Tanner Moss Poem 8 notes by Sienna Goering

Tanner’s poem “Complaint Poem” is about an terminated relationship. I don’t really understand who our players are in this poem but that is possibly beside the point. There is a tone of anger and frustration (being that this is a complaint poem) however the rhyming couplets lift that anger and frustration to a whimsical level. I’m not sure if a rhyme is exactly right. With the complaint I want you to be a true as possible to me and any time i read a poem full of rhyming couplets it seems light and artificial (even sometimes forced). I think Tanner uses many phrases which one might hear in a verbal altercation: “this break up is a long time in the making” or “don’t point the finger…blame me”. These are good they show how similar everyone’s fight is even while the fighters feel they are being original. When we are in relationships of any sort we tend toward the same refrains and arguments over and over. I think this was a good enough poem but again the lines seem forced and unnatural in many places. If the couplet form was eliminated it would strengthen this poem immensely.