Joy Sullivan, "Mercy".

118 points · 14 comments · view on lemmy.world

14 Comments

cheeseburger@lemmy.ca · 14 pts · 2y (3 replies)

Really great and I want to share with my wife, but I sent her, "The Day Of Our Divorce Hearing" post from the other day without thinking and she got all upset. This poem sneaks in, "... and I was about to leave you", so I think I'll just write this comment instead.

BonesOfTheMoon@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 2y (2 replies)

Oh no! I'm so sorry. I'll find some love poems for you to read her.

cheeseburger@lemmy.ca · 6 pts · 2y (1 reply)

Aw thanks, that's so nice; I'll keep my eyes open. You always post great content, by the way, and thank you for getting me interested in actual poetry via your posts on this sub.

BonesOfTheMoon@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 2y

Thank you for appreciating them! I always liked poetry but until Lemmy I had never taken quite such a deep dive. There's some absolutely fantastic modern poets.

Senshi@lemmy.world · 11 pts · 2y (3 replies)

At the risk of outing my ignorance: what makes this a poem? I have a hard time reading it with "rhythm" because it lacks rhyme, and the line breaks seem almost arbitrarily meaningless as well.

I feel it is much closer to a "plain" parable, but I'm really not versed in literary science.

isles@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 2y (1 reply)

I'm uncouth too, because this just seems like extra line breaks to make it "poetic". I don't mind the parable, though.

Senshi@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 2y

Oh, I actually like the story as well, it's well written and provokes thought and reflection, which makes it very laudable.

I am just genuinely curious if I missed something in terms of classification.

codfishjoe@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 2y

My understanding is that to be poetry it tries to evoke the emotion captured in an experience. Frequently this is accompanied by rhythm and measure but certainly isn't a requirement.

DrBob@lemmy.ca · 8 pts · 2y (1 reply)

That is simply beautiful.

BonesOfTheMoon@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 2y

I'm just thrilled by it.

Electric_Druid@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 2y (1 reply)

Wow. Short, eloquent, impactful. Excellent.

BonesOfTheMoon@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 2y

I like poems of all lengths but when you can pull off a short one that hits like this, you're very talented.

pixeltree@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 6 pts · 2y (1 reply)

Damn.

BonesOfTheMoon@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 2y

Right?