Spiral Staircase

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https://www.poetry.com/poem/175572/spiral-staircase

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  emergentauthor

  This is one of the most unique poems I've ever read. I love the use of metaphor and figurative language throughout the poem with the hurtful words being represented as "stabbing knives" and "puncturing" someone else's confidence. The "broken flashlight" metaphor was also very clever. This poem was well crafted, and I can see the care taken in every step of its design just like each stanza in the poem feels like a literal step down the spiral staircase of the mountain that the speaker of the poem was trying to carefully dismount. I love the way the poem starts-how top is in the first line and bottom is in the bottom line of the first stanza, very clever. This poem was also very positive. I like the idea of a poem being like a journey from one spot to another for the reader; it should take the reader places. And this poem is a metaphorical representation of that idea in a way, with the focus being on the journey of this person's life, which had ups and downs, and was clearly not perfect, but the speaker of the poem was able to overcome the struggle in his or her life and reach the destination. I love the fact that there is no punctuation and the choppy line breaks and shortness of each line make the reader feel vertigo and tense just like the speaker of the poem. Love how the whole poem's spiral staircase only represents one, single mountain in the person's journey, and then you realize when you get to the bottom w more »

  LikeReply5 months ago