30 Pieces of the Past

[Dunc]

Denise

Outer Limits - You capture elegantly the sheer naughty childhood pleasure of being half-treated like an adult. Your olfactory summary of father is effective and vivid.

Arlene - That's delightful! Growing up, school, adolescence - S3 shows how it's done. Keep that one.

Yea!

Regards / Dunc

[DeniseD]

Donner, Kristalynn, Anenome, Emily Bronte, Matt, Jane & Dunc,

Thank you so much for stopping by, it is much appreciated.

Jane, love the photo, thanks.

[DeniseD]

Giddy girls chat at the lunch table, old woman alone lip reading.

[DeniseD]

It will take an out of body journey to find those feelings again.

[Donner]

Hi, Denise,

Second half of NaPo and your skill in making keen observations using small details is still very evident.

"Stunted Growth" - Roses are usually pruned after the last spring frost, not while still blooming, and some roses bloom without being pruned for decades. Habits developed during a marriage are often long-standing, so N's husband probably correlated his father's treatment of his mother's roses (not his roses) to his treatment of his mother and determined he wouldn't allow that to happen in his own marriage. That explanation uses more words than your poem, which says it much better.

"Southington High Lunch Lady" - It's amazing the impact people on the edge of our lives can have. I like how the kindness shown by the lunch lady influences N's own toward her brother by giving him her meatball - her only meatball.

"Outer Limits" - Ooh, my dad used to let me stay up on Sunday nights (before a school night!) to watch "Secret Agent" with him. That's one of my fondest memories because my mom wasn't too pleased with him allowing me to do that, either. Heh. The sense of smell is often neglected, but it's one of the most powerful memory jolts and you use it to very good effect.

"Arlene" - Nothing like a boy to come between two BFFs.

Your two American Sentences are spot on. The image of the older woman reliving her girlish times is very well done.

Donner

[DeniseD]

Thanks Donner,

This is getting tough....

[DeniseD]

I know better than to use cliches,
but what do you do when a cliche is all
you can stand to remember?

Autumn afternoons Grandma
and I raked leaves in the front yard.
Grandpa sat on a lawn chair smoking.
He'd laugh when I jumped
into the pile we just finished.

One Wednesday afternoon
my Grandma fell backwards
into the leaves. Later that day
my aunt hung black curtains
over mirrors, stopped all the clocks
at 3:23 PM. For three days
the house was dark and quiet.

She looked beautiful that October day.
Red, gold and orange leaves all around her.
The glint of the afternoon sun
made her silver hair sparkle
like stars.

That's how I choose to remember her,
a constellation of red, gold and silver,
disappearing into the white light.

[DeniseD]

After my grandmother died,
grandpa spent all day in the cellar.
At dinner time, my Aunt
sent me down to get him.

It was always the same.
He was sitting on the stool
behind a black curtain
at the sink where grandma
used to soak the whites.
He was always looking
straight ahead, at nothing.
I'd tap him on the knee,
tell him dinner's ready.

He never said a word
but he'd come upstairs,
eat and go right back down.
I thought he was turning
into a demon. His face
was white, his fingernails
long and dirty. He smelled
like cigars, sour wine
and sweat.

I didn't realize until years
later that he was just
an old man still caught
in the black hole that stole
his light.

[Angela]

Denise,

So glad I made it around to you!

I hope to be that kind of gramma in dance lessons!

The Space Between is a lovely and accurate little snapshot. I love that otherworldly feeling right before a storm when everything just breathes.

The last lines of Fire are keeper lines.

Haiku is a lovely little love poem.

I really like the time traveling in First love. The Prell did me in.

Nice little vignette in Grampa.

You decide holds that little touch of magic that I know I want to believe in.

I am a mommy and I totally get Mommy.

I want a garden like your husbands garden in Stunted growth.

I Love, love lunch lady. The American chop suey is so perfect here. The last line made me grin.

Oh! Grandpa's Dark is heartbreaking! The demon strophe pulled at me when I read it a second time. His whole reason for being had gone with her.

I really, really like the nostalgia running through your thread. So good to have stopped off here!

[Stagyrite]

Hi Denise,

so embarrassed to have not come round since day 1. Fluff is tough! Tough to keep up with, anyway. Thanks for the comments on my thread, too. Fluff, and ye shall be fluffed!

I've really enjoyed your thread. As others have said, the voice is fresh and authentic. Tough, but in a definitely feminine way. And in a friendly way. And good company.

The short ones are lovely. I particularly liked Fire, for that final image, and the way it causes the reader to re-evaluate what's going on in the poem.

I liked the woman perched on top of the tree, singing. Not sure you needed the last 4 lines in that one, but it was a lovely poem.

'Braids' was (typically) eloquent and understated. It makes its point. I love the way your poems make their point. There's never any sense of straining after meaning.

I loved N's memory of her grandmother in Mimi, and how the poem gradually unfolds the essence of the person. The poem's structure -- the cousins' memories, N's more personal memories, and the final line -- works well.

Oh, and I really liked N and her father watching Outer Limits and the breathe in / breathe out ending. Lovely stuff.

Best wishes for the rest!

[kristalynn]

I really like Grandma's Light, the red, gold, silver and white. Nice. I also like the stanza about the demon in the next. Sad when I have the image of him laughing at N falling in the leaves in the poem before.

[Dunc]

Denise

American Sentence #1 - clear tight set-up and then 'lip reading' - most enjoyable.

It will take - another AS, a sort of dissociative wistfulness, and 'those feelings' conjure all the possibilities.

Grandma's Light - You don't need S1 - no apology called for. The rest is told simply and directly and the result, all the way through, is very effective - both moving and lovely.

Grandpa's Dark - another well-sketched portrait, the old man condemned to the darkness. These are the sort of snapshots that get passed down in families and become almost definitions of their subjects.

Fine reading.

Regards / Dunc

[DeniseD]

Angela, Stagyrite, Kristalynn & Dunc, thanks so much for stopping by.

[DeniseD]

The shy girl wishes the other kids would include her but knows they won’t.

[5th column]

Hey D

just to say that the close of Grandpa's Dark makes it a keeper for post NaPo revision. The image is too good to waste.