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This Poem was Submitted By: Jane A Day On Date: 2004-04-27 18:45:20 . . . Click Here To Mail this Poem to a Friend!

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The world is wet.

The rain heavy enough to fill my bellybutton and run down my hips, If I were to lay out among the grass, the night, the startling white flowers and neighbors checking their windows for the seep, for the glimmer Of drops against the panes. We all make wishes.

This Poem was Critiqued By: Marcia McCaslin On Date: 2004-05-07 00:50:09
Critiquer Rating During Critique: 9.94545
Hi Jane--I first read this poem a week or so ago and it's been churning around in my mind ever since. The reason for it is, I believe, your poetic slant on human nature itself. Truth to tell, it's the startling white flowers that keep the scene enchanted from one day to the next, because white flowers DO startle on moonlit nights when nothing else even shows except in shadow. So that was a marvelous picture for me to hold whenever I see your name. "The rain heavy" is a mood-setting beginning, and like the "once upon a time" we settle in for a good read. I see this person naked and face-up among the grass--water, water everywhere--nothing is much wetter than wet grass and wet hair! They just don't "whoosh" dry out. It's the next S. that pricks at my imagination. Yes, I see the neighbors checking their windows "for the seep, for the glimmer of drops"---but neighbors being neighbors and people being people, there's the curiosity of it on their parts. Just checking the windows--uh-huh. But seeing you-- and perhaps the absurdity of it all, the "letting life soak you" part of it, the courage and downright audacity of it--could...just could...make the peeker out the window "wish" he/she had had the guts to do it. Perhaps it's something you've always wished to do--and perhaps it's something everyone wishes they could do. YOu haven't mentioned any color but white, but my mind sees alot of green and silver-heavy rain, some grey clouds, more silver raindrops--and perhaps a mirror image of the sky right there in your overspilling navel. Write on! Marcia

This Poem was Critiqued By: Thomas Edward Wright On Date: 2004-05-01 07:25:13
Critiquer Rating During Critique: 9.16418
Panes or Pains??? We all make witches. I want to be water in your bellybutton. tom

This Poem was Critiqued By: Rachel F. Spinoza On Date: 2004-04-29 00:42:44
Critiquer Rating During Critique: 9.40000
yes we all make wishes especially those of us in 104 degree heat without A/C The rain heavy enough to fill my bellybutton and run down my hips, I love this - the spilling over of necter in the sweetest of places - the dream state and the hint [heavy/bellybutton ] of a light hearted wet Buddha "If I were to lie" doesn't seem right but "lay out seems" wrong [except of course in reference to literary zines]....so i dunno a mong the grass, the night, the startling white flowers and neighbors checking their windows for the seep, for the glimmer Of drops against the panes. [lavish feast for the senses]. We all make wishes. yes, some of us for peace some for rain, some for tenure, some for malted milk balls kiss kiss gf

This Poem was Critiqued By: Elaine Marie Phalen On Date: 2004-04-28 13:33:38
Critiquer Rating During Critique: 9.75000
Hi Jane, Love the imagery! What's especially interesting is that it's an immersion in the moment, done in sentence fragments, except for the very last line which is complete. Such is the nature of dreams - inconclusive, segmented. You shape the poem to your intent, rather than worrying about strictly syntactical concerns. Thus it becomes a single, focused impression and the title - another full sentence - is a part of that. The rain heavy enough to fill my bellybutton and run down my hips, This is an intensely tactile description of rain that incorporates the whole body in its sensations. It then segues into the speaker's imaginary evening of lying out in the wet, glimmering night. "Neighbors checking their windows for the seep" reveals that not everyone finds joy in rain. The speaker sees a magical quality in it, like a spiritual cleansing. "We all make wishes." Indeed. What a pleasure to read this. Brenda

