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Jon Sands's avatar

Oooof. I love "We’ve struggled for peace,

for permanence, and somehow in that struggle,

we’ve ventured far from each other." And I also love how the poet doesn't then feel compelled to explain how the struggles for permanence and peace can contribute to this isolation from one's support networks. Because the poem is really saying (to me), "Can't you feel what I mean? Can't I trust you to feel it?"

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vigspoetry's avatar

Love this analysis :)

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T. De Los Reyes's avatar

Oof. I am so drawn to these:

"but just once I would like to uncrumple"

"that bitterness girds the organs"

Something about the way language moves here! Am always in awe when I come across great turns of phrases, just the right arrangement of words that make me feel all the things.

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Diana Cherry's avatar

I love the last stanza and the idea being presented in the poem of a diaspora or a distance among friends born of a migration based on different rules for survival. That we live in a time where we live long and (if we’re privileged) more comfortable lives than our ancestors but that the cost is a distance that conjures different grief and death is interesting (and true) for me.

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Nicole's avatar

What even is a "bad" poem, and who gets to decide?!? I don't even always like the poems I love 😅

I'm most attracted to poems that untangle my often jumbled up feelings. 'The Traditional' by Ada Limón is one of my favorites. But one of my poetry-loving friends with considerably good "taste" finds it overwrought. Oy vey. Maybe poetry is the most specific of art forms...

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