Family Plot

[Sherry Thrasher]

I am writing about the day you died
but the words hardly come.
I think of you buried
six feet below Alabama clay
in a polished mahogany box,
how they placed you
on a pink satin pillow
wearing the strand of pearls
our Mother bought.
Above you marble cherubs
float upon the lawn--
no tears, just dormant sod,
weather-worn angels.

[purplejacket]

I find myself making this recommendation every now and then: to try writing this inside out. Take that thing in the middle and bring it to the top, give it a good shake and see what happens. The first two lines don't do much for your reader, sorry. You're obviously writing poems, so maybe a line break adjustment would help, except that you subsequently don't really say anything about the day this person died, focusing instead on circumstances of burial.

As I was saying - inside out - I think if you start with inside the casket, and bring us successively out/up with the images, ending with the cherubs, it could work as moving between worlds. The images you have here are really powerful, clear things that I can easily connect with as a reader: the pink pillow, the pearls, Alabama clay. I wasn't sure exactly what's happening between cherubs & angels. Marble cherubs floating on the lawn sounds like a headstone, but the dormant sod sounds like the grass of the lawn is dead or looking dead. I'm not sure why'd you'd want to make that shift in this place in this way - first being floating cherubs on a lawn, then weather-worn angels on dormant sod. Maybe some separation between these two versions of this image would help.

[GD Martin]

Sherry, your poem tugged that inward clump of my soul that suddenly becomes sad when I see, or sense that someone else is; the last two lines slaps my face, as if to make me say, "Thanks; I needed that". In the land I come from, it is called effective writing. I apologize for not being critical, but my talent is too narrow. _GD

[Sherry Thrasher]

Thanks to you both. A chapbook project for my independent study with Dorianne Laux. Still working on it.

Sherry

[mfwilkie]

Sher, I think these are the best lines in the poem and a place to start. What you were telling me D said not to do, is here in this poem.

If you only write two lines at a time about the cemetary, try it, while working on something else. Think of the cento and dig for tighter lines that match tone.

I would suggest trying to leave out the word 'you'.

six feet below Alabama clay
(in a polished mahogany box)

Maggie

[Sherry Thrasher]

What did she say? Which what did she say?

[mfwilkie]

;D