MAYSAN’s D’or is a book-length poem with occasional prose interludes that aims to recount the speaker’s passionate romance with a former and still much-longed-for beloved. As the author summarizes near book’s end: “You were my first true love/ And I will never meet a soul like yours.”
The speaker explains the title’s significance on the second page, writing, “D’or is a French word means [sic] ‘Golden’/ We are golden baby/ Our love is gold…” What follows is an erratic, non-chronological journey through a relationship in which the speaker frequently switches pronouns and verb tenses. Sometimes the speaker addresses the beloved directly, e.g. “I crave your presence/ I crave being wrapped up in your arms”; other times he refers to their relationship using the collective first person, e.g. “We are not together/ But we are empty together”; still other times he writes from a distance using third person, e.g. “She was addicted to this sadness/ After their relationship ended/ She kept on listening to songs that reminds [sic] her of him.”
As seen above, the work fluctuates between present and past tense, and the speaker also periodically makes predictions for the relationship using future tense, such as “I will care for you/ Love you and forgive you/ Until the end of my days.” The result of this inconsistency is that readers often struggle to understand the narrative progression of the speaker’s relationship.
MAYSAN’s writing throughout the collection is broad and vague, lacking sensory details and particular examples. Instead, D’or relies mostly on abstractions (e.g. “You made a mess out of me/ Your love is chaos”) and clichés (“None [sic] else has ever given me butterflies”).
In its current form, the collection seems written more for the author’s own catharsis rather than with a wider readership in mind. Revision with an eye to offering more carefully chosen particulars and fresh, vivid imagery is required before the work can appeal to readers at large.
Also available as an ebook.
