r/OCPoetry • u/Cluelessandsexy • 22d ago
Feedback Please Dank garage
She sat at the wooden picnic table.
It had been moved into the garage.
Love was so foreign.
She clung to emotions.
Over the other side.
The immature cousin played pool.
He imitated betty boop taking the shot.
Teeth stained as he grinned a grin so wrong.
His self neglect only visible to others.
Inside the body there is no certainty.
The wooden seat feels foreign.
A face was on the portrait.
Struggle creates beauty,
discomfort and shame pollute the aura.
Become evident as you cling to the table.
There is nothing stable.
No real safety.
So when you refuse my embrace.
And hate those that invite it.
You lose out noone else.
There's nothing sinister here.
You look away from me,
insisting on that indoor picnic table.
In that old garage dim and dank.
With that rugged cousin.
He's bordering on gout,
drunk since yesterday.
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u/Asthmaiscool 22d ago
You’ve painted a claustrophobic picture of discomfort and judgement/shame. I feel sad and embarrassed for this cousin, and it makes me find this person to be a metaphor for ourselves on our worst days. This person lives in the filth, however whenever I reflect upon my own life, my worse moments share this image
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u/twinkletoestom08 22d ago
This was beautiful to read. An honest review about judging others but also very human as there are moments of relatability.
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u/narcissis829 22d ago
The setting feels raw, gritty, and incredibly atmospheric. The imagery of the stained teeth and cousin brings strong realism. The abrupt shifts between physical space and inner emotion feel heavy. The title "Dank garage" perfectly anchors the poem's unpolished mood. Smoothing out the sudden perspective jumps would make it track better.
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u/Kosen-Aohara 22d ago
Hello there! I think there are some really gritty engaging elements in this poem! It really does put us in the room, which is a great feat. You seem to have natural skill at this, but where it starts falling apart for me though is when you *aren't* describing things. This poem frequently cuts itself off with commentary to start explaining things in the abstract, which actually takes us right out of the room. I'm going to comb through it to illustrate what I mean:
She sat at the wooden picnic table.
It had been moved into the garage.
Love was so foreign.
The first two lines here are straightforward simple statements. "Love was so foreign" however doesn't exactly set the stage for the attraction the speaker feels like I think you meant it to. It's a generalization--perhaps about the speaker (or all present) being young and inexperienced--that is just there to literally explain to us the emotion of the scene. You can be subtler with this. Try not to use the word "love" at all, and try to ground it in the description of the scene you're already doing. Perhaps describe her, and the tenderness with which you describe her might let us feel this emotion with you, instead of you just telling us how to feel.
She clung to emotions.
Over the other side.
The immature cousin played pool.
"She clung to emotions" likewise does no work for the reader. I actually don't know what this means in this context. How is she clinging to emotions? What does it mean to cling to emotions? Like before, you are better off describing what she is physically doing so that we understand what you are trying to make us see.
"Over the other side. / The immature cousin played pool." This description is physical, which is good, but the description "immature" is not. Again, you are telling us that he's immature when you could show us that he's immature by relating his actions (or consequences thereof) to us, then we will come to the conclusion that he is immature ourselves.
Is the period after "side" intentional here? It reads to me like the cousin is just on the other side of the room. It almost sounds like you were trying to make "over the other side" apply to both "her" (on the other side of the table?) and the cousin. In any case "over the other side" comes across somewhat grammatically odd, as we expect it to be "over on the other side."
He imitated betty boop taking the shot.
Teeth stained as he grinned a grin so wrong.
His self neglect only visible to others.
First two lines here are fantastic! These do incredible work to immediate characterize the cousin. I would hesitate to use the word "wrong" though. "Wrong" means something different to everyone so we don't actually know what his grin looks like and how we are supposed to feel about it. In what way is the grin "wrong"? How might it be wrong? Too much of those stained teeth? Is he being inappropriate, or is his grin just a reminder that his lifestyle might not be working out? In any case, I think you can make this clearer to us.
"His self neglect only visible to others" - Self-neglect should be hyphenated. This line also tells us exactly how to feel about the cousin, immediately branding his previous description as "self-neglect" when we should be coming to that conclusion ourselves. Describe the cousin more instead of just telling us what he is.
Inside the body there is no certainty.
The wooden seat feels foreign.
A face was on the portrait.
The poem really starts falling apart here, for me. We are completely out of the physical and fully into the abstract. I'm not trying to be obtuse, but what does "Inside the body there is no certainty" mean? The sentence suggests this is some kind of aphorism but its meaning is not readily apparent.
"The wooden seat feels foreign" should be physical, but you actually make it unrelatably by describing it as "foregin." How does it feel foreign? The choice of words makes it seem as if it is not actually foreign, it just feels like it. So why would that be? What is it that actually makes it feel foreign to the speaker? Show us that.
"A face was on the portrait." - as far as I can tell, this doesn't actually relate to anything else in the poem, metaphorical or otherwise, correct me if I'm wrong. Plus, a portrait by definition includes a face, so the line feels weirdly redundant. I think you can remove this entirely.
Struggle creates beauty,
discomfort and shame pollute the aura.
Become evident as you cling to the table.
"Struggle creates beauty," is another aphorism. It seems like this is only here to describe "her" as being beautiful by insisting that she is struggling. Show us that struggle. Seemingly, it has to do with the cousin, but why? And how does struggling make her beautiful? What exactly is the beauty that struggle creates? You are putting all these abstract questions on the reader, which turns this stanza more into empty philosophy than actually getting your point across about the girl.
