Thread: Abacus (We used to vacation)

Call me one sided or biased,
But I could balance the complex equations of our past.
Find rudimentary explanations for you specifically,
and stupefy all your neoncolouredconvenient friends;
who think detox is the new 'Club Med'
(which has now become equivalent
to retirement).

After all, you were careless.
Didn't like the look of our grade four maths teacher,
Didn't believe her; or the fat lies
that lived in the top drawers of
classroom desks.
Thought gold stars
acted only as external validation,
or a distinguisher.

You overheard one night, your mother
on the phone
saying
Long division was useless in the rat race.
I think your parents got divorced later that week.

We spent a short time getting older that year,
Learnt about the bully's aunty
draining her wrists
early one morning in the familys' formal living room.
I wasn't allowed to go to the funeral.

My mum was scared
of the woman I became,
but she could not stop me.
Her white gown was heavy.
My progression sped up, too soon.

Growing pains
formed us quickly.

I would have said exponentially,
but
you can't remember what that means.

Hi C Curtis, and welcome to the forums!

There is a lot to like about this one, I think. The metaphor of math carries well here and I enjoyed the whole read. Lots of really good lines in there. My only nit was the random capitalizations that didn't make sense and kind of disrupted my flow of thoughts. Maybe just some periods were left out? When I see a capital where it doesn't seem to be needed, it makes me stop and wonder if there is a reason it's there, and that throws me out of the poem. Other than that, I think this is very good work!

I really liked the voice that comes through in this - yes, a lot going on, but that doesn't change the fact it's a strong piece.


stephen

( You'll find my comments in bold )

Originally Posted by C Curtis

Call me one sided
or biased,
But I could balance I am not fond of the separation of biased. I would not break up the sentence
the complex equations of our past- Don't understand the dash hun
Find rudimentary explanations for you specifically,
and stupefy
all your neoncolouredconvenient friends- Don't get this dash either,( a comma would work there ) or the sentence structure.
Who think detox
is the new 'Club Med'
(which has now become
equivalent to retirement).

After all, you were careless.
Didn't like the look of
our grade four maths teacher, Might I suggest "fourth grade math teacher" ? It reads smoother to me.
didn't believe her. Not sure if this line is necessary. I would suggest " You didn't believe her" as the beginning of the next sentence
Or the fat lies
that lived in the top drawers of
Classroom desks.
Thought gold stars
acted only as
external validation,
or a distinguisher.

You overheard one night, your mother
on the phone
saying
Long division
was useless in the
Rat race-I think your parents
got divorced later that week. I am really not liking the dashes Hun. They seem so unnecessary, and sentence re-structure would work here also.

We spent a short time
getting older that year, This is a complete sentence to me, eliminating the need for the comma.
Learnt about
the bullys Aunty
Draining her wrists early one morning
in the familys' formal living room. I'm completely confused if this is two different sentences here.
I wasn't allowed
to go to the funeral.

My mum was scared
of the woman I became
But she could not stop me, This section seems like one whole sentence to me.
her white gown was heavy This deserves to be its own sentence.
My progression sped up, too soon. The comma is not needed here

Growing pains
grew us quickly. I would rethink grew, and the breaking of the sentence. They don't seem quite right.

I would have said Exponentially,
but
You can't remember what that means.

You have a wonderfully strong piece, and your metaphor carries well through out. The only problems I saw were more matters of punctuation, and sentence structure. Much enjoyed reading this

A giant welcome to you and your wonderful piece, C Curtis. Content wise this is fabulous, but technically it needs a few tiny tweaks as has been mentioned. Cindy's correct about your erratic use of caps being distracting. Skim through and remove any caps mid-thought and leave only those that begin a sentence. Maggie's suggestions are all sound, those dashes should all be replaced with more suitable punctuation. I see you're from Australia, so I know grade four maths teacher is how you say it there, but it is a mouthful, I suggest you consider Maggie's suggestion regarding same. There is a problem with:

Learnt about
the bullys Aunty (should be bullies)
Draining her wrists...

