uh, so-so... nothing to write home about

The writer must be a ludicrously talented individual. Hats off to you!

Oh, dear! These words don't make a poem. They present a narcissistic portrait that might get a B in my long-ago creative writing class. The author needs ten more years of growth and experience and someone to offer serious criticism of her efforts.

I'm drawn to this piece. The use of My Little Pony dolls seems to dare the reader to discredit the poem. I didn't take her up on that dare. Instead, I was saddened to watch a person be made to feel shame for "announcing her imagination."

I was turned off by the first stanza. It
is very contrived.

The poem as a whole
is unfocused, and there
are few concrete images that
can serve as metaphors.
And those images that are in the
poem don't cohere very well.
Ponies? Medicines? Scientists?
Kings? There is neither
explicit nor implicit connection.
The fog of discordant imagery
makes the theme unclear.
Her images are too hermetic.
They mean something to her
but she has not communicated
her allusions to the reader.

I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss the poem as being about -- shall we more politely say -- self-involvement. The poem seems to be more concerned about casting "a person capable / of making sounds with meaning" -- that is to say, it takes a stand for the much-maligned Lyric.

We can read the poem with two sets of eyes.

The first is the casual BR poetry reader, who will probably find this poem accessible. Let's note how this audience reacts.

The second readership is engaged with the on-going academic/poetic debates on sincerity and lyric -- for example, Marjorie Perloff's recent BR article, "Poetry on the Brink: Reinventing the Lyric." This audience will judge the poem by how relevant it is to that discussion, and by the challenge its inclusion here lays down.

The self-invented epidemic of silence unsettles me. I have seen it before. I have a close friend who never shook off that habit; it is how she retreats from criticism, guilt, the world's overwhelming expectations.

"Embarrassment canters its tight track around my cheeks." That is a lush and resonant image.

To the critics, especially Walter, I suggest spending a few more minutes. You may not like it, or you may think it an undeserving winner—an odd conclusion since presumably you haven't seen the competition—but anyone can see what's going on here, the rumination on childhood imagination, the context surrounding its emergence and its eventual absence.

Dear Topher Heman: "Making sounds with meaning" suits a Cubs fan lamenting another losing season or Donald Trump firing someone. It's a long way from taking a stand for the lyric poem, maligned or celebrated. How about judging a poem not by generalities, i.e., unspecified relevance and undirected challenge, but by how the likes of image, sound, reference, and allusion create an accessible and coherent experience for a reader? It's also the antithesis of poetry as auto-psychoanalysis, however popular that's become.

Hi Sarah...

Am not much of a poet though I dabble with words with the eyes, ears and fingers alike. I am careful to always begin off with such a disclaimer because it is better to be honest and sound like a reader in analysing a poem rather than a critic, who either wise does a splendid or less job of a poem.

I have read your poem thrice now, some of the lines I guess more than that because I wanted to feel them - try and understand the psyche behind the thought. The title itself was striking and was well complemented by the opening para -
'What parents do not tell their children is that there are no bones
in toys. No hard secrets. Only air
that when pressed out smells of a foreign country'
Immediately as a reader one is forced to pay attention to the voice of the subject and become curious about the theme. '...no bones in toys.' is an apt allusion highlighting the dichotomy between the imaginary world of the child and the real. This para will play an important role in the further complementing the poem's end where the voice says
'Tell me, tell me
there will be a time again
to announce our imagination,
whatever animals we are holding in our hands'
This molds the theme of creative imagination, which is according to me a classic issue raised by a multitude of poets with their own set of imagery and allusion.

