Deux poèmes

please read: The rating is there for a reason.


-removed for revision-

Alright, so first and foremost, I'm going to start off with an opinion. One in which will most definitely be disputed but in this case, honesty might be the easiest road to take.

That being said, I liked Hush more than What the Dead Man Taught.

Now because of my thoughts on the subject, I'm starting off with Hush. Starting off with why I liked Hush so much, and the impassioned way in which it was written. And it was passionate. Evidently passionate from first to last word. Its one of the rare few poems of yours that the point of it comes across right from the start, and one of the ones in which the point is also not only an opinion, but its also one in which is justified and seen by many.

What I mean by this, of course, is that the passion is a mutual passion. A thick, strong, sad passion. One that can be seen as overly pretentious and very bohemian which is another feeling I got from this. It sounds like the voice of every person who ever questioned. Questioned what we have been taught not to question through educations, pills, and all manner of government approved ways. Its sad to look at as it is a very thick reminder of the death of the American Dream, and the death of individuality.

Because of that, it's probably one of my favorites of yours. If not my favorite. It is sheer passion and no amounts of pretty words could possibly amount to something as forward and as heated as this.

Now, as it goes, I quite like the personification of America as a whole. The degradation of it as a person rather than a thing is a shocking contrast and well suited for your purposes.

I'm going to have to agree with Lumi that it is not a poem easily helped or critiqued. Its passion in its own right so seeing it as structure and rhythm will not do much at all for helping this. For that, I am sorry. I will say, though, that there was some good repetition on the word America, and then there was too much. Like you were repeating yourself for effect and then got lost in the amounts of times because of that effect.

As it goes, Lumi and Inkwell took on your other poem. I think I'm going to leave it here which is a little disappointing for me, but I can't seem to find myself being analytical with your work. Its all very strong in its own, sordid, superfluous manner.

~Walker

I’m only going to review What the Dead Man Taught because Hush is another one of your throwbacks into masturbatory, overly-personal narrative chock full of whiplash and deconstructed imagery for the sake of cathartic writing. I don’t think it belongs here, so I’ll leave you to critique something that is so close to your own heart that nothing I could say would change a thing.

But regarding What the Dead Man Taught, it’s my favorite from you. It’s thick, still, but that’s inevitable from you. It’s your approach to poetry, and in this case, it’s beautiful. In some places, at least. I’m not a fan of your Yucca implants—mainly because Yucca won’t flow if you liquefy it—so if you’re aiming for a symbol, try a different route. I think you can pull it off with different means.

Maybe I think this is good or beautiful because it actually made me feel something. And that may just be because I still have flashbacks from my wreck—that one image from the dead man hit me, and I think I’ll keep it—but you’ve got something. But it reminds me of your grandfather, that bit of biographical mourning that you’ve laced here…or at least, I think you’ve laced. Between rosary beads and the flesh in the dust, you’ve got him here, even if subconsciously.

There’s one bit that just doesn’t sit with me. I think it switches views too much.

the names of our children,
we show them resting at our feet.

Or maybe I’m dumb and am missing something.

Hush belongs in your head, between your teeth in your bedroom when no one can hear you whisper into your pillow. It’s not a cry that you can pass on to someone else easily, and unless the reader knows you, they won’t know the sting in your eyes when you wrote this. So why would you write it?

I’m not playing a payback game. I hope this helps.

-Ty

Lumi is probably right, so for now I'm only reviewing the first poem. I may come back to tackle the second though!


Opening couplet and following two lines are great, tone-wise, It creates a sort of setting. I like the image of Yucca, and "leather backseat seams."

“children must lose things”,

Slip that comma in front of the quotation marks.

Love the following metaphor, it's subtle. This stanza is gripping in its imagery. I would advise dropping the superfluous italicizations, though. Choose quotation marks or italicization, not both. Especially since there's instances of italicization without quotation marks. "while the world is sleeping." 4 AM? :p Couldn't help it. But really I thought that was an acute insight. Going to agree with Lumi on the end of this stanza though. Very vague and uncontrolled, at the moment where I feel the need for a tightening.

With red tread-beaten cheeks

Little touch of hyphen would go a long way here. Powerful conclusion, imagery-wise and thematically. Once again you do the italicizing here, IN parentheses... A little too much for my taste. I like that you ended with a sort of suggestive rumor though.

Overall this poem had a certain youthfulness that worked well with one of the themes--coming of age. I'm glad that it didn't feel naive, though. The rhythm was pretty well executed.

I don't like comparing YWS writers to other YWS writers, but these remind me of Gal's writing. Not a good or bad thing, just an observation.