Havisham Dancer

Spoiler

Thanks go to Lumi for all the wonderful help!
--inspired by this: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ianton/5478526318/

She was the cracked ceramic tucked in the corners of
the antique shops by the sea, where everything was
leeched and steeped in salt--
she was crouched down into the scent of crocuses,
limbs folded crisp like a paper crane, waiting for the
dawn dew to tickle her lips and her hips and sparrow-wing shoulders.

I took her for a dove the first time we met,
for a chinadoll who couldn't live outside her dance like all the rest,
who made up for lost words with found footsteps on the stage--
but no. Her voice was sweet, but her tongue was sharp, and her
words were close to callous. Skin pulled over bones in a
cacophany of muscle and stretching tendons, but she seemed stronger than
the rest, like rather than starving herself, her bare bones were
attributed more to determination and devouring knowledge more often than food.

When I stayed late, I would see her in the theatre.
With slim, crossed ankles she would sit in the audience and
watch the stage from the back, watch her ghost dancing from afar. Soon,
she would slip to the streets, a scarab
weaving beneath the harlot scene with closed eyes. I always
thought that street-lamps suited her better than stage lights.

When dawn came, she leapt from the nighttime stars to the faint daymoon,
dancing on dust to a place she felt like she belonged--
with pale hands cupping the clouds,
light fell from her palms into gray craters and chasms, and she
lovingly smiled at the Man on the Moon, who
was a scandal and a half.

I think that we all fell in love with her-- theatre curtains did that to people,
like the rough blush jutting out from her cheeks was a
love potion smeared across our faces.

Her skin was like a wedding dress, pure cream white--
and her hair was silver, almost disheveled like
poor old spinster Havisham. But she had both shoes on,
long and pink and square at the bottom: she had the swan to dance.

And she counts under her breath:


один. (one)

два. (two)

три. (three)

--Tchaikovsky echoes her footsteps, conducting with
sweeps of his long, skeletal arms.
Calloused fingers brush back her fly-away feathers,
tenderly tucking them behind her ear. Bones brush
silk as he sends her into a lift, a brief flight when the glue and
feathers on her back remain still, and his fingers grasp her ribs
unflinchingly, though the strain is painful; he can hear
the flutter of wings and pulses beneath her skin.

She's never danced with a corpse before, but
the rot is stifled in lake-water perfume, the smell of bird and prey and
ballet--

Great job Perse! Home run on all accounts i would say

Wow. Just wow. Not a very reviewerly thing to say, perhaps, but that pretty much sums up this poem. Your language and use of imagery and description are amazing. The only flaw, I would say, is the fact that occasionally the poem can be slightly hard to follow, what with all the extensive verses and periods in the middle of lines. Of course, I'm not even going to pretend I understood exactly what was being described in certain parts, but I'm not going to gripe about that; if the abstractism were removed, I think the poem would lose a measure of its present grandeur.

light fell from her palms into gray craters and chasms

You need to finish this idea, it's an incomplete image because we don't know what it's falling into, I can assume it's the sleeves of her shirt but that's all I can assume. Which is kinda limited.

With slim, crossed ankles she would sit in the audience and
watch the stage from the back, watch her ghost dancing from afar.

You don't need from watch to back in the second line. You can shorten it to sit in the audience, watching her ghost from afar. It says the same thing, just it doesn't specify where you're watching from, so it could make it a bit more relatable, or something.

There's something in the first stanza that's there but so well hidden that I can't even find it. But I can notice it, it's very annoying.
But other than those two things, this is good.

Good luck, keep writing;
Silented1.(sorry for the lack of a real review)

A curious piece, I cannot fully get my mind around, but it is beautifully 'composed'

Hey,

I hate and love reading your poetry. Hate it because you make me feel like a terrible imposter of a poet. Love it because the vocabulary, story, imagery, everything is so intense and vivid it's breath-taking. -sigh- What a situation I'm in.


