Itai Bronshtein’s peer response of Catherine Ricker’s “A Step Up, a Short Ride, a Lasting Memory”

          “A Step Up, a Short Ride, a Lasting Memory” is quite the captivating piece of work.  Catherine depicts her everyday steps of getting her day started, from shunning sleep in order to wake up, to the many tasks that fill and complicate the day.  Alas, she finds a lasting memory in her meditation.  Meditation is not a ploy for escape, but is rather utilized as the day’s capstone.  The poem reaches its climax and resolution upon her meditation. 
 This poem presents three mental states: awake, asleep, and in trance.  The strength of mind shown in this poem supports the idea of “mind over matter”, yet it is the sensual imagery of the day’s elements that really bring this poem to life.  By the time the third stanza is read, the “paddling in the water” creates a picture of sound in my mind.  Just as this poem is about waking up and seizing the day, reading it is invigorating and awakens the senses.
               The use of short sentences is a crafty way of bringing the word “Quickly” to life in the first stanza, and the use of “piece” as a pun in the fourth stanza is clever.  As for criticism of the poem, I think that the word “me” is either being overused in the first stanza, or it should be used even more in the second stanza.  When I first read it, I expected to see more “me”s in the second stanza after reading the first. Also, I suggest a change in the syntax of the last two lines in the fifth stanza as long as it doesn’t stray from what Catherine is intending. 
         There is a change in form.  The ABAB rhyme scheme is present in the first stanza, while the next four stanzas are written in free verse.  Perhaps the rhyme scheme is used in the first stanza to bring to animate the day’s duality: Should I get up or snooze in?  Although the speaker doesn’t seem to struggle with this issue, these two opposing options are still presented.  The poem jumps more into free verse as the speaker goes through the day’s sporadic activities that build upon each other in some sort of sequence.  Ultimately, simplicity is found once again.
       Being awake is the speaker’s preferred state of being, but meditation and sleep are implied as necessity to the cycle.  All three phases feed off each other.  It isn’t so much what’s happening around the speaker that matters, but, more importantly, what is going on in her head.  Overall, I enjoyed how complete this piece is and the effect it had on me.  I plan to read this for leisure in the near future.