PatriciaDianne

She suckled at
Her own breast
Because she was
So very hungry
While her son lay
Squirming
F a t h e r - f e d
He lived
But did Not
Thrive

d.b.potts

WOW!
I read your other piece first, and honestly didn't care much for it. But I absolutely love this one. You may want to work on the structure a bit, and punctuate it.

It really is great, though. Subtle, yet so up-close and frank. It is a timeless theme throughout history and literature: the female influence. You are right to say that "he lived, but did not thrive", and it would be just as right to say that he thrived, but did not truly live.

Wonderful stuff, Patricia. (or is it Dianne? lol)

Truly,
d.b.

PatriciaDianne

Thank you so very much. Comments like that keep me forgeing ahead. Any suggestions about improvements would be greatly appreciated, especially punctuation. When I have looked at a work as long as I have looked at this one I get so invested in how it works that I have a hard time sometimes seeing it freshly to improve it. Thanks again so much.

Mirror

Once again, quite impressed with your work.
This forum lacked poems of this sort - eternally truthful, philosophical - until now.

Amber Leaf

its a great poem but for my own amusement i think you should change father fed to father ted.

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PatriciaDianne

Thank you very much for your words of encouragement. Wordsworth said that poetry is "great emotion remembered in tranquility. " To me only that which evokes great emotion is worthy of being recounted in poetry, but only after perspective gives us wisdom.

Underlip

Wow, these are very powerful words. I have read it at least 3 times now and the only thing that I don't like about it is the punctuation in the word squirming. Perhaps if you could enlighten me on why you chose to break the word up I could better understand. Otherwise this is really good and I wouldn't change any of it. =>

howowiginal

This kind of reminds me of Running with Scissors by Augusten Burroughs. Maternity is such a wonderful subject.

Back to your poem. It's pithy and layered and I love it.

Some things seem like overkill though, i.e the strange formatting and capitalization. I think it's powerful enough without them.

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PatriciaDianne

I am so thrilled. I try to first read any suggestions, use what I can, then look at the bio of the "suggester." It makes me so happy that, based on your bio, you are so young and that you live so far away from me. It makes me so happy that I can have the insight to adjust my work, middle aged woman that I am, to your suggestions and realize how much more satisfying the work is. I guess it makes me happy on several levels. First, i love it that you liked my work at all. Secondly that I have, through this wonderful site, the luxury of the insights of a different generation and a different demographic so that I can strive for the universality that is the hallmark of good poetry. Thank you again.

PatriciaDianne

Thank you for tge suggestion. I think you are right.

Azmakna

explain it to me...

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ms. vodka

i don't see a need for capitalization of every line and, while strong in message, i think it has the potential to become a stronger piece if you incorporate sensory imagery into it.

jen

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PatriciaDianne

Of course this is an unanswerable question. By that I mean it meant one thing, to me, when it was written several years aga and another thing to me now. It actually has changed its meaning to me recently because as I see the comments our reviewers make, it show me that the words mean more than I thought they did. But, even though a poem always mean what it means to the person who is reading it, I know what you mean by your question. You mean, what was I thinking when I first wrote it. I'll try to remember, but its hard because I can't quite get into the frame of mind I was in when I wrote it. Be I think it means that "she", the woman in the poem, has always been so insecure and needy that see is looking for sustanance anywhere she can find it, even to the extreme case of using her own breast milk to give her the energy to live. The unintended consequence is that she is depriving her son of the nourishment he needs to thrive. The son is in distress because he is not getting what he needs from the mother because she is totally absorbed in staying alive. The father, realizing the son was not getting what he needed from the mother tries, unsuccessfully, to make up for what the mother could not give. The son survived as a result of the efforts of the father, but he never expierenced his full potential because of the insufficient care he recieved as a child. You know, at least for me, when I have these great emotions, I feel I must write them down. Usually at first the writing is very bad. As time passes and I get more removed from what caused me to write it, the passion is less, but only then can I bear to sit back and make the changes necessary for it to mean something to others. I guess its like anything we learn and grow from. Once the pass from the insecurity of adolescense, we are not so afraid to ask for help and not so afraid to evaluate the help so that we can know what help to take and what help to disguard realizing that nothing is ever perfect and that nothing ever will be so we keep striving for "good enough."