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John Sannaee's avatar

I love this, but I did wonder if the stanza "I know you think poetry lives / in books with gold spines / but you are wrong" maybe overlabours the point, and is less powerful/beautiful than the rest of the poem - though perhaps that's the point.

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augmented man's avatar

John, thanks for giving the poem a close read and for speaking up!

The gold spine bit is meant as a little jolt, my way of saying poetry doesn’t stay locked in fancy books, but if it bumps you out of the flow, thats worth me rethinking

Thanks again for the honest glimpse of your reading experience; it’s a gift

Really appreciate the nudge

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John Sannaee's avatar

Yeah, no I understood, I just found the rest of the poem very powerful and that bit not so much (or maybe a little obvious), but obviously it's just my subjective opinion/reaction (and it was meant constructively, as I'm glad you understood)!

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William Routhier's avatar

great poem

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Peter Blinky's avatar

breathtaking

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Mpho Zeta Ntuli's avatar

This turned me inside out and shook all my pockets empty. I need to sit with this for approximately forever

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augmented man's avatar

Yes, sit with it. Let it turn you inside out. That's what poems do, they show us we've been wearing ourselves backwards this whole time. Your pockets were never empty. They were full of unwritten verses, waiting for you to notice them

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Georgiacifer's avatar

why did no one ever tell me that living IS the rough draft

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augmented man's avatar

Nobody told you because we were all too busy looking for the final draft, thinking it existed somewhere outside ourselves.

But you're right, every day we wake up, we're revising

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Poetry and Miracles's avatar

Lovely 💜

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augmented man's avatar

Thank you, Sometimes the smallest words carry the most weight

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