This Poem was Critiqued By: Joanne M Uppendahl On Date: 2004-04-28 13:19:37
Critiquer Rating During Critique: 9.97059
Jane: The attraction of your poetry for me is in its subtlety, in the magnetism of the empty spaces around the words written. Like graphic art, which is as much about the space around whatever is painted or drawn, this poem's conditional, ephemeral effects seem to point me to a hollowness, an emptiness. This seems to want to fill with all of the unconscious yearning I carry, unaware, until your poem reminds me, resonates, echoes. I imagine that each reader will come away from the work with a different experience, which in my mind is the mark of great writing. What seems to strike me strongest is the conditional tense of "If I were to lay out among the grass" The tense is past, but we are talking about the present, now. The speaker refers, in the final line to "wishes" unfulfilled. The melancholy of the type of wish seems to "seep" as in L6 of S2, into this reader's consciousness. This is immensely appealing, tender, and suggests a kind of longing for the quiet of death, or at least for the surcease of struggle. The element of rain suggests emotions. Rain cleanses the air; perhaps this rain accompanies the speaker in a time of intense emotional purification. Rain is often associated with tears; is the speaker grieving? The intimacy of the rain filling up the bellybutton, running down the hips suggests a sensual experience for the speaker of being alone in the dark, outside, lying on the ground and allowing the rain to 'fill' what is hollow - the bellybutton, wash over the hips - for a woman, the place of birth, the container for life and sexuality. The speaker is "among the grass" - not among humans or animals, but grass, "the night, the starting white flowers"- are these lilies, symbolizing death, as in dreams? (White lilies are used at funerals to signify life after death.) Are these flowers signifying "life before death"? The neighbors who check their windows probably don't see the speaker; it is doubtful that they see the flowers. They check "for the seep" and "for the glimmer" of raindrops "against the panes." I can't help but associate "panes" with 'pains' - and the "glimmer of drops" are like the glimmer of tears, caused by pain. They check for these things in their own windows, while the speaker lies "among the grass" and the night. The people at their windows are parallel to the speaker, do not sense her suffering, but are nearby. The aching for connection and the dread of it, the desire for solitary quiet reach through these lines to me. What woundedness has caused the speaker to renounce her wishes in favor of this kind of slow drowning? "We all make wishes." And so the question arises in this reader's mind: does the speaker feel sorrow for the wishes she has made, unfulfilled, or for the position among the grass and the white flowers, in the rain, while the neighbors check for "seep"? Loneliness here feels more compelling than the busy neighbors' attention to everyday tasks, if you will. Lastly, the title's "The world is wet." seems a declaration that all the world is weeping, at least from the perspective of the speaker. My reaction to the title is that the world is weeping (or ought to be) for the sadness surrounding this planet. Does the speaker hope for a unitive experience, in which all on the planet embrace in a universal awareness of the suffering of many of its peoples, of the destruction of its habitat for "startling white flowers" animals and people? What I 'heard' in a metaphoric sense may well be my own projection: "The world is wet, why aren't we weeping?" Are we each tending to our own 'windows' (perspectives) of our individual lives and security, and not tending to the needs and sorrows of all of those who do weep? (alone on the grass) Thank you for this poem, for the chance to dwell in it and seek its meaning, appreciate its fragile beauty. It makes me contemplate the ways in which I am untransformed, the ways in which I check my windowsills for "seep" - and examine the dreams which I may have abandoned all too soon. All my best, Joanne

This Poem was Critiqued By: Lennard J. McIntosh On Date: 2004-04-27 23:47:54
Critiquer Rating During Critique: 10.00000
Hello Jane: How interesting! The first stanza presents a somewhat surreal picture. While the second gives the explanation of how this picture came to be. This style of writing is not to be seen among beginner poets, milady. It belies experience in the craft. J: "neighbors checking their windows for the seep, for the glimmer Of drops against the panes." L: I cannot help receive the impression that neighbors monitoring their windows more than usual on "wet" nights. I feel that in this the narrator is toying with the reader in a playful, tongue in cheek manner. Then, brings us back to the reality of dreamland is an excelling conclusion, which in my humble opinion, places this piece in the rank of "outstanding." A tip of the hat, Jane, and my congratulations. A fellow poet, Lennard McIntosh

This Poem was Critiqued By: Jordan Brendez Bandojo On Date: 2004-04-27 19:30:44
Critiquer Rating During Critique: 9.57143
Hi Jane, This poem gives me a wishful moment. Feeling under the rain is such a wonderful experience. Rain is a blessing above. It gives survival to all the living creatures on earth. This is short but very very succinct and this glimmers in its beauty! Thanks for sharing your wonderful artistry. Jordan

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