Thanks for the reading list Yves. I liked especially the Derek Walcott poem.
Pleased to meet you Mary. Someone famous (Auden?) said "Life is too short for a triolet." They may have had a point. Good to have someone take a look who knows about prosody. My own expertise is very crude. “Anapest” is about as technical as I get. Thanks for your suggestions for improvements. I don’t much like “visage” though. It sounds too archaic to my ear. However, I agree that L3 could be better. “Languish” is not adding much more than “wither”, so it could be cut (as Roger suggests), or replaced as you have done. I liked the line because of the alliterative sound of “langwish and wither”. But that may not be enough justification. The em dash may not be necessary; it’s more that I’m self-consciously flagging the inversion. Glad you enjoyed it.
And thanks for coming back Matt. You might be right about shortening the repetend in Line 4. (Roger suggests I shorten it in each of its repeats) “Revise” does change the meaning. It could suggest that the N would rather not get into moisturiser, make-up or surgery. But “revise” also has the simpler meaning of “look at again”. British use it in the context of revising for exams. In the poem it could mean the N would really rather not keep looking at himself. I still quite like “surprise” -- the way you sometimes meet yourself in a shop window without realising it is yourself.
Thanks for taking the trouble to cut out the padding Roger. (Matt also suggested the same revision to L1). I like your version -- balder and punchier. I began the poem with the first line, which had a good feel I thought. So that set up the anapestic rhythm and I took it from there. I didn’t start out with intention of writing a triolet. I get what you mean about redundancy. The conceit was to counterpose “myself” as a character that was not synonymous with the “face” in the mirror. But the conflict could still work simply using “I” contrasted with “face”.
I disagree with your PS. I generally avoid looking into mirrors, and even when I do, I tend to close-focus on the job in hand, eg inspecting my teeth, cutting off my beard every couple of months. I really do avoid looking myself in the eyes, or any sort of honest or reflective self-appraisal. I avoid looking myself in the eye in pretty much the same way I may avoid meeting someone’s gaze during a difficult conversation.
Thanks again each of you.
Joe
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