~Jas

She was the cracked ceramic tucked in the corners of This flows well. Or it would, without that "tucked" thrown in there. Say "ceramic tucked" out loud. Does it sound flowing? Naw.
the antique shops by the sea, where everything was Okay, the plural "corners" an "shops" are getting on my nerves. Why? "The" implies singular. So the one cracked ceramic would have to be in, like, the fifth dimension to exist in all of the corners in all of the shops by the sea. So just make that singular, and you'll be in good shape.
leeched and steeped in salt-- One cannot be "leeched" in something, unless it is verb- [lēch] (archaic) to cure, heal Aaaaand I'm not too familiar with that meaning, so I'm not too sure even that would work. But, this sounds good, so you don't really have to change anything.
she was crouched down into the scent of crocuses, "She (okay) was (beautiful) crouched (image starting to form...) down (opposite of "up") into (what? How can someone be crouched down into something? This sounds so weird. Reworkage.
limbs folded crisp like a paper crane, waiting for the This first part is a tad bit difficult to pronounce. All the L's and C's and R's...of course, I get tongue tied very easily, so try seeing what other people think about it.
dawn dew to tickle her lips and her hips and sparrow-wing shoulders. Trickle...my mind keeps on trying to add the "down" right after it, but....

I took her for a dove the first time we met, A dove? Not exactly sure what this is supposed to mean. Since neither meaning for the word are grammatically correct, I have no idea whether you're talking about doves, as in the bird, or dove, as in past tense of dive. Maybe if you put in some context clues to help me out....
for a chinadoll who couldn't live outside her dance like all the rest, Of what? This thought sounds very unfinished. Like you tried to stuff a big idea into one line and it didn't really fit.
who made up for lost words with found footsteps on the stage-- Found footsteps. Huh. I dunno.
but no. Her voice was sweet, but her tongue was sharp, and her There are two "but"'s in this line. And the "but no" is a bit cliched.
words were close to callous. Skin pulled over bones in a Uh, close to callous? It would both sound better and make a bit more sense if you just said "callous."
cacophany of muscle and stretching tendons, but she seemed stronger than You do a brilliant job with the description of strength in the first part, but then you just croak and blurt out "strong(er)" and the whole thing breaks down.
the rest, like rather than starving herself, her bare bones were The "like" is way too casual a word in that context. I'd just omit it and put in a semicolon there.
attributed more to determination and devouring knowledge more often than food. Much. Too. Confusing. Lines should be able to be read one time fairly quickly and still get across the message. That's not the case with this one. The "attributed more to" is the real problem. It just resonates with sophistry. And here, that's not so good.

When I stayed late, I would see her in the theatre. When you stayed late. Hmm. A bit vague.
With slim, crossed ankles she would sit in the audience and Comma between "ankles" and "she."
watch the stage from the back, watch her ghost dancing from afar. Soon, What is "watched the stage from the back" supposed to mean? I can tell you were just trying to get a point across, but the confusion with what this means kind of overrides that.
she would slip to the streets, a scarab Scarab. As in beetle? I've never heard it without the "beetle" following it.
weaving beneath the harlot scene with closed eyes. I always Why harlot? And why is she weaving (through something, I presume) if she's underneath it? Of course, you could always mean the "sewing" kind of weaving, but I'm pretty sure you don't.
thought that street-lamps suited her better than stage lights. "I always thought" is bit indirect...consider a different approach.

Wow. Okay. I'm wiped out. Don't think me yet, 'cause I'll get to the second part later.

-Kafka

Hi Persephoneia,

I'm not going to be subtle about this, but I never am.

This above me is completely disorganized, it wants to be a poem and it tries sooo very hard, it even pretends like it is. But honestly, it's a big mess that has no idea what it is, and what it means. Slopping together words that sound pretty doesn't make it a poem.