But the poem does not stop here. Through out the rumination she draws more imagery of her world of imagination with a careful time check of the real world through her mother. The images used in this analogy 'bandages with tweezers, iodine, calamine...' should not be ignored. They are an antithesis of the child's world but is not devoid of cracks since the mother is 'talking to herself.' This for a short moment reprised in my memory the character of 'Septimus' from Virgina Woolfe's "Mrs Dalloway.' The 'real' world represented by her mother is also fraught with a certain dissonance that can be subtly felt but not in isolation. It only magnifies when read against the child's world which 'canters embarrassment' when enquired about.
The fourth paragraph is perhaps most interesting since it is introduced as an 'epiphany,' strategically allowing the poet to take liberty in juxtaposing disparate images which the reader has to carefully read into. Now let's take the epiphany:
'the new king wakes in the middle
of the night, tossing off his sleep cap,
and the scientist—in an orchard
cosseted with wind—receives the good pendragon apple
in his lap.' - One will need to rack a lot of their cross reference skills to read into the images here. I could not think of any and was also wondering if king implied any biblical reference? At the same time the reference to the 'scientist' and the 'pendragon apple' left me wondering of there was any reference to Newton or gravity. A little of google research left me even more flummoxed as the references did not make sense. These may be personal or some reference that as a reader one cannot immediate correlate but what is important is the next line 'Time divvies, as simple
as it sounds, it delivers us
moments.' The moralistic rhetoric used here signifies the vortex of the issue the poet is trying to speak about - creative imagination. The rhetorical question that follows is even more stark - 'So what sort of chime or present
does it take to understand that others
can hear you speak?' As a reader I have spent the longest time in this line. By juxtaposing 'chime' with 'present' my hunch is that the poet seems to hint the need for a window or better still something similar to Keat's 'Nightingale,' a medium which can help a transition from the world of imagination to real or vice versa. This introspective para ends with a question aimed at people who question the child's make belief world; in other words the world of imagination.
The punch of the poem lies in the second last para where to avoid embarrassment of her imaginary world of ponies, stories and fantasies she 'invents an epidemic of silence' for her mother, who is the real world. The gagging of imagination and the exorcism of the child's world is beautifully expressed in the lines 'Slowly the ponies begin to whisper,
gathering their voices behind them—
though only half-disguised, their monologues
now like a company of ghosts covered in white sheets.
Then finally quiet surrounding.'

The poem is an excellent rendition of a personal 'epiphany' which the poet has been harboring inside her as a child and then as an adult in the form of creative expression. The liberty she seeks is the rhetorical question at the end of the poem.

Barring the issue of some personal analogies or maybe the ones I have not understood, I personally like this poem a lot.

Will love to hear from others on my understanding.

Oh dear, oh dear, I'm new to these pages. i read the poem and liked it immediately - I think the opening especially good - then I started to read the knockers. Strong images and evocative description of a particular time and feeling and "these words don't make a poem"? Well. I'm confident they do and a good one at that. I have some quibbles - the embarrassment cantering around the cheeks is too strained for me - but, all in all, I say congratulations!

Isn't it wonderful that everyone is here talking about it? Isn't it wonderful that poetry still provides the thoughts to feel,whether or not we enjoy it or we don't.

Isn't it wonderful?

I love this piece.Sarah shows such sensitivity and such mastery of language. The piece is fresh, surprising, wistful and vivid. I love the way the piece canters away without a bridle and takes on a magical journey through childhood memories and deep exploration of feeling; each word and image nuanced and selected with absolute precision for beauty and meaning.Congratulations Sarah!

Hi , I liked the poem....The foreign air that toys breathe out is so observant ! Children do like far away places...The bandages , iodine mother fiddles with , talking to her self ...is a healing much awaited ...now wanting to speak to the animals , is the loss of touch with all things soft and magical...Beautiful . This deserves to win :-)

I agree with Stuart - and the first stanza is childish, at best - and smacks of xenophobia. The poet would be wise to stick with concrete images and avoid judgments: Go back and read Elizabeth Bishop - transformation occurs in accurate description, not in loaded words like "epiphany" and "epidemic," nor ill-conceived references to royalty.

Yes, Stuart, this poet needs a better critic - the editors of this review have done her a disservice in the long run by heralding her effort as complete. The poem has potential to be something great but that opportunity has been missed through publication. A great poet would recognize that and revise the work prior to further publication.

more workshoppy wangdoodling, but give her a break. she won and largely cause of matthea Harvey's tastes run about this level. but its very workshoppy in my view

Thanks for sharing your opinion three times in three sentences, manny cartola. You must be a great writer.