Featured Guest Poet Ann Mead Ash
Porcelain
In the Ladies room
Everything is real
Cool steel stalls
Porcelain shapes
Smooth and hard
Across the surface
of a golden chablis
we see our faces
reflected starkly
clearly
Clearer than ever before
Our lives are nakedly apparent
in the chrome-lined mirror
We're alone with our faults
Alone with all our sins
In the Ladies Room
Even we are real
December, 2001
Ann Mead Ash's Questions:
1. Is this something other women can relate to?
2. Are the feelings I'm describing universal?
3. Have I clearly conveyed that somehow time stops for a bit during that
lonely trip to the ladies room in the middle of a dinner party or romantic
evening?
4. Have I said anything new?
I'd appreciate any comments or constructive criticism.
Thank you,
Ann
I like this poem. As a "mature" woman, I really identify with the stark contrast between the two worlds--the ice cold reality and the warm, flattering light--and how we all learn to live in both, knowing full well that reality lies somewhere in between.
The choice of situation: the trip to the ladies room on a glamorous evening is deliciously pertinent to the content of the poem.
Ellie LaCasse
USA - Thu Dec 20 16:01:46 2001
Porcelain
In the Ladies room
Everything is real
**The lack of punctuation coupled with your decision to cap every line immediately alerts an experienced reader that whoever wrote this might not have a clue. There's no need to nit whether Ladies room whould be possessive or not, but after reading your second line, it's pretty much game over for this poem. Let's see if I'm right.
Cool steel stalls
**Sonics: points for you.
Porcelain shapes
Smooth and hard
**Pretty unimaginative diction: points deleted.
Across the surface
of a golden chablis
we see our faces
**I don't mind the jump in pov, but I don't really see how two people could see *our* faces while looking across the miniscule expanse of liquid in a wineglass. I'd have to say that this is a physical impossibility unless they were taking a winery tour and were gazing into a vat.
reflected starkly
clearly
Clearer than ever before
**All the experienced readers who didn't bail out at *Everything is real* will be turning the page at this point. This is dull, unimaginative, borderline cliched diction. You really should try to show your reader something fresh, vibrant and new instead of trotting out the same tired, bland, off the rack phrases.
Our lives are nakedly apparent
**This is just too much *tell*, and not enough *show*. When you were focusing on the physical reality of the fixtures in the ladie's room, you had a chance. Even when you attempted to focus on the relection in the wineglass, you had a chance. When your narrator Tells us about a huge abstraction such as *our lives*, you have no chance.
in the chrome-lined mirror
We're alone with our faults
**More cliches, more abstractions. Learn what cliches and abstractions are. Learn to identify cliches and abstractions. Learn to edit cliches and abstractions from your written work.
Alone with all our sins
In the Ladies Room
Even we are real
**Stay away from cliches and abstractions. Focus on physical imagery. Consider punctuation. Show don't tell. In this piece you've committed all the beginner's sins, with the possible exceptions of forced rhyme and inversion. Consider going back to the physical imagery of the washroom and conterpointing it with some other thread of imagery that isn't as hackneyed as reflections in a wineglass. Good luck with your writing. Ann Mead Ash's Questions:
1. Is this something other women can relate to?
**You shouldn't be concerned with whether other women can *relate* to it, you should be concerned with attempting to convey experience to a receptive reader.
2. Are the feelings I'm describing universal?
**They are so universal, they're cliched to the extreme.
3. Have I clearly conveyed that somehow time stops for a bit during that lonely trip to the ladies room in the middle of a dinner party or romantic evening?
**No.
4. Have I said anything new?
**Absolutely not.
laurie
laurie bichette
USA - Sun Jan 6 08:18:47 2002
Question 1 and 2 exclude each other; "women" and "universal"; "women is restrictive while "universal" is not. Question 3 - =clearly conveyed the meaning of an idea=. Is this the purpose of a poet to "clearly" expose smth? Rimbaud was called "multiple" in that his poems were interpreted in different ways. Question 4: Focus on "how" to say something not on a new idea. A piece of advice - try to use the power of suggestion in your poems, don't describe your feelings. If you really want to use symbols in your poem try to convey them other meanings, not the classical interpretation.
Remus Dan
Romania - Fri Jan 11 08:16:11 2002
I love this poem, and I totally disagree with Laurie. Ms. Bichetti, in my opinion, is much too clinical in her reading of the poem. A poem must be felt, not dissected, and when I read this poem, even as a man, it immediately transported me to the cool, quiet, porcelain and steel environment of a ladies room--and the reflections that it might engender. Laurie sounds like an academic, which is fine--but her comments "show" why academics are found in schools, and not in the "feeling" world of the arts. Eric Wattree
Eric Wattree
USA - Wed Jan 16 02:42:07 2002
I think i tend to agree more with Laurie's view of this poem, in so much as i don't think there is anything particularly startling about the opinion expressed or the way that the poet chooses to express it. I think that the poem seems to want to make a statement...that the wash room is a space outside of time and everyday life, but instead falls into cliche "...even we are real" etc. That line just seems unnecessary and a sort of cop out ending, like when you write a story and then say" and then i woke up". The choice not to utilise punctuation can be very effective, althouth in this poem i think it actually achieves the opposite of what the ethos of the poem seems to be. The subject matter and the words used to express the emotion of this space is slow, thoughful, the person in the ladies room is taking time out, looking around, pondering. Yet the lack of punctuation pushes us on with no respite no place outside of the rush of life and demands. Perhaps this would have been quite a good technique if the poet was wanting to make a statement about how we all want time, but their our external existence insists we move on. I just don't think that this was the reasoning behind this stylistic choice. Having said that there is promise at the start of the poem but the use of "everything is real" so soon in the poem really does revert to cliche too soon. It seems that the poet wanted to offer some "univeral" insight in this poem yet instead produces something that never really gets below the surface. Superficial and a tad contrived, I think that the poet has to decide what she wants to say and then use linguistic and stylistic means to back up the words on the page. Opting for words which say one thing and punctuation (or lack of) that contradicts the words simply creates a nasty clash.
Sally Mercer
UK - Wed Jan 16 12:58:38 2002