I understand the story you're trying to communicate here, it's overused but that's irregardless at this moment. You've got an underlying idea you want to communicate that's already frail from overuse, but not only that you dress it up and haul it over so many times you also throw it's innards onto a tree so everyone can see everything. Yet the heart is with the spleen and the lungs are with the brain. Not only this, but you throw in so many unrelated images that are completely irrelevant in this poem scattering it further across the board.

You have to consider the symbolic factor behind every word you say. I personally have an issue with delving too deeply in the symbolic, my idea is there, but it's hidden far under images that describe it but never really reveal it. But those are my weaknesses.


For example this stanza:

When I stayed late, I would see her in the theatre.
With slim, crossed ankles she would sit in the audience and
watch the stage from the back, watch her ghost dancing from afar. Soon,
she would slip to the streets, a scarab
weaving beneath the harlot scene with closed eyes. I always
thought that street-lamps suited her better than stage lights.

I don't have the slightest idea what in the world this brings to the plate.
Also consider a scarab. You use it so non-nonchalantly in this stanza and really it's meaningless in this stanza, you just throw a bug into the blender if I may say.

But. A scarab. A creature that was sacred in Ancient Egypt, revered even. They were popular amulets that represented Ra who rolled the sun across the sky everyday. The cycle of the scarab beetle presented an ideology and served as symbols that were incorporated into Ancient Egyptian society.

So a heck of a lot of meaning behind one little bug eh?

You have to be careful with your words. You can't just throw them all into a big salad of pretty terms and throw some meaning in as garnish. Each sentence you want to construct carefully. Sure it takes a lot of practice. So I suggest starting shorter.

And she counts under her breath:


один. (one)

два. (two)

три. (three)

Why the Russian? Good god. I realize it's a Russian ballet, but really what use does it have her. It doesn't invoke a sense of time or pace at all. It serves to flaunt some fancy language skills and shows the ballet is Russian. Soooo what? Not only does it not serve much of a purpose, but it ruins any flow you had before hand, because we are suddenly forced back to slow counting, then we're forced through a weak transition to Tchaikovsky and this ballerina.

Consider a story, ie. This swan lake you use here. Use a theme that relates to it. Something of significance to that idea. Either that's already set up for you, or that you have to bridge the gap between.

Then consider a natural progression of thoughts.




Of course it's not that organized, we are poets after all. But it's the gist of it.

There are good ideas underneath all of this Persephoneia, so don't let me discourage you. Just slow down and really take a look at what you're writing, think about it and go over it before you post it. You don't necessarily have to edit it, because personally I never do I hate editing. But read it to yourself first.

Do with what I've shared as you please. But since I wasn't the most pleasant, I drew you a ballerina with my fabulous artisitic skills. :3 Enjoy.

Spoiler

She's a beaut eh?

EDIT: Zomg. you're my 300th review.

cool! I can see the dancer dancing!

Lol. Annie. Very deep.

When dawn came, she leapt from the nighttime stars to the faint daymoon, Much too long.
dancing on dust to a place she felt like she belonged-- On a dust? Dust tends to suggest thousands of dust particles, so to just say "a dust" sounds odd. Whenever it is made into a singular like this, people usually say "speck of dust" or "dust particle" or something like that. Also, there should be a a "that" between "place" and "she." Cut the "like" and add a "to" to the end.
with pale hands cupping the clouds, You've been using a lot of adjectives in these last couple lines. Tone it down a little.
light fell from her palms into gray craters and chasms, and she Gray. Bland.
lovingly smiled at the Man on the Moon, who This adverb really just does not work with the rhythm or feeling.
was a scandal and a half. Why? Why do you need this line? I don't really feel anything after I read it.

I think that we all fell in love with her-- theatre curtains did that to people, Meh. Too casual sounding.
like the rough blush jutting out from her cheeks was a And the casualness just breaks to pieces after this line. Can blushes be rough? I have contradictory images in my head.
love potion smeared across our faces. Wording is incorrect, grammatically. This is referring to the sentence that spreads across this whole stanza.

