[Alex Pepple]

Red Grapes


     What fruit arrays bedeck Whole Foods;
     from bristled coconuts, more goods
throng: melons, vermillion mangoes,
freckled bananas, then the rows
     of red grapes, with eight thousand years,
     ripened through culture for our cheers,
prime clusters for our picnic lunch.
Rubbed smooth, with each translucent bunch
     in fluorescence that gems its shine,
     here gleams what ancients deemed divine.
Your teeth will pierce them in sweet rite,
your tongue stained purple bite by bite.
     The barefoot maids, in wine dance, pressed
     the vintage. Gods and mortals blessed
this fruit—from Olympian feast
to corner market, west to east,
     the same dark juice that quickened blood
     in pharaohs flows now like a flood
across your lips. Spring air breathes thick,
vows refreshed by your red lipstick.

[Glenn Wright]

Hi, Alex—

Your paean to the red grape has some nice sensory appeal, but I had a few questions.

First, I wondered if the serrated left margin is necessary. The rhymed couplets provide structure, and the two uneven margins give the poem a rather amorphous appearance.

Second, I wondered if the first four lines were necessary. As a signpost, they advertise the scope of the poem as celebrating all fruits, but from lines 4-20 you focus on the red grape.

Third, a few lines are difficult to wrangle into tetrameter. I was able to scan line 3 as headless iamb, trochee, iamb, amphibrach. I was able to scan line 20 as headless iamb, iamb, anapest, trochee. But no matter how I tried, lines 9 and 15 were trimeter: Line 9 is anapest, anapest, iamb, and line 15 is iamb, anapest, anapest.

A few expressions seemed either non-idiomatic or rhyme driven:
Line 6: “for our cheers” doesn’t strike me as something that someone would actually say.
Line 11: “in sweet rite” Is there really a rite or ceremony for eating table grapes?
Line 19: “Spring air breathes thick” Aren’t grapes harvested in fall? In the image it sounds like the air is breathing rather than the celebrants. Did you mean it in the sense one might say, “This Scotch drinks smooth?”

The last rhyme is a bit wrenched. Are you pronouncing “lipstick” as a spondee? (I hear it as a trochee.)

I wondered if putting “translucent” and “fluorescent” in adjacent lines was more confusing than illuminating. “Translucent” makes sense, since grapes are semi-transparent, but I think of “fluorescence” as something requiring a black light. I like the idea of comparing them to gems. Could you construct a metaphor here that captures the exact quality of light you imagine? Maybe something like:
Rubbed smooth, with each translucent bunch
as clusters of polished garnets (or rubies, or amber) shine,

I hope some of this is helpful.

Glenn

[Alessio Boni]

Hi Alex,

This poem is good, although I mostly took it as a satirical piece which is what you intended right?

It gives me a sort of remembrance towards Anacreontic odes, but of course with a modern touch ridiculing the entire 'culture' behind those bacchic celebrations of his, which, as suggested by your poem, can now be felt by literally anyone, unlike then. Its a good duality of encapsulating his hedonistic rhetoric with the grapes, to then debase it to a common usance in our age.

L14 - 16 communicate this duality the best in my opinion.

I would add though, that the final two verses, starting from "Spring air breathes thick.." could be removed, as I think it kind of drags the poem by a scene which isn't as strong as the prior one, diluting the potence of the sheer immensity of these resources (wine and grapes being for everyone). If you removed it then the strong reflective image of a richness turned commodity would be even stronger as the 'wine freely flows!' You could also keep the half verse "across your lips." as I think it truly gives the final touch and allows the reader to know we can truly SAVOUR such, and of course it concludes the sentence.

Just my opinion, hope this helps!!

Cheers,

Alessio.