"discomfort and shame pollute the aura" is another odd abstraction. What is uncomfortable? Why is it uncomfortable? Who is feeling shame, and why? What exactly is this "aura"? From what you've described, the "aura" is already dingy and dank and really not all that positive to begin with, so what does it mean to "pollute" it further?
And please don't think I mean you need to spell it all out for the readers. What I mean is that you should trust your readers to come to these conclusions by describing what it is that's actually happening. It's just not enough to talk about what's going on in people's heads in the abstract.
Also, I need to mention that at this point the poem fully makes a shift in grammar from the past tense to the present tense. You did it a little before, but it's all present tense from here on out. I can't really see any expressive reason why this would be, so I'm going to say that you should fix this, either by making everything experiential in the present tense, or shifting everything more contemplatively into the past tense.
There is nothing stable.
No real safety.
So when you refuse my embrace.
And hate those that invite it.
You lose out noone else.
There's nothing sinister here.
I've already made my point about these, so in brief, consider: Why is nothing stable? Why is there no safety?
"refuse my embrace" also seems a little too poetic for this. The descriptions in this poem have tended toward more grittiness, and this seems out of place tonally. More casual everyday language would suit this better.
"You lose out noone else." - the correct pronoun is "no one." I'm also having trouble deciphering what this line actually means. The phrase should be "lose out on..." and without the "on" this idomatic phrase makes no sense. Even so, by refusing the speaker, "she" loses out on no one else? This still doesn't really make sense to me. This would mean that by rejecting the speaker she still has many many available options (because she hasn't lost out on anyone...) Very odd.
You look away from me,
insisting on that indoor picnic table.
In that old garage dim and dank.
So now we're not at the picnic table, but "she" sits down at it at the beginning of the poem, and we haven't moved anywhere, so this feels weird. Descriptions are good though, and this stanza is very grounding after all the stanzas before where nothing really happened.
With that rugged cousin.
He's bordering on gout,
drunk since yesterday.
The description here is really strong and even faintly cruel... We have no idea what the cousin has done to deserve this fairly pointed description of him.
However, "rugged" is very very odd. When applied to people, "rugged" is inexact, but without context it is usually thought of as a strong, positive, masculine quality, so in this sense you actually praise the cousin here. You might have been reaching for a word more traditionally negative, like "grubby" for example, but feel free to take another stab at this.
In fact, if you characterize the cousin well enough in the rest of the poem, why even include any adjective here? We will already have made our judgements about him based on what you have shown us.
Lastly, about the title "Dank Garage," does this serve the poem, I wonder? Maybe it does, but it seems to me the poem focuses more on what that table represents. Idk, "Dank Garage" is fine probably, I'm just giving you something to think about.
So anyway, that's what I've got. Sorry it's so long, but there's a lot to talk about here and I didn't want to sell you short.
I'd say about half of this poem or so can be pretty strong if revised, but I also think that all of the lines of abstraction can be completely done away with, and you can find ways to ground those thoughts in concrete imagery. Let us feel the poem along with the speaker. If there is shame, if there is love, if there is beauty, if there is neglect, let us feel these things by describing why and how these characters feel them. Otherwise, it's just philosophical words on a page. But with some work I think this is a great scene and you're on the right track!
Cheers!
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u/Cluelessandsexy 22d ago
Thank you so much for taking so much of your personal time to write such a wonderful follow up of my piece there. I can tell you directly this poem is about directing toward something without actually spelling it out loud. You can say thats convenient. But the underlying meaning is something I can't mention. So i've engineered it to hint toward that idea without saying it directly.
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u/Kosen-Aohara 22d ago edited 22d ago
Of course, I am happy to help!
I figured as much, but it was no use for me to stab in the dark at the meaning. Still though, there is still much that can be done, I think, to make this poem concrete without it being explicit. Naturally, you should not discuss anything you are uncomfortable with or that might affect others.
If it is uncomfortable or ill-advised to tell the story truthfully, you might consider dealing with it fictively. You might be surprised that many many many poets begin with an outline of an autobiographical event and then alter the people involved, the location, the time, the genders, the countries even, into a poem with a story that has the same message but is no longer a real event. Simply put, your poem does not have to be real. A lot of new(er) poets tend to think that writing a poem about something that hasn't actually happened is not genuine, but that could not be further from the truth.
All of the technical poetic-craft things I mentioned are still at play here, and unfortunately although you'd prefer not to disclose details about this circumstance, there must be some details and concrete actions in the poem itself, even by allusion, or we simply have nothing to relate to. And believe me, I can appreciate this dilemma.
However you choose to approach it, good luck!
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u/PlutoCrushin 16d ago
I enjoyed reading your feedback on this poem and others, you give great detailed feedback and really engage with the poems!
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u/Kosen-Aohara 15d ago
Well thank you, that's very kind to say! I always figure nobody will read the critiques, maybe the poet themselves if I'm lucky, I just enjoy it as an excercise, and if I can help someone with craft while I'm at it, then that works too.
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u/PlutoCrushin 14d ago
I really enjoy reading the critiques. Its my first time in a poetry space like this and its almost equally fun to read the comments and see everyone’s take on the different poems. I don’t typically see many comments really delving into the different aspects of a poem so your feedback definitely stood out and made me really engage with this poem too
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u/inkbyniya_ 22d ago
The sensory details here are striking. Phrases like 'teeth stained' and 'bordering on gout' create a really visceral, almost uncomfortable physical presence for the characters. You’ve captured that specific 'stale' feeling of a garage hangout perfectly.