Her skin was like a wedding dress, pure cream white-- "Pure cream white" doesn't flow to well.
and her hair was silver, almost disheveled like It's silver, and it's disheveled...you're blazing through image after image after image. Slow down.
poor old spinster Havisham. But she had both shoes on, I can't stand "poor old." It may just be a personal thing.
long and pink and square at the bottom: she had the swan to dance. This last part doesn't make sense.

And she counts under her breath:


один. (one)

два. (two)

три. (three) Just out of curiosity, are these Greek? Roman? Russian? Forgive me if I sound completely multilinguistically ignorant.

--Tchaikovsky echoes her footsteps, conducting with Echoes her footsteps? How does that work?
sweeps of his long, skeletal arms. Don't like the double adjective here. And is it just me, or is everyone in this poem thin and bony?
Calloused fingers brush back her fly-away feathers, Naw. Way too many adjectives.
tenderly tucking them behind her ear. Bones brush Again, not too big of an adverb fan.
silk as he sends her into a lift, a brief flight when the glue and Needs reworkage. The ideas in this line are very cluttered.
feathers on her back remain still, and his fingers grasp her ribs
unflinchingly, though the strain is painful; he can hear Don't like interruptions like this one in poetry. Too formal.
the flutter of wings and pulses beneath her skin. I know you mean "pulses" as in the plural noun, but it's used much more commonly as a verb, and so this is confusing when read only once.
Aaaaand I've got no comments for you as far as the last part. So good job on it.

Nice! Hope this was helpful!

-Kafka

Well, my dear, there's been some lovely critique on this--even some critique I did not fully understand! I am not nearly artistic enough for this site--but I'm just going to do this simply. I'm going to tell you what worked and what didn't work in each stanza, cuz this is a gorgeous idea and I loved the picture, and I will tell you right now that this is already a beautiful poem. Maybe it doesn't have the substance you want, but--and I believe someone has mentioned the human body so I will just go ahead and extend the metaphor!--you've created the skin, gorgeous-iridescent skin, and now you will have to build bones.

First stanza: I actually really enjoy this--I don't think you have to have too much substance in your first stanza. You're explaining her to us, as cracked ceramic and a paper crane and someone with jutting bones. And it's really beautiful imagery, which I think you can get away with here, because it doesn't HAVE to have a point yet. What to consider: Take out 'down'--of course she's crouching down--and take out 'crisp'. It flows better that way. And with your theme of a dancer: what dawn dew? Would it be more fitting to say something with notes or even a dusty-scratched wood floor?

Second stanza: I loved 'chinadoll', I loved 'cacophony of muscle and stretching tendons' (you misspelled cacophony but that's all right). But if your first stanza is your intro, then this is where you start constructing a ribcage; while you want to bring up questions that should be answered later on, there are too many here, and there are comparisons I'm confused about. Why is she a dove? Who are you? How did you meet her? Who is she? Obviously you don't have to answer all of these in the poem, but if you're going to introduce a first-person narrator, I want to hear about this narrator even if they aren't the focus of the story. What, exactly, is your relationship with the dancer? To consider: Take out 'found'. Take out 'but no.' Actually, rewrite everything past your third line. Don't fall into cliche. Let her be a chinadoll, maybe. Make her weak. Make us want her to win. (at whatever.) You can do it!

Third stanza: I WANT TO HEAR MORE ABOUT THIS NARRATOR. Fan, theatre owner, lover? DON'T LET HER OVERSHADOW YOU, NARRATOR! And if you don't want to expand on the relationship between the two, then make this a third person poem. I'm far too intrigued by their relationship to focus on much else! Other than that, I really enjoy this stanza, even the whole scarab thing--it brings to mind scuttling. Is this what you were going for? I like it. Consider: Take out 'beneath.'

