The Slam: Slammables
In the Museum of Your Last Day (after Patrick Phillips)
by Pinkie, USA
There is a pink quartz lamp, dimly lit,
on a blue nightstand. And two alarm clocks but no books.
A tubby tabby tomcat the color of marmalade resting on a feather pillow.
A six-foot bookshelf topped with an open pink conch shell.
Porcelain dolls with blond ringlets and frilly white dresses.
An optimist's mug, half full of hot chocolate, dabbed with whipped cream.
A violin case open on the bed.
A music score open to a Viotti concerto.
A bust of Beethoven, scowling and frizzy haired. The aquarium:
an ethereal landscape of green fronds, white sand, and pale blue guppies.
Posters hang on the wall: Violin with Music Sheets,
Violin with Ballet Slippers, Violin with Rose.
Beethoven's Violin Concerto, shrink-wrapped in plastic, is on the desk,
along with a leather stickbag and Saul Goodman's Modern Method for Timpani.
AUTHOR'S NOTE:
The poem this is based on can be found at http://pages.slc.edu/~eraymond/ccorner/exchange/phillips.html. It is the second of Three Elegies for O. Thank you for reading!
critiqued by Pinkie, USA
Aug 14, 2010
Aug 14, 2010
I love the imagery in this. I really like how the whole poem is a list of images that show a lot about the character. Also, great job varying the line lengths -- some are long and descriptive and others are short and simple. This reads well and I enjoyed reading it.
critiqued by musicalpoet, Alabama
Aug 14, 2010
Aug 14, 2010
I just have to say I love how you are obsessed with timpani and how you include it in your writing. It makes your writing recognizable, like it's shouting, "This is Pinkie's writing." It's like how Shakespeare likes to include gloves in his writing because his father made gloves as his job. Or how I like using masks in my metaphors.
Anyway, the title really makes the writing interesting and sets the mood of the writing.
I like how your poem is a list. This portrays how you look at a person's room after they have died very well. (At least that's how I read it.) One line that intrigues me is: "And two alarm clocks but no books." All the other things you list are concrete things that are in the room but you specifically say "no books." It was just something that jumped out at me...
Great job!
critiqued by L. Edwards, Minnesota
Aug 14, 2010
Aug 14, 2010
AUTHOR'S NOTE:
Thanks for the comment! Odd that most of my poems on The Slam should involve the timpani, since I'm actually a violinist... Well, I guess I am an honorary timpanist. I love the timpani but am not very good at playing them.
If you get tired of reading my poems about timpani, I invite you to check out my clipper ship poem. Get past the hokey melodramatic title... and perhaps help me fix it?
Thank you!
critiqued by pinkie, MCS
Aug 17, 2010
Aug 17, 2010
Slammings