This poem is truly captivating. The poem appears to be about a relationship between a girl and a guy. It seems the girl has become depressed but the guy always “[knows] what to do” (line 34) to make her come back to reality/content again. At the end, she compares herself to stars, which I really enjoyed.
McKayla skillfully uses many different poetic devices throughout this poem. First, she uses very subtle repetition. For example, on line 6 the speaker states, “another college thing or another.” The repetition really helps to catch the readers’ eye. Next, McKayla uses very clever metaphors throughout her poem. My personal favorite is on lines 14 and 15 when she says, “allowing each other to see the apple seed, / peach pit, cherry stone of our thoughts.” Furthermore, McKayla subtly uses alliteration in this poem. An example of this is on line 5 when she writes, “historic house housing.” This use of alliteration really aids with the rhythm of the poem. Finally, there is use of anacoluthon in the third stanza. It seems like the speaker cannot complete a whole thought. The anacoluthon appears on lines 37-39 when she says, “stars that burn out fast / spinning until it rips them apart and / I have a cringing-spider-fear fear”.
It is important to talk about the title of this poem. The title, OBAFGKM, is a mnemonic. The mnemonic is supposed to reflect the surface temperature of stars in decreasing order. The letters stand for the class. O stands for the color blue, B stands for blue-white, A stands for white, F stands for white, G stands for yellow, K stands for orange, and M stands for red. McKayla uses two OBAFGKM mnemonics in her poem. The first was “One balding astronomer found guilty killed many” (which she put in all caps) and the second was, “Oh be a fine girl kiss me,” (put in italics) which is the better known mnemonic. Before McKayla used the mnemonics, she compared herself to stars, saying things like, “I’m more the kind of blue / of hot blue” so the mnemonics fit into the poem well and made sense.
There are only a couple things I would change in order to make this poem better. First, I found the third stanza to be a little confusing. I understood everything in the poem up until the line “I have a cringing-spider-fear fear” (line 39). I appreciate that you used anacoluthon, but I read that line over and over and could not derive a hidden meaning from it; it really threw me off. I would suggest maybe making the third stanza a little clearer. Also, lines 24-28 confused me. I did not understand the “beautiful black car.” What was its purpose? It just seemed a little random to me.
Overall, I really loved this poem! McKayla did a really good job of completing option 3. I look forward to reading more from McKayla in the future!
Absolutely terrific responses (1-3), Brooke! Thanks for your hard work.