Fourth: YES. But take out "man on the moon". I like the rest. Love daymoon. Change it and there will be death.

Honestly, the rest is gorgeous. I think you could take out the whole counting thing, but other than that it's nice, EXCEPT. We lost the narrator. It almost slips into third person, now that we're feeling her pain. Make an active choice on the focus of your poem. If it's her, then take "I" out. If it's a relationship, then tweak some things.

Gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous. This is one of my favorite things of yours; please play with it. It's so beautiful already, I can't wait to see what happens once you play with these critiques.

But seriously. Take out 'daymoon' and I will hunt you down.

Persi! Thank for requesting love. My WRFF thread has fully recovered and looking quite spiffing. I salute you but then I always knew you would never turn down a review?
This was featured wasn't it? Stupid question. Everthing of your's is featured. I'll do my best to review this. Some people have stolen my opinions so if you find my repeating myself then do forgive.

Persephoneia wrote:
She was the cracked ceramic tucked in the corners of I know the structure you're using here but the 'of' on it's on like that looks a little weird. It seems to be bluntly stand out-ish which makes it read a bit funny. I would put the infront of it if not antique as well. the antique shops by the sea, where everything was
leeched and steeped in salt--
she was crouched downTake out down. It makes no sense. She's hardly crouching up is she? into the scent of crocuses,
limbs folded crisp like a paper crane, waiting for the
dawn dew to tickle her lips and herHere I would delete the and, and just put a comma instead. hips and sparrow-wing shoulders.

I took her for a dove the first time we met, I may just be stupid but I'm not sure what you mean by taking her for a dove?
for a chinadoll who couldn't live outside her dance like all the rest,
who made up for lost words with found footsteps on the stage--I don't like the two dash's. They're ucky.
but no. Her voice was sweet, but her tongue was sharp, and her
words were close to callous. Skin pulled over bones in a
cacophany of muscle and stretching tendons,no comma should be here. but she seemed stronger than
I wouldn't start a new sentence here. It doesn't flow good. the rest, like rather than starving herself, her bare bones were
attributed more to determination and devouring knowledge more often than food.

When I stayed late, I would see her in the theatre.The first mention of you as a person. This is a little distant for my liking. Use something that well help us see the why's and how's.
With slim, crossed ankles she would sit in the audience and
watch the stage from the back, watch her ghost dancing from afar. Soon,
she would slip to the streets, a scarab
weaving beneath the harlot scene with closed eyes. I always
thought that street-lamps suited her better than stage lights.

When dawn came, she leapt from the nighttime stars to the faint daymoon,
dancing on dust to a place she felt like she belonged-- I don't like these dash things! DELETE!
with pale hands cupping the clouds,
light fell from her palms into gray craters and chasms, and she
lovingly smiled at the Man on the Moon, who
was a scandal and a half.

I think that we all fell in love with her-- theatre curtains did that to people,
like the rough blush jutting out from her cheeks was a
love potion smeared across our faces.

Her skin was like a wedding dress, pure cream white--
and her hair was silver, almost disheveled like
poor old spinster Havisham. But she had both shoes on,
long and pink and square at the bottom: she had the swan to dance.

And she counts under her breath:


один. (one)

два. (two)

три. (three)

--Tchaikovsky echoes her footsteps, conducting with
sweeps of his long, skeletal arms.
Calloused fingers brush back her fly-away feathers,
tenderly tucking them behind her ear. Bones brush
silk as he sends her into a lift, a brief flight when the glue and
feathers on her back remain still,No comma here. and his fingers grasp her ribs
unflinchingly, though the strain is painful; he can hear
the flutter of wings and pulses beneath her skin.

She's never danced with a corpse before, but
the rot is stifled in lake-water perfume, the smell of bird and prey and
ballet--

she concentrates on not making a sound.

