Esther Morgan Poetry: Example of Feedback

The living room was bespangled
with cheap gold - so real
to my young eyes.
The tree lights gleamed
off the chrome surround
of the battered gas fire.
Smooth metallic shapes dangled
and teased from the ceiling.
The spiral-patterened carpet
was flecked with moulted tinsel,
winding its colours through
with threads of Christmas.

I was standing by the soldier clock
whose soldiers didn't
march with time
- their legs pinned to a circle
that stopped rotating long ago.
The curtains were tied with tinsel
that showed them up
as yellow and thin.
They let in the light though
- as much as we could take.

Chains of cheap coloured paper
unravelled where the glue gave way.
The cards hung from cotton tightropes
built with tarnished drawing pins
- a multi-coloured smile
whose teeth wobbled in the breeze.
Balloons were given breath
and tethered to the ceiling.
The bustle-sound of Christmas
rumbled under all we did.
It's still, to me, that Christmas sound
whatever it turned out to be.

Mum stood on the stool, reaching up,
pinning a balloon to the furthest corner.
I could see such strain in her arms,
her whole body, as she reached up
and away. I was scared she would fall.
With her back turned, her arms so high,
she didn't see me.
She doesn't see me,
even when she turns to face
the space where I am.

My Feedback
Writing about Christmas is fraught with potential clich and sentimentality, but you've avoided these pitfalls to produce a strong description with a powerful final stanza. There are some excellently observed details in the poem: I loved the image of the cards as a 'multi-coloured smile' for instance and the detail of the broken soldier clock is very telling as it conveys the idea of being stuck in time, an important theme in the poem.

My main comment is that you spend too long on the description of the Christmas decorations. The lines about the carpet in the first stanza are less vivid than some of the other details in the poem. I'd suggest amalgamating the material in stanzas 1 and 3 into a first stanza, making a poem of three stanzas altogether. The lines 'They let in the light though/ - as much as we could take' deepen and darken the tone of the poem and lead more effectively into the final stanza about the relationship between the mother and narrator.

I also think it would be more effective to save the mention of the 'I' narrator until the start of the second stanza i.e. cutting the words 'so real/to my young eyes' from the first stanza. This would give the introduction of a personal narrator greater impact. I'd also think about saving the shift to the present tense to the end of the poem i.e. cutting the final two lines of stanza three which disrupt the flow of memory.

On a minor point of diction, 'built' in the third stanza sounds rather odd - can you think of another word?

This has the potential to be a moving poem: you've captured the atmosphere and emotion and all it needs now is some editing and re-shaping.

Version 2

Christmas 1976

The living room was bespangled
with cheap gold. The tree lights gleamed
off the chrome surround of the battered gas fire.
Chains of cheap coloured paper
unravelled where the glue gave way.
The cards hung from cotton tightropes
held with tarnished drawing pins
- a multi-coloured smile whose teeth
wobbled in the breeze. Balloons
were given breath and tethered to the ceiling.

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