[Glenn Wright]

This is my maiden voyage in the Eratosphere. Please be gentle.
————————

Another Orbit of the Sun

My birthday celebration came again,
and all the rituals have been observed:
a cake, the gifts, a bottle of champagne,
a table at a restaurant reserved.

My friends have smiled, toasted, embraced, and sung,
and now a few are reaching for a coat.
Bitterness is checked by my guarded tongue,
and unsaid words lie heavy in my throat:

fewer friends each year, more aches and sorrow,
an empty shelf, my life goals unachieved.
Today links to the chain that is tomorrow
and tomorrow and tomorrow, hardly grieved

when gone. My fading spirits withdraw slowly
from those I knew. I never let them know me.

———————
Edits:
Title: Counting Another Orbit of the Sun > Another Orbit of the Sun
S2L3: Self-pity binds my heart and stills my tongue. > My guilty heart restrains my leaden tongue, > My guarded heart restrains my guilty tongue. > Bitterness restrains my guilty tongue.> Bitterness, checked by my guarded tongue, > Bitterness is checked by my guarded tongue,
S2L4: Regrets and unsaid words catch in my throat. > and unsaid words lie heavy in my throat. > and unsaid words lie heavy in my throat:
S3L1: Fewer friends each year, more pangs of sorrow > fewer friends each year, more aches and sorrow,
S3L2: the day made less by life goals unachieved > the bitter taste of life goals unachieved. > an empty shelf of life goals unachieved > an empty shelf for life goals unachieved > an empty shelf, my life goals unachieved
S3L3: Today, a link on the chain that is tomorrow > Today links to the chain that is tomorrow

[Jan Iwaszkiewicz]

No gentility deserved Glenn just praise. The meter deftly handled, the vehicle is apt and the sting in the tail is perfect.

One quibble, Glenn, the ‘day made less’ feels awkward in statement from the singularity of the day to the tenuous nature of one’s ill-defined multiplicity of goals.in life.

A successful maiden voyage, may the gods bless you and all who sail with you.

Regards

Jan

[Glenn Wright]

Thanks, Jan. Your comment was helpful. I felt like the third quatrain was the weakest. I’m still not sure how to punctuate it. S3L1-2 don’t really constitute a proper sentence. I’m thinking about using a dash after “unachieved” instead of a period, but the shift in thought in the next line isn’t really pronounced enough to warrant it, and I’m afraid it might sound too “Emily Dickinson.” Any thoughts?

[Julie Steiner]

Nice, Glenn! I like all the changes so far, and the ending has a satisfyingly classic reversal.

[Carl Copeland]

And a fair voyage it is. No gentility needed, as Jan said, though criticism here isn’t always smooth sailing, nor should it be; it’s honesty that we learn from.

I get two strong impressions from this sonnet. One is craftsmanship: every beat, substitution, and comma in its place. I like tinkering with people’s meter and punctuation, and here I feel like the Maytag repairman. S2L1 could be regularized by rearranging the list, but I’m sure the substitution is quite conscious. If I try really hard, I can quibble about the tense of the first line, which should probably be perfect to match the tenses that follow.

My other impression is a sincerity unafraid of speaking simply and directly. There’s a lot of verbal hide-and-seek in poetry, some of it brilliant, but none of that here. (Ok, there’s Shakespeare, but he fits in seamlessly.) Ironically, poignantly, you tell us what you can’t tell your friends. Well done.

[Joe Crocker]

Some admirably turned phrases here Glenn. S1 was neatly done and I liked your working in of "tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow" in S3.

Depending on how strongly you feel about IP. The the first line of S2 would read better as

"My friends have smiled and toasted. We have sung"

And the final couplet (S5L1) is asking the reader to "WITHdraw" rather than the more natural, to me, "withDRAW".

I feel that the final melancholy envoi could be a little more sorrowful. Something like "Have they ever known me?". But you may be wanting to say something different.

Cheers

Joe

[Glenn Wright]

Thank you all for your thoughtful and generous comments.
Carl, I chose the verb tenses to convey that the poem occurs at the moment the party ends. Using Alexa’s suggestion, “My birthday celebration’s come again” implies “and here it is.” Joe, I could regularize the iambic pentameter in S2L1 with your suggestion or by transposing “smiled” and “toasted,” but the resulting perfect IP struck my ear as a bit too pat. Alexa, I wonder if the problem with “reserved” is that it is etymologically too close to “observed.” You and Roger put your fingers on what, for me, are the two biggest challenges in this poem. The first is to avoid sounding whiny given the rather irrational depression the speaker feels. The second is to make the nature and source of the speaker’s sadness convincing without explaining exactly what they are. I’ll have to ponder that further.
No one seemed bothered by the end punctuation on S3L1, so I guess it stands.
I appreciate your help in letting me see my poem through your eyes.
Glenn

[Carl Copeland]

Originally Posted by Glenn Wright

I chose the verb tenses to convey that the poem occurs at the moment the party ends. Using Alexa’s suggestion, “My birthday celebration’s come again” implies “and here it is.”

To me, “My birthday celebration came again” sounds more like something you’d say the next day than while you’re still at the party. So we hear the present perfect a little differently. That’s interesting.

Originally Posted by Glenn Wright

… the two biggest challenges in this poem. The first is to avoid sounding whiny …

For me, you defused the potential “whininess” by accusing yourself up-front of “self-pity.” But that’s also what Alexandra and many of us here call “telly,” so you’re in a double bind.

Roger has a point about “fading spirits.” I understood that your good spirits were fading and you were mentally withdrawing from your guests, but the condensation is a little murky.

[Jim Moonan]

.
Beautifully rendered, Glenn. Yes, you'll be at home here.
Though the tone is sombre there is no self-pity, no wallowing. Just tenderness. I'd say it's sobering but there is a glow to it that backlights the poem to be Yeats-like in its brooding.

The few edits you've made have fine-tuned what was already in tune. Great work doing that! The final six lines bring a fresh sheen to an old trope. It's like you've taken an old piece of furniture and made it look new again.

It's great to have you here. There's an adventure to be had here that is made better by new voices speaking.

.

[Mark McDonnell]

Hi Glenn,

Welcome to the Sphere and all that!

I think the last four lines of this sonnet are quite good and that the final sentence, particularly, has a genuine blunt poignancy. But I do feel that everything leading up to it, while competently rhymed and metred, falls a bit flat. It fills a lot of space with things that are quite general and prosaic. The first six lines are a very generic description of a party and the following four seems to me a list of undefined mopey clichés.

I wonder if you could come at this in more specific terms. The scene setting of "we're at the end of a birthday party" could be sketched in two lines, leaving you room to perhaps focus on a specific encounter or conversation with a friend at the party, which would give your great ending more weight. In terms of craft, you clearly know what goes where when it comes to the mechanics of metred verse, but in terms of content and depth this feels like a first draft. To me at least.