I'm not sure why you put this in the centre. It doesn't look right at all

Ok. So generally this didn't have many mistakes. You didn't spell anything wrong so bravó for that, not that you do anyway. Your punctaution was slightly off. You misplaced some comma's here and there which made this piece look a litle untidy but other then that nothingwas too major.
About your structure, which I think is rather important in this poem, I thought it a bit...wild. It was all over the place and even though I knew the way you wanted it to look and read, it just didn't come across the way I think you wanted it to. You stopped sentences in some weird and choppy places the cut the beautiful rythme to your words. You used some strange dashes twice that I don't should have been there. Again, I knew the reason you chose them but I think the poem in general is better of without althought I didn't mind the last use of them.

First stanza: I loved this as an opening paragraph. You had me caught from the very beginning. The first line was a bit...off. The way you left 'of' standing lone in the page didn't look right. It was weird. It was too interupted for my liking so I suggested you added 'the' from the next line with 'antique'. I also would take out the word,
'down'
in the 'crouching down' line. I mean when your crounching, you're hardly crouching up are you?
The flow was beautiful in this first verse and if any, I think this is the most informative in a sense. You used some amazing critique so well done. It was enjoyable but with some tweeking it could be better.

Second stanza: Okkie dokie. This was the first verse that made me confused. You said,

I took her for a dove the first time we met

What on earth do you mean here? It makes absolutly no sense and confused up the whole thing. Unless this is one of the secret code words for inspiring poets then I give up. You lost me a little in this verse. *I'm lying D:* You lost me a lot in this verse. Other then that you continued to flourish and pour out gorgeous words onto paper. This stanza holds the most beautiful description throughout.

Third stanza: In this verse, I also got confused. Was the narrator a guy? Were the having a strong maybe one day marriage relationship or were they just sisterly loving? You spent most of your time letting this dancer girl take over. You mentionted the narrator for the first time here but you were extremely vague. I would emphasize youself more. After all the narrator ir the onlooker. I liked this verse all in all but I think the narrator could use more spotlight.


Ok, I think the rest of the stanza's were grand. You did a good job on this and I turely loved it. You have a way with words that's just fantasizing. The way you make them flow is just amazing. You should treasure your skill, genuinely I mean that.
Keep writing!
Thanks again,
ILY Kagi xx

--> hi, Perse!! (can I call you Perse, instead?)
--> wow, this is a very neat poem with a good format too. :]

--> nothing else to say, I like it!

Must review Persy's poetry due to missing her greatly...so...

Woah.

She was the cracked ceramic tucked in the corners of
the antique shops by the sea, where everything was
leeched and steeped in salt--
she was crouched down into the scent of crocuses,
limbs folded crisp like a paper crane, waiting for the
dawn dew to tickle her lips and her hips and sparrow-wing shoulders.

Well first thing I noticed here was the alliteration. This stanza is pretty sweet, straight to the point and it creates a clear image in my head. The word 'ceramic' made me thing of really pale skin and deep burgundy lipstick for a reason that I can't think of...

I took her for a dove the first time we met,
for a chinadoll who couldn't live outside her dance like all the rest,
who made up for lost words with found footsteps on the stage--
but no. Her voice was sweet, but her tongue was sharp, and her
words were close to callous. Skin pulled over bones in a
cacophany of muscle and stretching tendons, but she seemed stronger than
the rest, like rather than starving herself, her bare bones were
attributed more to determination and devouring knowledge more often than food.

I adore this. It reminds a bit of the movie Black Swan.

I took her for a dove the first time we met,
for a chinadoll who couldn't live outside her dance like all the rest,
who made up for lost words with found footsteps on the stage--
but no. Her voice was sweet, but her tongue was sharp, and her
words were close to callous. Skin pulled over bones in a
cacophany of muscle and stretching tendons, but she seemed stronger than
the rest, like rather than starving herself, her bare bones were
attributed more to determination and devouring knowledge more often than food.

Okay, this review is deteriorating...I really can't fault this! Why are you so good?

