[Jayne Osborn]

I mean for the poem to come off as playful.

Sorry, Jim, but it just doesn't - as others who've responded have said, one way or another, using words like "dark" and "toxic".

I didn't think for one minute, I hasten to add, that you have an unhappy marriage, but poems aren't always autobiographical; because this one is, if you want it to be read as light-hearted, then you have to give readers a hint, or some clues, of the true nature of the relationship!

S1 is a bit menacing (we don't know any different, remember ) so I think it would work really well if you lighten it up in S2.

Jayne

[Trevor Conway]

Hi Jim,

I find myself struggling to find the point of writing the poem. I do like some snapshot poems, but I think this one needs to linger a lot longer on the detail in order to pay off. Your reference to snaking her tongue between her lips to chase the last sweet smear is the model to follow here, I think. Wallow in that detail and other similar details rather than the more literal parts like "I told her again", "I'm always too late", "she shrugs" and the ending, which felt bland to me in comparison.

How about simply "Jam" as a title? It sounds more interesting to me then "Her Jam".

All the best,

Trev

[Glenn Wright]

Hi, Jim—

I found myself being fascinated by this simple transaction, wondering what the relationship is between the N and the knife-licking woman and what their exchange means about their relationship.

My first impression was that she was the N’s wife or girlfriend, deliberately teasing him with a provocative action to get his attention. It then occurred to me that by sweetening her mouth, she might be inviting him to kiss her. His failure to respond to her overture explains the curtness of her response. The knife suggests a desire to do something dangerous and exciting, but he is simply not interested.

The second possibility that occurred to me is that the girl is the N’s daughter, testing the rules that her father has established to protect her and finding him powerless to stop her from indulging in risky behaviors.

In both cases there is a definite darkness in the relationship. My advice is to lean into it.

Glenn

[Phil Wood]

A more directional title Jim? Something flirtatious, like 'Tease'. She could 'wink' rather than 'shrug'. Alternatively, accept the poem is more effective and weighted being darker, more relatable or real to readers, though less autobiographical.

Best

Phil

[John Riley]

Jim, I like that you had to explain this is about an obnoxious habit of a family member. I like this for what it is. The character comes across as charming despite the painful habit. I see nothing to alter.

[Jim Moonan]

.
Revision posted.

(John, I didn't see your comment until just now. I still think the original version accomplished largely what I set out to, as you indicated. But I've rewritten it to be something of a different poem. I like them both.)

To all who have taken the time to respond — Jayne, Phil, Jim, Trevor, Glenn, Harry, Max, David — It fills me first with chagrin and then with inspiration to hear everyone's take on the original. In the end, inspiration won out. I dug in and re-imagined...

I’ve taken a sharp turn away from the darkness and tried to lighten it up to be what I had intended. I got lured into the darkness of the imagery of knives and tongues and blood : ) The revision is more accurately emotional, which is where I wanted it to be in the first place. (Darkness whispered and I followed : ) Now I’m back in light.

It seems I managed to set most readers to thinking something sinister lurked between every line! Please set your minds at ease— there’s nothing dark in the poem except the allure of the absurdness and imagined danger of the image of licking a knife. I had only wanted to express the exasperation that comes with trying to get my daughter to stop pushing my pet peeve button. It was always something of an inside joke for both of us. The poem essentially is saying I don’t like the look of someone who licks a knife clean — at least in public. She always replied, essentially, "I don't care!".

What spawned the darkness in the poem was that I liked the heaviness of the interplay between these two lines, which hijacked the poem: “Don’t lick the knife” and “You’ll taste blood.”

On the surface, it is meant to portray a simple parental warning always given but never heeded. As parents, we are prone to exaggeration as a means of deterring a child from doing something. There are many parental warnings we throw at our children. For example, "If you sit too close to the TV, you’ll go blind!" and “"Don’t cross your eyes—they’ll get stuck like that!"
As children, we half-believed them. Then there are those alarming/arresting parental cautionary warnings such as “Don’t run with scissors” and “Always look both ways before crossing the road.” My warning not to lick the knife was more in that vein of parental warnings. It honestly gives me the chills to see someone licking a knife. I can't help but imagine the skin on the tongue splitting open.

Btw, in the States there’s a phrase used to describe something that someone likes to do: “That’s her jam.” or “He likes to jam with his friends after school.” That’s why I thought the title “Her Jam” might work: licking knives is what she likes to do. It’s her jam : )

For now, I’ve retitled the poem, “Peeve”. For now, I like the revision. Although I think I could have just as easily "leaned into" the darkness, as Glenn said.

What a pleasure it was to re-imagine the poem based on everyone's responses.

.

.

[John Riley]

Jim, you’re telling us what was so much better hinted at in the first version.

[Yves S L]

Hello Jim,

I had great difficulty understanding why the first version was actually a poem. In my mind I was comparing it to the following William Carlos William Poem:

I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox

and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast

Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold


So what I was doing in my mind was compressing the poem something like as follows:

I have licked
the knife
and cleaned
it of jam

though you warn
me of blood
so fresh
and so red

Forgive me
the blueberry jam
is finished
you must go buy


However, I have even more trouble understanding why your revision is a poem.

The first version was at least a snapshot of a moment of tension, and sure more attention could have been paid to the craft element such as compression and lineation, but you at least had the form of two somewhat developing stanzas (reaction and counterreaction), and a heck of a lot of implication.

The second version removes all implication and tension, as it goes at length to spell everything out, and so for me it really is just prose. I say that poetry is as much about the form as it is the content, and often part of the form is compression and implication. However, to make the idea of form more concrete, one can go through the Williamson poem and state the constraints (strophes having four lines, each strophe having a single main thought, the consistent matter of fact tone, the syllable count of the lines... )the poem is written under, since the constraints are the actual form, which allow the compression and implication. What you have done in your second version is remove constraints, taking it even more closer to prose.

It is often the revisions which shows how someone really thinks of poetry, because now they have to really take their time and make choices past the emotionally loaded moment of inspiration.

The Williamson poem takes the moment of tension, the dynamics of a relationship, and compresses it as much as possible into a snapshot moment, and you were initially doing something similar. I reckon you should go back to that.

You can change how the poem is interpreted without adding lots of explanatory text, like, "she was being sweet though".

Yeah!

[Trevor Conway]

Hi Jim,

I like the first 3 stanzas of the new version, which draw out the detail a bit more, but not so keen on the rest. It just seems to take things off in an unnecessary direction to me. I would look at focusing on the first three stanzas and maybe drawing things out even a little more.

I don't think you need so many speech tags ("she sing-songs", "I sigh", "I say", "she says", etc.). I think the poem would flow better without most of them. Trust the reader to understand who is speaking.

I think "Jam" and "Her Jam" are both better than your new title

Trev

[Simon Hunt]

Not too much to say here, but a few things:

I read the revision first, so even in the original the central father-daughter relationship was clear enough to me.

Even so, the revision, while richer, feels a tad over-long to me. The key is daughter licks--father is peevish--father gets sentimental imagining this transaction coming to its end. Do you really need all of this to convey that? The repetition of the "breezy..." phrase seems especially superfluous to me (maybe just me). Here it comes again, but does it DO anything?

Another random thought: I know we're on non-met, but have you considered redrafting this as formal? I wonder if the music and snap of light verse, combined with the pithiness of brevity, might help it along.

I don't really care for the revision's title. The peeve is part of it, yeah, but I don't think it's the over-arching idea. How about "Toast," which would be read as referring to the food-stuff until Pops stands up at the imaginary wedding? If you wished, you could then use a different word in that stanza...

Cheers,
--Simon