Candy From Strangers

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Wow, that was different.I've never read a poem like this before. It was almost kinda creepy, like not saying that your creepy or anything just, it was so personal. Almost like it's happened to you before. Not saying that you were raped by a stranger or anything. Anyway I'm just gonna shut my mouth and say. Interesting.

I thought this was interesting. And very very personal. Like stepping into the mind of someone who's been there. I'd expect to hear this in a poetry club or something. Anyway, good writing. Very interesting.

I'd like to point out that there are some inconsistencies like the separation between the voice in the poem and the actually speaking parts (parts in quotation.). You should make the separation between those parts more noticeable so that the reader doesn't get confused.

Other than that, it's not bad.

I love how direct and terse your style is. I feel the dark humor and the mood coming through well. I few suggestions i have:

--spelling 'cause' like 'cuz' doesn't do anything for your poem, but takes away from the feeling of legitimacy
--add a little more dark imagery to the edges, maybe a slip about the kid once he/she is actually in the car?

Overall, I found this very interesting.

I like this, it was.. like a previous spoker said.. a bit creepy.. a good creepy though! The stanzas was a bit choppy and it felt more like a piece of mind instead of a poem at times but it was deep and held a great message together with good imagery. I think it was a bit short though, I would've liked to read more I wanna no more about what the kid's going through, and what the predator is thinking, feeling.. wanting

Anyhowwss. This was great overall soo. Good Luck & Keep Writing

// Demoness

I didn't expect this poem to be so, BOOM, you know. Straight to the point, no leading you there, just pushing you. And I, for one, loved it. The meaning is very true and I enjoyed reading it!! Sorry for the review and run, but keep writing!!

If I'm
being body dumped in a ditch:
why am I naked
if I'm not dead?

Change that to "body-dumped" in this context.

"I have
--something you want--."
"—something I want—?
I like --something I want--."
"there’s a ton in the back seat,” take the candy.

This is messy. You alternate between double hyphens and em dashes, and put them in the worst places.

I would clean it up:

"I have
—something you want."
—"something I want?—
I like—something I want."—
"there’s a ton in the back seat,” take the candy.

Even then they're overused, making them somewhat ineffective. At the end of the stanza I don't understand "take the candy." because it's not in reference to the quotation but is attached to it.

I liked your first stanza. It was strong in imagery and set a tone, it enticed me, like a predator would. Then the poem fell apart in both respects afterwards, and most of the stanzas were in complete discord. The enjambment was lazy. Also, avoid the rhetorical questions if they can't be used perfectly.

Your last stanza was the root of the problem. It felt like you wrote that stanza first and the rest was narrow filler designed simply to support that punch line. But it doesn't. The last stanza lacked any sort of justifying irony, satire, self-parody, or subversiveness. The imagery was too weak for it to even be a guilty pleasure.

Your primary focus seemed to be being daring. It's one thing to write a vulgar poem—and it's another thing to write one that's amoral, and to do it because it looks cool.

Hello Parker.

Sorry for being quite so late in reviewing. Also, do take what I say with a grain of salt because I am not used to your poetry, so I might not be making the proper allocations for style.

Her mouth is candied.
Her head is full of teeth.

I don't mind your first line. It provides the grounding for the poem's title right off the bat, plus has some cool word tricks in there that could make it mean multiple things.

It's your second line that gets to me. It's so obscure, so early in the poem, that it unhooked me. I'd have liked a continuation of "her mouth is candied", really, so we could explore some of those double-meanings like sweet innocence that I interpreted into the words on second read.

The only double meaning I can think of getting from that is that because her head is full of teeth she's not thinking? Just a wild guess.

This is how a predator works, kids.

And this is where you lost me. One of the reasons I interpreted the first two lines the way I did was this concept was so suddenly included I had to add subtext so the transition wasn't so sharp that I felt my immersion in the poem sever.

If I'm
being body dumped in a ditch:

I'm not sure about this, as it took me three reads plus reading a review to get what you meant. I'd word it as "a body being dumped"

~

Overall, I'm not sure on this. Part of it is I've grown used to a much more flowing style that isn't quite so blatant in its meaning.

Some of it, I think, is your two opening lines. While they provide an introduction it's, as I mentioned, disjointed from the second stanza and therefore the rest of the poem. They are pure imagery (If they are not supposed to be, then I would be rather surprised as there is no direct meaning but what we impose on the words), while the rest of the poem is straightforward and relies on punctuation tricks to make a rather standard lesson somewhat interesting.

I think what I'd like to see here is a slightly more adult take on this. This could be because the lesson for me is so standard and basic that I can't really connect with it. But I find that with certain wordings (all but stanza 2 and possibly 4, which is what mostly murders the rest of the poem), they could be reinterpreted. It's not just a van, but anything you can't get out of and were drawn in with treats. Then the old fashioned "don't take candy from strangers" line gets a much more adult twist to it, so it just becomes a metaphor to not be lured by treats.

Don't cut the bluntness from all of the poem, just the situation-limiting parts. Namely "kids". Stanza 5 I'm iffy on, but it provides a buildup to stanza 6. Which technically means I'm iffy on stanza 4 in how situation-limiting it is, but by giving it an exclusive news-story feel it becomes limiting. Crack it open so the stanza doesn't just relate to murder cases but also being emotionally killed and left for dead.

Dunno. Take that with a grain of salt, as always.

The short of it is I found this a bit too limited and a bit too blatant to be that... effective for certain audiences. Your redemptions were stanzas 1 and 6, which stuck in my head (six moreso than one, probably because of the swear and it is the least limited in the stanzas with the most solid imagery). How I even began applying the ideas in the poems to other situations besides the one written about.

But it does stick in my head a bit, so props for that.

Drop me a line if you have any questions/comments.

~Rosey

Morning, Parker!

This is different, and I’m quite a fan of it. Since the poetry world has quite an enormous dissonance in ‘what makes good poetry’, I’ve taken the philosophy that every poem must be stricken through the scope of style, much like popular fiction. Modern, raw, rather unbridled—this is rather good. But, as always, there are places in which we can improve, and I hope you consider my suggestions for what they’re worth (which may be nothing).

Your first couplet—it’s a good foreshadowing, but the style doesn’t match with the remainder of the poem, and that needs to change. Consider how you can hot-wire these first two lines to make them, essentially, one of the gems of the piece. Open with a bang. That’s like, rule one of Zombieland poetry.

After this couplet, though, you hit this fantastic and unique style, as I’ve said before. Particularly stanza three. It’s prosaic, but beautifully so.

However, there’s a bit of whiplash between stanzas 3 and 4. Try to smooth it over, or at least make the whiplash look intentional. It’s easy to do, almost like painting over where your kid marked on the wall with crayons. The same sort of whiplash, or rather dissonance—yeah, let’s call it that—happens between stanzas 5 and 6. It’s not smooth, and costs you your flow. Stylize it more if you have to, or just smooth over things. It’s the biggest challenge with working with such sharp edges.

The last stanza, though, is that perfect kicker to tie it together, at least for a short piece. Nice life lesson, too, I suppose. However, I think I want to see more shimmer like I saw in stanzas 2 and 3—that uniqueness. Consider playing around with the style of the latter half to match up, much like I suggested with the first two lines.

Sorry for the lackluster review. Hope this helps, if only a little.

-Lumi