.
This is quite ambitious! I like it very much. As David says, there's interplay between skiing and marriage but it's the details that make it a tightrope walk of an analogy. In a nutshell, shorten it.
S6: Though I like it, I think you might either consider re-writing this stanza or doing without it.
First, I'm having a hard time parsing it. Is the map referring to what the last line in S5 is setting up? And if so, does that stanza (S5) need to end with a colon?
"A map, as big as the mountain," is a perfect description of those big billboard maps at the base and summit of skiing mountains. There's nothing quite like them. They are gigantically, unambiguously clear in one sense but still cannot convey the experience they represent. The same can be said of wedding vows, I think. The analogy is great. I don't think you need a comma after "map". The stanza as a whole feels like it has derailed itself from the rest of the poem and gone off into fantasy.
Which stanzas/sections you chose to delete/condense is hard to say. I'd have to spend more time with it. I do think the poem is weighed down in too many words. Taken as individual units, all the stanzas are beautifully conceived and work well at covering every angle of the analogy between downhill skiing and the long haul of marriage. You clearly have a vision and are squeezing everything you can out of it. But it is likely too much. As is so often suggested by critiquers here, find a path to say more with less I think is in order here. You might start by looking at S7-11. Find a way to say in one stanza what you are saying in four stanzas.
I'm looking forward to seeing you navigate this often dangerous expert trail of revision you are now on. Stay over your skis and I'll see you at the bottom : )
.
|