[Alexandra Baez]

The problem with providing specifics is that that’s exactly the kind of thing that makes poems “telly,” isn’t it?

I mean, you could argue that all words “tell”--but not all language is “telly,” as I understand the term. It depends what the specifics are about, and how specific they actually are. A lot of your “specifics” are not about visible scenes, but about the narrator’s psychological reactions to them, and they’re also presented in really pretty general (and hackneyed) terms: “guarded heart,” “guilty tongue,” “unsaid words,” “aches and sorrow,” “bitter taste of life goals unachieved,” “fading spirits.” Roger gave an excellent definition of “telly” when he said that “the poem relies too much on conclusions.” In contrast, being “showy,” as you put it, would involve giving the readers enough of the data that led the speaker to his own conclusions, that these readers could follow that same trail of crumbs to similar (or equally interesting and valid) conclusions.

The litotes of “unsaid words” continues the ironic undertone and also invites the reader to imagine what those words might be if the speaker were being honest with his friends.

This is a case in point: you could bring out this effect, and more effectively, without actually saying “unsaid words.”

“Bitter taste” is a moribund if not dead metaphor in most cases, but in this context, when the reader has been eating sweet cake and drinking delectable champagne, I think the irony revives it somewhat.

The concept is clever, but it totally passed over my head because “bitter taste” is such a cliché that I didn’t even think to consider it in relation to your previously-offered concrete details. There’s a great opportunity here, though, to make an effective connection between the two elements.

I quickly realized I was less interested in the particularities of these relationships and more interested in the loneliness that caused or resulted from the speaker’s inability or unwillingness to be honest with his friends.

I can well understand that, but a few carefully chosen particularities could be harnessed in the service of painting a picture of, of symbolizing, this psychological state.

Still, Tony does also have a point that there’s a “second way” of achieving full rhetorical power and has provided some interesting methods toward that end. “My guarded heart restrains my guilty tongue” is somewhat better than its two predecessors, but in the face of this phrase, my mind still numbs out on its abstractions and how many times I’ve heard them in other contexts.