[Susan McLean]

Uncoupling

It's all the rage. It's all the expectation
that limitless choice can free us from the cage
of boredom, petty grievance, and frustration.
But Tinder's buffet of pleasures can't assuage
our tendency to slough off obligation,
to banter, connect, deflect, then disengage
rather than face that love is limitation,
the beginning of our end. It's all the rage.

Revisions:
L4 was "But all of the love in Tinder can't assuage"; then "all the allure of Tinder"; then "But all the delights of Tinder can't assuage"
L6 "then" was "and"
L8 "our rage" was "the rage"; reverted to "the rage"; then "the tempering of life's flame" was "the beginning of our end". Reverted to "the beginning of our end"

[Glenn Wright]

The syncopated rhythm, anapests in lines 2 and 6, enjambments after lines 1, 2, 4, and 6, and alternating masculine and feminine rhymes create a very evocative rhythm, Susan. The phrase, “It’s all the rage” at the beginning and end seems lifted right out of 1927. I can see the flappers dancing the Charleston in spite of the anachronistic reference to Tinder.. (I found myself wondering exactly how much love is actually in Tinder.). Enjoyable!
I found the title to be an intriguing puzzle which I have been unable to solve.

[Carl Copeland]

Nice, Susan. The alternation of “feminine” and “masculine” rhymes will appeal to your Russian readers. You once told me not to insist on doing that in English, and you were right, but I do like it when it’s done well.

Personally, I’d get the “of” out of L4. I know and have learned from your preference for variation, but the extra syllable is so dispensable that it seems variation-driven to me.

I had to google “conscious uncoupling.” It’s advertised as a program to civilize divorce and prevent the bitter, messy ones. Your criticism of it is similar to criticism of divorce in general: a marriage is less likely to last if you go into it with the idea that you can always get out. Marriage certainly takes work, but does this new trend further undermine the institution?

[Paula Fernandez]

Susan--

This is the second poem of yours I've read and it's another master class in metric rhyming poetry. Bravo!

I agree with everything the others have said complimenting your rhymes and rhythms and the use of the repeated "all the rage". Wonderful. My one problem with this poem is that I think the idea that Tinder might "assuage our tendency to..." just doesn't make sense to me. I pre-date Tinder by a bit, though, so I might not understand it. My thought is that Tinder exists, not to assuage, but to catalyze banter, deflection, connection, and disengagement. That is, Tinder wins when people couple/uncouple chronically and keep coming back for more. I wonder if anyone is naive enough about Tinder's purpose to grant you the logic of the poem that it's there to help you find true love? Anyway, I keep reading that line "all the love in Tinder can't assuage" and getting stuck.

[Susan McLean]

Thanks for the comments, which have helped me think about the pros and cons of some of the decisions I made in writing this poem, which I am still open to changing. I just returned from the Poetry by the Sea conference, where I took a workshop on rare forms, taught by Chad Abushanab. Each person had to draw a slip with the name of one of the rare ones and then write a poem in it. I drew the strambotto: eight lines long, eleven syllables in each line, with a rhyme scheme of ABABABAB. At first I thought I would use only feminine rhymes to get the extra unstressed syllable, but then one of the rhymes I wanted to use was a masculine rhyme, so I switched to loose iambics in those lines. I decided I liked the looseness that added to the meter. However, the form is so rare that I don't feel I have to stick with it in the poem's final form, if that makes it work better. No one is going to look at the poem and say "A strambotto!"

The poem was also supposed to include at least one change of direction in its structure. The phrase "it's all the rage" is supposed to mean one thing at the beginning and another at the end.

Glenn, all of the "love" on Tinder is supposed to be read ironically, so I wanted you to wonder about that. The title is supposed to mean both disconnecting (as train cars do) and leaving after coupling.

Carl, I did not intend divorce to be the subject here, but more the failure to commit or want to commit to a relationship. I do think that the love on Tinder is not tender, so I picked that dating platform for that reason. It is one of many reasons that I think it is harder for relationships to last these days. I am still on the fence about the anapests in the lines.

Paula, the subject of "assuage" is "the love on Tinder." So, I am implying that that sort of love can't make people want to give up anything in order to make a relationship work. I predate Tinder, too, so I am only guessing at its effect on those who use it. But you are right that I am implying a negative effect.

Susan

[Carl Copeland]

Originally Posted by Susan McLean

The poem was also supposed to include at least one change of direction in its structure. The phrase "it's all the rage" is supposed to mean one thing at the beginning and another at the end.

That, I’m afraid, I’d never have guessed. Even reading it with that in mind, I’m not sure what to do. Is it that love involves limitation and rage that has to be handled? Or is rage a part of Tinder’s rocky road? I think you need something more to bring out the twist. Or just let it be a repetition framing the poem. It worked for me.

[Susan McLean]

Carl, I'd like to leave the poem open to multiple interpretations. When I say that love is limitation, I mean not only that love involves forsaking other possible partners, but also that love involves loss, either through the death of one's partner or through one's own death. It also involves learning to live with possible boredom, grievances, and frustration. To rage against such limitations and insist on endless options makes love impossible. So, I am linking the life of endless hook-ups to rage. But readers can see as much or as little of that as they wish. I'm trying to get them to think about the issue; I don't want to spell out every leap of the logic, but to allow them to reach their own conclusions.

Susan

[Mary McLean]

I like it, Susan! The title immediately made me think of Gwenyth Paltrow's split. I did also get the double meaning of the end but I think it would be clearer if you went a bit darker with this line:
'to banter, connect, deflect, and disengage'
Nothing in that line currently signals rage to me, and I think there might be a way to bring in a hint of it. At present it sounds too fun and also it sounds like the core purpose of Tinder, not something Tinder would assuage us against.
I also think 'love' is a too obvious strawman in this context. I would prefer something like 'All the romance of Tinder'.

[Susan McLean]

Mary, thanks for the suggestions. I thought that "romance" sounded a bit too positive, so I have tried "allure," which is more known for being deceptive. I was hoping that "obligation" would sound negative enough that it would explain the sequence of coupling/uncoupling that follows.

Susan

[Perry Miller]

Hello all. This is my first post on this forum. I have 14 posts to go before I can share one of my poems.

For me the poem works well as metered verse, but I'm not finding a lot of lyricism in it. (I tend to use the words "lyrical" and "lyricism" to mean "pretty" or "poetic", but the dictionary's definitions tell me I'm putting too much meaning in those words.) I guess what I'm saying is that the poem is very explicit. It says what it says without any clever twists that I usually think of as poetic.

I've written similar poems. Some truth would be knocking around in my mind and I just had to get it on paper, and saying it outright seemed the easiest way.

"Love is limitation" -- I like that. I once wrote in a poem "the moment we find love is the moment we lose it". I suspect we are getting at the same thing.