Thursday, May 24, 2012

Yummy Flashback

Out of nowhere
working on my laptop
years later, I taste 
the flour butter
sugar oatmeal dough
of Mum's cookies

A full pinch 
out of the bowl
and I hear her scold

Sorella

6 comments:

  1. flour butter sugar oatmeal, Mum's cookies, a full pinch: a very warm, very yummy image, and I love the last line. Makes it more real, more precious.

    One suggestion, 'working on my laptop years later' is distracting. I'd leave it out.

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  2. Mm, oatmeal cookie dough. You have a great central image here.

    I wonder whether you need "Yummy" in the title. (Or "Flashback" really, because it's pretty straightforward what's going on in the poem.) You've got space for a completely new idea there--something that frames the poem instead of summarizes it.

    I respectfully disagree with Nitika about "working on my laptop", which is a concrete detail that gives me a bit of information about the narrator's age and social standing. I'd find a way to illustrate "out of nowhere" and "years later" with more specific actions.

    Thanks much for the poem; I hope I've hit the right balance of helpful and fluff.

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  3. Nitika,
    That IS helpful... I was in two minds about the laptop!
    Are we getting better at the fluff/crit thing, taking it to the next level? :-)
    Glad to have your comments, now off to read yours again -- I am pleased to see it is a family poem too!

    Sorella

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  4. Rachael,
    We cross-posted, and of course you found the balance for the lily-livered poet! :-)

    Again, I wondered about the title, thought about Untitled even... so glad to have your eagle-eye on this. Thank you, Bugs Bunny (as I think of you now...)

    Sorella

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  5. I know that feeling, out of nowhere, a sense memory -- at the laptop, doing anything, I think... I taste the cookie dough, just wonder what her 'scold' sounds like...

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  6. Hmm, you're right, Rachael, without that, the poem's floating in nowhere. But there does seem something jarring about the way it is, now. And I know it isn't helpful, but I can't quite figure out what and why.

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