[Hilary Biehl]

Originally Posted by Joe Crocker

if it makes the poem better, why not butcher it properly?

I agree with that sentiment.

And I think the third revision reads much better.

[Yves S L]

Hello Joe,

"I'm looking at the man in the mirror"--Michael Jackson.

Ralph had a poem in the last few years about an aging N looking at himself in the mirror.

Poems about a man looking at himself in the mirror: https://www.google.com/search?q=poem...ih=92 2&dpr=1

The poem was dull because the language was flat and prosaic. At least now you have added some musicality back which lifts it quite a bit.

I am still not sure that you are doing all that much with this old chestnut of a theme, though!

Yeah!

[Mary Boren]

Hi Joe,

I don't think we've met, but as a person of a certain age I can easily relate to your narrator's reluctance.

I like the liberties you've taken with the form, which bring metrical interest to what the Banjo described as "of all the sickly forms of verse". (See below if you're not familiar with that one.) The alternating lines of headless/catalectic anapestic tetrameter relieved by hardstopped trimeter scan perfectly to my ear, with the exception of L2 (omit 'and'?), L6 (I'd rather?), and L7 (much smoother with your original 'cannot', but maybe you're not going for smoothness).

Otherwise I'd say the slight tweaks you've made add bits of polish, but wonder if you might consider torquing the language up another notch in L2-3. Maybe save face for the finale and eliminate a couple of noncontributing pronouns (that) with something like "the visage I don't recognise" and since languish and wither are essentially synonymous, how about something like "The hopes I once held for its dignity wither." Is the emdash really necessary? Even an inverted sentence can slide without interruption.

I enjoyed the poem.

-Mary

A Triolet

Of all the sickly forms of verse,
Commend me to the triolet.
It makes bad writers somewhat worse:
Of all the sickly forms of verse,
That fall beneath a reader's curse,
It is the feeblest jingle yet.
Of all the sickly forms of verse,
Commend me to the triolet.

A. B. "Banjo" Paterson (Australian, 1864-1941)

[Matt Q]

Hi Joe,

Just a thought, but if L4 were

I try not to look in the mirror.

You've have ballad metre throughout, which might be rhythmically more satisfying.

Another thought: You might try changing the full-stop at the end of that line to a comma. It adds some variation to the repetition, I think, and maybe gives the line more reason to be there.

"revise" shifts the meaning a little. So, the N would rather ignore the cracks (wrinkles, sagging etc) in their face than try to change or hide them (cosmetic surgery, make-up, rejuvenating creams etc.). I think it's maybe more interesting that previous choices, a little more complex than simply despising them and wanting them gone.

best,

Matt

[Roger Slater]

This feels a bit padded out to me. Phrases like "languish and wither," for example. Does "languish" really add anything but a metrical beat? Why not just "wither"? And "at myself" is also surplus, since we already know that we see ourselves when we look in the mirror.

I see there's been a fair amount of discussion about your metrical choices, but the only real problem with the meter I'm seeing is padding.

Here's a version minus the padding. While I was at it, I couldn't resist a possible punctuation shift in the last two lines:

I try not to look in the mirror,
the face that I don’t recognise.
The hopes that I had for it wither.
I try not to look in the mirror.
And this is my vanity. Cracks wanting filler
I'd rather ignore than revise.
I try not to look. In the mirror,
that face. I can’t meet its eyes.



PS--It occurs to me that when looking in the mirror, a person always meets his own eyes. It's a simple physical reality. You can't not look yourself in the eye. In your poem, I'm not sure if you can get away with only the metaphorical meaning of not being able to look someone in the eye when the physical reality is to the contrary.

[Joe Crocker]

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

[Roger Slater]

Joe, you can't look at your face in the mirror without looking in your own eyes. Yes, you can look at other parts of your body without looking in your own eyes, but not your own eyes.

(When I was a very little kid, I once got upset because when I looked in the mirror I thought I couldn't move my eyeballs around the way other people do. My father then explained that my eyeballs moved around just fine, but in a mirror you can only see what your eyes are pointed at, so you can't see your own eyeballs looking away).

[Matt Q]

Roger,

I agree with Joe. You can look at your face in the mirror without meeting your eyes, i.e. without looking directly into them, without holding their gaze. If I focus on my chin, for example, while shaving, I might still be able to see my (reflected) eyes, out of focus and towards the edge of my vision, but I'm not meeting those eyes, not looking directly into them. Just as if I met another person and stared at their chin, I wouldn't be meeting their eyes, I wouldn't be "looking them in them in the eye".

Matt

[Hilary Biehl]

I agree with Joe and Matt that it is possible to look at your face in the mirror without looking at your eyes (just as it's possible to look at another person's face but not meet their eyes).

[Chelsea McClellan]

Hi Joe,

I could enjoy this poem if the title did something totally unexpected. Or gave us the whole picture from the top of the puzzle box in a phrase.


Take care,
Chelsea