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TJMF Publishing - Open Mike Cafe Editor's Desk Staff Editor Patty Zion |
Spider Woman By shanna
Its the way its always been,
a boring way.
There's never been another way.
If secretly he longs for it to be like the movies,
glamour and glitz, red and racey, I'm sorry.
It's just me doing dishes and 100 other chores.
Lying across the sofa watching the news, recycling.
I suppose I could be washing dishes in an apron and heels
and nothing else, that would make it less boring.
Still, the kids are here and their friends and my mom
pops in often to retrieve her borrowed pots and pans
that never get returned.
I am writing, reading the paper, sleeping.
I suppose I could swing from spiders' webbing in a tight latex
suit, save the helpless on my down time,
fly to Barbados for pina coladas, and dance with the stars
on the red carpet, get implants, steal priceless diamonds
suspended in air, upside down,
win a pulitzer prize and trasplant hearts
on my lunch hour instead of paying the light bill.
I think he'd like that.
Spider Woman looks at marriage from the viewpoint of a very busy wife. The narrator contemplates her husband’s desire for variety and the possible ways she could perk up the passion.
Strengths:
To achieve the light tone that makes this tongue-in-cheek poem work so well, shanna uses several poetic devices, including: gentle alliteration, overstatement, and conversational style with deliberate run-on sentences here and there.
The charm of shanna's poem lies in the "common woman" feeling it exudes. Here is a young lady with much to do, but yet with time to think of higher possibilities. She essentially talks back to her mate in an internal dialogue. Shanna keeps the tone light by using the word and as well as repeated commas. The reader knows exactly what is going on.
The things she thinks about doing are so vivid and overstated as to make the reader laugh. This is great comedy!
Suggestions for improvement:
The opening lines tell what the remainder of the poem says. In my opinion, these lines could be omitted with no loss of clarity or style:
Its the way its always been,
a boring way.
There's never been another way.
Once these lines are omitted, the poem will open with If secretly he longs for it to be like the movies, which throws an interesting idea into the mix immediately. Bam! We are immersed into the scene and the conflict.
The images that follow have great wit, but I suggest trimming a phrase here and there. This line, for instance, can be omitted:
Lying across the sofa watching the news, recycling.
It creates a gap in the flow of ideas, since shanna is talking about washing the dishes, then pauses to say she is lying across the sofa, and then goes back to the dishwashing image in the next line.
This line appears at the start of the final stanza, and seems out of place.
I am writing, reading the paper, sleeping.
I suggest either moving it to the previous stanza or deleting it.
The poem includes quite a few gerunds (doing, watching, recycling, washing, writing, reading, sleeping, paying). Remember that a gerund is essentially a verbal noun, which does not move the poem forward in the way that a pure verb would. To make it more powerful, I suggest changing some of the gerunds into active verbs. Small changes can make big differences. For instance, a quick rewrite of this line:
I suppose I could be washing dishes in an apron and heels
might produce something like this:
I suppose I could wash dishes in an apron and heels.
Similar edits throughout the poem will produce a tighter work and move the poem with more drive.
Most powerful phrases:
If secretly he longs for it to be like the movies,
glamour and glitz, red and racey, I'm sorry. This sentence tells a decade of marital woes in just a few words. The alliteration (g and r sounds) in the second line feels like such fun, and the word racy (note the correct spelling) shows exactly which part of the relationship the narrator refers to.
win a pulitzer prize and trasplant hearts
on my lunch hour instead of paying the light bill. In fact, the entire string of things she could do carries the reader along on a lilt of humor. The run-on sentence feels just right for her state of mind and the subject matter. (Shanna, please note the typo on transplant, and be sure to capitalize Pulitzer Prize). This final stanza moves the poem along to the witty ending:
I think he'd like that.
Spider Woman, with its list of possible ways to improve a love life, has excellent potential to become a publishable poem. After a healthy dose of editing and perfecting, it will become a comical piece of light verse, deserving a place of honor in shanna's portfolio.
Thank you, shanna
Patty Zion, Staff Editor