Hello, Rick,
Interesting to see a Sapphic here!
I’m with you through the first stanza and find Polaroid sunshine to be clever. I’m just vaguely familiar enough w Polaroids to have an idea of the hue of light this must reference.
I’m less sure about the second stanza. The first line feels really abstract. I guess the speaker is indicating that even as today is different than the past, the future will be different yet. At this point I’m wondering if the words are working for the meter or the other way around. The third line again has me a bit dubious. I can come up with referents, but is it compelling enough? In general I’m questioning the flow of this stanza.
I imagine squeezing the pomegranate refers to some sexual harassment. Do I know what it means for the Queequong to be both put-upon and doling infinite cowboy? Not for sure. I’m imagining some anti-women’s-lib sort of complainer possibly? But that wouldn’t make the Republicans wary in the next stanza. So I’m probably not nailing the meaning of that line. I did think earlier that the “show me a man” might be some sort of complaint about the lack of real grit in men today.
Whatever the case, the language is fresh and vibrant again now, which can be hard to achieve in Latin meters, it seems.
Stanza three works nicely.
I wouldn’t know what the captain’s tower is, maybe some sort of reference to Moby Dick. I also don’t know what it means to trick the tray but imagine it might have to do with cheating a raffle drawing. The final line does seem to fit the general tone of the poem.
Congratulations for modernizing the meter. I think there are often spots in good poems that will elude many readers in their incarnated particularities but which invite us to inhabit the world the speaker has conjured nonetheless. And in that case I’m more concerned that I believe the *poet* has a clear vision of what he or she is conveying than that I personally get everything. And if I’m convinced that the poet’s vision and reasoning is clear, I’m more likely to press in enough over time to get some of what I missed.. And so that’s where I’d recommend revising toward as more feedback rolls in.
Good to read you here,
Deborah
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