[Ashley Bowen]

Cocaine

At first, I thought you’d left for good, a line
I’d never cross or chop again. Then eighths
my dealer assured would summon the divine
erased my white-knuckled rehab, months
between my curse and cure. I thought my heart
would pound itself to wreckage on the coast
of uncut Colombia. I inhaled its heat,
saw beach fires bronze the skylines of the east.

I woke atop the floe of North Dakota,
my compass needle nosing all directions.
Sober waters menaced closer, thinning
the ice beneath me, settling their vendetta.
I stared into the water’s invitations
and sea-tossed overdoses stared up grinning.

[Glenn Wright]

Hi, Ashley—

Your sonnet captures the terror and uncertainty of recovery. The title lets the cat out of the bag from the beginning, but since the poem (or at least the octet) is an apostrophe to cocaine, maybe it’s necessary to clarify who “you” is right away. I wondered if you could continue your conversation with cocaine by changing “its” to “your” in S1L7. I like the zeugma in S1L1-2, “crossing a line” figuratively and “chopping a line” literally.

The imagery in the sestet is difficult. I assume that the N is seeking a geographical cure or perhaps has checked into rehab. North Dakota is a “floe” because it is cold, like ice, and isolated. Heat seems to be associated with addiction in the octet, so I assumed that cold was associated with sobriety, but the (presumably) warmer “sober waters” are melting the “ice beneath me,” revealing the “sea tossed overdoses,” whom I assumed were relapsed or dead addicts. To further complicate this, cocaine is typically referred to as “snow.” The upshot is that I was not able to interpret the sestet with any confidence. Maybe I’m overthinking it.

Your poems are personal and brave, Ashley. I enjoy being challenged by them.

Glenn

[Paula Fernandez]

Ashley--
The raw emotive content of this is so strong and the visual imagery so gripping I found it difficult to read dispassionately for critique. It's very, very good.

But this is a critique forum, so... Re-reading, I was struggling in a few places that I just wanted to point out and see if others agree or I just misread. "Eighths" is, I take it, a slang term that can function as a noun? It felt awkward to my ear, but maybe that's okay if it's understandable. I also fumbled at "months" between my curse and cure. If "curse" = addiction and "cure" = sobriety then I'm not sure what's between those two. Maybe rehab? I guess I'm not sure where the narrator is in her journey between curse and cure.

Like Glenn, I loved the zeugma in the first two lines. The rest of the octet was gorgeous for me.

Also like Glenn, I found the imagery in the sestet a bit confusing, though I interpreted it to say that it's sobriety that now seems menacing and, further, that a period of sobriety may actually increase the likelihood (or perhaps just the fear) of fatal overdose. Is that right?

[Susan McLean]

Ashley, it held my attention and had some nice images and turns of phrase. I can't get L4 to work as pentameter: eRASED my WHITE-KNUCKled REhab, MONTHS. You have just nine syllables, and for the meter to work, you need one more unstressed syllable, either before or after "white" (or you could just rewrite the line). I agree with Paula that it is also unclear what you mean by "months between my curse and cure." Perhaps you don't want the comma before "months" if you mean months of rehab? Wouldn't the sober waters in L11 be starting, not settling, their vendetta? A comma at the end of L13 would be helpful. It's an inventive sonnet, so it is worth working on to make it even better.

Susan

[Ashley Bowen]

Thanks for the feedback, all.

Susan: Thanks for reading and responding. L4 is pentameter, it's just not iambic pentameter, something that I intended. I wanted to rhythmically show the difficulty of white-knuckling (i.e., personal, unsupervised, home withdrawal) by having the line sound different from those around it by subbing in those trochees for the iambs. Maybe it doesn't work. I see the confusion about the "months/between my curse and cure." That's the thing though, isn't it? Is sobriety the curse or the cure? It's confusion. But your point about that is well-made and well-taken.

Hi, Paula: Yes, an "eighth" is common cocaine slang for 1/8 of an ounce, also known as an "eight ball." Yes, the sestet is problematic but you got what I was trying to coney: sobriety to an addict can be quite scary. How does an addict navigate life without the crutch of substance ("Can I live without this?"). Sobriety can be confusing ("Do I want to live without this drug that means so much to me?"). I now see that the sestet is muddied, and I'm glad you were able to help me see that.

Hi, Glenn: Thank you for reading and responding. I'm glad you found something to like here. Your feedback/crit is very useful to me, and I'll put it to good use in revision. Thank you again!

[Jan Iwaszkiewicz]

Hi Ashley,

The impact is strong, the volta enough and the catalectic works well.

Enjoyed

Jan

[Jim Moonan]

.
I like this, but haven't much time at the moment to dwell on it and respond.

I especially like the enjambment of the opening line (no pun intended?!)

The movement from the octet to the sestet is a beautiful leap across boundaries, geographies.

I wonder if the title is too... too... you know.... telly?

I'm still wondering who "you" is: "At first, I thought you’d left for good, a line"

I also wonder if this is an overarching/extended metaphor... Or is it just an account of one person's road to recovery/sobriety.

My favorite image is:

I woke atop the floe of North Dakota,
my compass needle nosing all directions.

I'll keep reading and come back.

.

[Hilary Biehl]

I like this, too. I am having some trouble with the second sentence, though.

"Then eighths my dealer assured (should there be an object here? eg. "me"?) would summon the divine (this sounds overly sentimental to me, but maybe that's intentional) erased my white-knuckled rehab (are we supposed to read "knuckled" as a single unstressed syllable?), months between my curse and cure."

That's my only complaint, though. I love the images of the rest of it, the sudden shift from heat to cold.

[Matt Q]

Hi Ashley,

I find a lot to like here. The voice. The play on "line". The extended shipwreck metaphor. The "menace" of the "sober waters".

I did wonder if maybe there was some way for the shipwreck metaphor to start earlier in the poem. It currently starts almost half-way into the poem.

Like others, I didn't really understand "months between my curse and cure". I wondered if you were wanting say that months had passed between the cure/rehab and relapse, though that doesn't seem to be what's being said. It's clear that the N has gotten clean, and then is persuaded to indulge again. Or maybe was the idea that the white-knuckled ride is the curse, and the cocaine is the cure? Even then, I'm wasn't sure how the phrase attaches grammatically to what precedes.

But I think maybe now I have it. I think it's saying the white-knuckled rehab was the months between the curse and cure. The months of drying out between being addiction and getting properly clean. But if it's that, then I wonder it needs to be "the months". Since the metre is loose, the line could probably stand the addition.

Like Susan, I find the metre of L4 ambiguous. I tend to hear "white-knuckled" as three-syllable foot. Maybe there's a replacement for "white-knuckled" that fits the shipwreck/sea metaphor? On that note, I guess you also have the option of working something like "drowned months" in at the end of that line.

Like Hilary, I also wonder at "assured" without an object. You could go with "swore", which would also smooth out the metre, if that's a consideration.

All the best,

Matt

[Rob Wright]

Ashley, There's much that I admired in this, but I agree with Susan about line four. Having established a good metrical flow, it feels a bit jagged, and as this is where the sense of what is going on – "chop" "lines" "eights" (as in eight-ball) I'd wok on it. I'd also wonder that in the sestet you might work on lines 11 and 14 to make them end in "thin" and "grin." This is just personal preference, but those feel stronger as ends. Something like, "Those sober waters menaced me, made thin," and then in 14 "and sea-tossed O.D.s stared at me and grinned." That said, I liked this a lot.