Her skin was like a wedding dress, pure cream white--
and her hair was silver, almost disheveled like
poor old spinster Havisham. But she had both shoes on,
long and pink and square at the bottom: she had the swan to dance.

I particularly like this stanza. The first line reminds me of a lyric from the song 'Howl' by Florence And The Machine. You know...'The fabric of her flesh, pure as a wedding dress'. So, I like it because that song is amazing and the lyric has always stood out to me!

And she counts under her breath:


один. (one)

два. (two)

три. (three)

--Tchaikovsky echoes her footsteps, conducting with
sweeps of his long, skeletal arms.
Calloused fingers brush back her fly-away feathers,
tenderly tucking them behind her ear. Bones brush
silk as he sends her into a lift, a brief flight when the glue and
feathers on her back remain still, and his fingers grasp her ribs
unflinchingly, though the strain is painful; he can hear
the flutter of wings and pulses beneath her skin.

She's never danced with a corpse before, but
the rot is stifled in lake-water perfume, the smell of bird and prey and
ballet--

she concentrates on not making a sound.

The break in the middle when she's counting is really clever; It differs from the almost regular structure of the poem and this makes the reader feel like they're waiting for something to happen...which is the case. So well done!

--Tchaikovsky echoes her footsteps, conducting with
sweeps of his long, skeletal arms.
Calloused fingers brush back her fly-away feathers,
tenderly tucking them behind her ear. Bones brush
silk as he sends her into a lift, a brief flight when the glue and
feathers on her back remain still, and his fingers grasp her ribs
unflinchingly, though the strain is painful; he can hear
the flutter of wings and pulses beneath her skin.

She's never danced with a corpse before, but
the rot is stifled in lake-water perfume, the smell of bird and prey and
ballet--

she concentrates on not making a sound.

And I don't really have anything to say about the last bit apart from 'wow'. This reminds me of your usual style as in 'Arachnophobia' which I absolutely love! I am a MASSIVE fan of your writing technique, Perse and I throughly enjoyed reading this as I did with the rest of your work that I had read. This poem flows well, the chose of words is impeccable and you managed to draw me in.

Well, sorry for this embarrasment of a review!
Keep writing, I'm already craving more!

-Sop-

P.s. Did I tell you that you, my friend, have a magical way with words?

Ah, Persephonia?

You've gotten better.

Going to disagree with Kamas here, for the most part. Here's what your title gives us: Havisham Dancer. It only takes two words -- as Kammy rightly pointed out -- and already we're making great associations, huge leaps and bounds in thought; our brains are truly amazing. One word, two words alone can stimulate such a vast and undeniably overwhelming response; I wonder how we do it, how we keep this seabed of collective consciousness within all these neurons and neuroglia and haul it all to the surface so seamlessly with a single stimulus. You give it away in the title, completely and utterly: Havisham Danver makes me think of a life of dancing, the hard work, the preparation, the thrill of the performance, the backstage life, the poverty, the brilliance, the wealth, the appearance, the inner/outer identity, celebrities, love, drama, history. It's that and so much more.

A crux of poetry: how do we, or can we, or should we write about ordinary things, or things ordinary inasmuch as everyone's tremendous and subconscious prior knowledge of them based on the number of associations they can make with a few key words? What makes poetry about ordinary things, or things that are common knowledge -- such as the life of a dancer -- interesting? If you've read my latest review on MMM's work, which talks of this in so much more detail, you'll know what I mean in the following summary: common knowledge / ordinary things lie in the realm of the logic/order. The only way you can make them interesting is by having a point of difference -- disorder. Chaos. Haphazardness.

Which you proceed to do.

You have the liberty to be a little more disorganised than most here, and that is because the topic is clear-cut enough. Everyone knows about the life of a dancer. The only way you're going to make an age-old story sing is by surprising us at every turn, and for that, we need wild leaps of logic, mad logic, disordered order -- otherwise, it will be boring.

