Deja Vu

UVM Mentor

Hey Owen, my name is Billy and I am a sophomore at UVM. You have a good poem here, I like the repetition of the first and last stanzas. You follow a strict metric and rhyming pattern here that I think juxtaposes well with the very abstract message of your poem. Another great juxtaposition of form and theme in your poem is the idea of the "return" of your dream in the first stanza and then the return of the same stanza as the last one, I think that greatly develops your thematic message and goes so well with the title you have chosen.

I think there are a few lines in the middle that you could rework; in the second stanza I love the pairing of "I know it is strange to reminisce / something I should not know about", but I think the first two lines don't do as much to develop the ideas in the poem. You say you "know not how to explain this", but in a sense your poem is explaining "this," with this being the way your brain is working. For me, your first and last stanzas are such interesting and specific statements on your subconscious, whereas your middle two keep it too general and do not add as much further insight as they could. What do you see in your dream? Your third stanza brings up the ideas I'd love to here further explained; how do you perceive what is real and fake? This may be too much to take on in such a short piece and you already have said a good deal, but because of the limitations of your chosen form, I would just make sure that each line is giving as much to the development of your ideas as it can. A cool read though, Owen, keep on writing.