I had to read it a few times to get what you meant because it's awkward, still not sure if I even have it right. Perhaps a period after bullies and moving Aunty down to the next line (remove the cap in Draining), but I'm not sure if that's what you're going for. Lastly, one-sided needs a dash. I hope this helps. This is an excellent piece and I await your next offering with bated breath.


Best,
Lisa

This is very sharp and clever. The last line is absolutely killer and sums up everything (no pun was originally intenteded, but there you have it) without being like a punch line.

I'm completely dyscalculic, and anything to do with math intimidates me. So for me, it's kind of frightening metaphor for a kind of special insight or knowledge that allows someone to deconstruct another person.

I took it as "bully's Auntie" -- possessive.

And I guess I have to agree with the caps and punctuation thing. I'm at the point where I've just tossed the caps altogether and only use the odd comma or period -- and let the line breaks do most of the heavy lifting.

Regardless, I really enjoyed this, and I think it's very strong. I very much look forward to reading more of your work and hope you'll read and comment on some of ours.

Welcome and cheers.

Hi all, thanks for the feedback! This is a piece I wrote quite a while back and my copy/paste post haste really didn't do it justice. My mistake.
Having said that and re-reading it the random capital letters and bizarre spacing really does take the reader out of the mood I'm aiming for. I'll re-work that.
The line breaks are also a little poorly placed, this was originally a performance piece and I wrote in a very small notebook, so those lines represent my first hand written draft of the poem. It's a little low-tech, and I agree that it's distracting.

Looking forward to reading and exploring this forum.
C

I really love this stanza:

Originally Posted by C Curtis

We spent a short time
getting older that year,
Learnt about
the bullys Aunty
Draining her wrists early one morning
in the familys' formal living room.
I wasn't allowed
to go to the funeral.

I'm glad I'll have a place to find your work now. And maybe this will get you writing some new stuff

This is a bit messy, a little too tangled and jagged in places, and somewhat weighted down with unnecessary elements. Somewhere in there is a readable piece of work. I can't decide if its good or not because until the unneeded layers are stripped away, we can't tell where you are going to take the piece.

I'm going to guess that due to the starkness of the piece, the distance from the emotional subjects and the hopping around to convey a mood that you're going for minimalism in your work. That said, you need to realise that minimalism isn't just about saying as little possible in a distracted way. It's very much about saying everything that you need to say. All too often people confuse poetry or prose with little verbosity with something that is clipped too hard and subsequently doesn't tell the story. The first is minimalist, the second is not. Writing good poems or prose with a minimalist style is a skill that needs to be learned, and it's not an easy skill to master. That's why there are so few published writers that are truly minimalist in their approach.

Might I suggest that you go back over this and remove everything that doesn't add to the story. Cut it back to very barest of bones, getting across what you want to get across in as few words as possible. Then, working from that point, build up the layers, ensuring that every layer fleshes out the bones, without becoming bloated. Beware of redundancy and over elaboration, forget gimmickry and themes. Build from the content, only adding those words that matter. Forget trying to clever or verbose; instead concentrate on the power of the simplicity of the elements.

Thanks Pete,

I agree that this piece does need work, so I posted it.

I wasn't really aiming to write in a minimalist style. I wasn't trying to follow any rules or conventions of poetry. I was more trying to capture the feeling of not quite understanding the whole adult truth of the world as a child, specifically referencing my own childhood. I'm pretty clipped and distant so I'm not surprised if that mood comes across.

There are some gimmicks etc in the piece; they are not deliberate, they just happened. I guess that would make them a little more cliche than gimmicky.
As I've posted earlier, this piece was originally a performance (where cleverness and verbosity are heralded as champion); one can relax more when no-one is re-reading their words!

Having said all that, thanks for your suggestions and I'll look at the piece again.

C

You mix metaphor with gritty reality beautifully. I think it makes both elements stronger.