Paris Syndrome

I shouldn’t be telling you this, but in our final year

of yet another disastrous reign, an outbreak spread 

over, in, and across every sentimental European 

nation state. The capital cities had decisions to make

about how we sabotage ourselves in public spaces. 

They sent word around that no one should be seen 

allowing their naked skin onto another person. We 

convinced ourselves the news was fake. The leaders

effectively barred lovers kissing along Parisian streets.

The train platforms lay abandoned by well-wishers. 

Gallery attendees folded hands behind their backs.

In gardens, only fountain satyrs held fusty nymphs

in an unshakable frieze. But it was the bridges that 

felt their lost weight the most. No one came to stake 

their claim against the right railing or hug the waist

of their fiancé. No one waiting for the sunset to sit

on the spires and church dome and ancient facades

as they leaned in to risk that first intimate nearness. 

Passion locks attached to trusses with their identity

as vague as literature, their private symbols and heart

shaped initials, sat somber in gray for the occasion. 

Au revoir! The dear old myths we used to ridicule, how 

a great scourge shakes all our foundations down, and 

one fated kiss might bring life back into existence. 

Reviews

[W.k.kortas]

Well perhaps there is something of the essay cited (rather churlishly, one would add) in the prior review, but essays do not postulate on bridges bemoaning their lost weight, nor do they offer us the wonderful puckishness of frieze/freeze of unattended fountains. It's a beguiling mixture of the news and muse, and despite the prior suggestion, it's evidence that no further study on the part of the writer is required.

[JayG]

So...when did breaking an essay into blocks of text unrelated to punctuation, change an essay into poetry.

When did prosody,vivid and evocative language, and the traditions of poetry become unnecessary? Have you redefined what poetry is to fit your own desires?

Your job is to provide your reader with an emotional experience—to make them care and feel. That's what poetry is. But this reads like a news article. A narrator whose voice is dispassionate, because the reader has no way of knowing how you would perform this, is talking to the reader about their personal view of covid in another country, as if none of that's happening in the USA—and, the reader doesn't already know.

But since it's actually an essay, looking at it as one:

• I shouldn’t be telling you this,

Why not. Is it secret? Against the law? saying this, the reader expects something that don't see on the evening news.

• an outbreak spread over, in, and across every sentimental European nationstate.

What in the pluperfect hells is a sentimental European nationstate? A country is romantic? And had you looked it up, you would have found that NationState is a game, not a country. What you mean is, either Nation State or Nation-State. But ion general, France sees itself as a country, not a Nation-State. Always do your research.

But that aside, you just told the reader that it ONLY happened to those unidentified countries that are Mawkish (the first definition in the dictionary).

• The capital cities had decisions to make about how we sabotage ourselves in public spaces.

So it's your contention that the goal of the covid laws was "deliberate destruction?" That's what you just said. You believe they weren't trying to keep people alive by slowing the spread?

• We convinced ourselves the news was fake.

Speak for yourself. Anyone with a functional brain, who has done the most basic of research have noticed that fully 75% of those hospitalized today are unvaccinated, while ALL of those dying of it are.

But in the end. the field of poetry has been under refinement for centuries. Visit the Shmoop site, then seledt Student and Poetry. They have page after page of really great poetry, analyzed in detail, to show how and why they work so well.