She was the cracked ceramic tucked in the corners of
the antique shops by the sea, where everything was
leeched and steeped in salt--
she was crouched down into the scent of crocuses,
limbs folded crisp like a paper crane, waiting for the
dawn dew to tickle her lips and her hips and sparrow-wing shoulders.

I took her for a dove the first time we met,
for a chinadoll who couldn't live outside her dance like all the rest,
who made up for lost words with found footsteps on the stage--
but no. Her voice was sweet, but her tongue was sharp, and her
words were close to callous. Skin pulled over bones in a
cacophany of muscle

Good beginning -- (a) because of the first line and (b) because of how you don't just fizzle out from there, but also sustain it. Also, maybe I'm too biased towards Jagged's poetry, or Siken, or flow, or something. Suggestions: change 'dawn dew to tickle' to 'dawn to tickle.' Tickling dew -- I've heard it before. Tickling dawn -- less familiar, therefore has greater impact. I didn't like 'voice was sweet' but something about the gradual buildup to the sharp tongue and callous words works. Regardless, it's not a poem where you can really afford to have a cliche like 'sweet voice' in there. I like the 'skin pulled over bones in a / cacophany of muscle' -- music and anatomy. Nice.

and stretching tendons, but she seemed stronger than
the rest, like rather than starving herself, her bare bones were
attributed more to determination and devouring knowledge more often than food.

Seriously? All you have to say is 'skin pulled over bones in a / cacophony of muscle' and that will convey her slimness all by itself. Stretching tendons is extraneous, adds nothing, is predictable -- and, as already said, you can't afford that here. Starvation, repetition of 'bones' in 'bare bones,' and talk of food is boring too, because everyone is already familiar with it. Tell us more about something we haven't heard before, like you were doing before.

When I stayed late, I would see her in the theatre.
With slim, crossed ankles she would sit in the audience and
watch the stage from the back, watch her ghost dancing from afar. Soon,
she would slip to the streets, a scarab
weaving beneath the harlot scene with closed eyes. I always
thought that street-lamps suited her better than stage lights.

Forget 'slim.' We know she's slim. Adds nothing. I don't like 'ghost dancing' -- seems cliche. And 'scarab' and 'harlot' seem off -- the words are far too old for this poem; they murder the flow. You had such marvellous flow going there.

When dawn came, she leapt from the nighttime stars to the faint daymoon,
dancing on dust to a place she felt like she belonged--
with pale hands cupping the clouds,
light fell from her palms into gray craters and chasms, and she
lovingly smiled at the Man on the Moon, who
was a scandal and a half.

Yuck. It's too sweet. Too cliche -- nighttime, stars, daymoon, dancing, dust, clouds, craters, chasms, moon -- the problem is that you've used too much macro-earth-and-sky concepts with no tangibility or concreteness, which makes it not only far too predictable (hence bordering on cliche), but also distances us unnecessarily from the writing. You've done such a great job of collapsing the reader-text aesthetic distance -- don't ruin that now. Cut this paragraph entirely.

I think that we all fell in love with her-- theatre curtains did that to people,
like the rough blush jutting out from her cheeks was a
love potion smeared across our faces.

The second half of the first line in this validates the first half. But the second line here totally outshines the first -- that's more like what I like to see. 'Rough blush jutting' -- I like this juxtaposition of the startlingly sharp with the clearly soft.

Her skin was like a wedding dress, pure cream white--
and her hair was silver, almost disheveled like
poor old spinster Havisham. But she had both shoes on,
long and pink and square at the bottom: she had the swan to dance.

And the poem reaches its natural conclusion here.

Everything that follows was extraneous. Or, at least, the counting made it seem that way. Otherwise, the last and second to last stanzas aren't half-bad; perhaps a little repetitive, but your flow pulls them through, so.

Up to you. Get rid of the counting, at any rate.


Best of luck for edits. PM me if you want to discuss the piece.



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