely skew these clusterings, pushing the line into a more prosaic rhythm that would certainly run counter to the cadences the poem later employs.

Ditto the point re: “semantic irregularity.” How is the phrase “A palm, full of tea berries” semantically irregular? (For that matter, what on god’s green earth is “semantic regularity?”) In any event, how would this asserted irregularity parallel the relationship of the pan of milk to snow and darkness?

Line 4 seems the least good. It stands quotidian and makes the bits it touches quotidian too. There's a change of punctuation into it and in it that would make it exciting, but at, I'm afraid, too great a cost in preciseness.

This is line four: “on the windowsill. Darkness. These.”

This is quotidian? It does not strike me as either very commonplace diction, nor a recurring element, (in the sense that we most commonly use “quotidian.") According to your analysis, it makes, what?, lines three and five quotidian as well? Thus:

A pan of milk heating. Snow
on the windowsill. Darkness. These
mean an evening of talk. Largely

is quotidian? How do they significantly differ from lines one or two?

Beyond my difficultly in figuring out just what you mean by quotidian, I simply don’t see an acceptable alternate formulation of these lines. Given that their excision would gut the poem, I’m not really sure this point strikes me as an interesting criticism.

I’m afraid you completely lose me with your punctuation comments. Not to sound snide, but I just don’t understand the sentence that you’ve written. What “change” are you proposing? What would the cost to preciseness be?

Lines 9-11. That of comfortable familiar lies is the most powerful image of the poem. It seems a bit underplayed.

Except it’s not an image. It’s an abstraction. There’s no concretizing of the concept (i.e., it’s not a literal image, a figurative mage, a perceptual image, or a conceptual image). Perhaps that’s why you think it’s understated.

However, again, is there a better alternative? Should the poem contain a imagined or projected conversational blow by blow? Would that make for a more effective poem? I think, obviously, not.

Again, glad you liked the poem, appreciate your writing in, blah-blah-blah, but please don’t waste your time talking out of your ass. It does not impress me.