RONAN succeeds as a tone poem of grief because it never lies. It admits that loss doesn’t make you wise. It makes you a hoarder of small things: a shoelace, a voicemail, the way he said “okay.” The work’s greatest strength is also its greatest risk: it refuses to move on. And maybe that’s not a flaw. Maybe that’s the point.
Final thought: In twenty years, will we remember RONAN as a masterpiece of elegy or a relic of the “sad boy” aesthetic? The answer depends on how much you believe art should comfort versus disturb. I suspect the truth is both. RONAN succeeds as a tone poem of grief because it never lies
If you come expecting three-act structure or clear resolution, turn back. RONAN is an emotional tone poem, and it knows it. Where RONAN excels is in sensory density. The opening frames (or verses) throw you into a summer afternoon that tastes of chlorine, cheap candy, and the particular dread of a phone call you know is coming. The language is not sparse; it is lush to the point of drowning : “He had a laugh like a screen door slamming / And a scar on his knee from the summer of ’09.” Every detail is a loaded gun. The color blue recurs obsessively—jeans, a bruise, the pool, the ambulance lights. You realize quickly that the creator isn't describing a person; they are constructing a shrine. And shrines are not meant to be comfortable. They demand you kneel. And maybe that’s not a flaw