Written In This Skin

Reserving this with a quick post. I'll edit in my review immediately as promised. Don't care a bit about points.

Alright, as per usual with your writing, no quoted sections included in this review. Keeping with tradition and style, I'll give the lowdown, my exposition, and the state of things.

Fucking A man, yes, this is exactly what I was thinking of, shows that we may not be we, but, we were heading in the same direction. I'd been toying with this idea, skirting about, and here you give another take and I love it because it is real, relatable, and so cleverly worded. Three elements, eh? But we'll get to what is ailing this later.

First!

The poet awakes, or is plausibly conscious but bothers to recognize a life in monotony, an existence molting into stone, melting with a rising lava tide into ash to fritter through the air and disintegrate into the atmosphere into a million different particles: to become nothing. We, the reader, unravel with the narrator in imagery of the divine, the angel, the fallen one, the common man at nightclubs; what we archetype ourselves as and what we truly are. We really don't care either way, but we choose to go on trying to want to care; we're looking for the reason to care.

WE want to escape the perpetual anxiety of nothing. What do we do? We deconstruct slowly, menacingly tearing apart limb from limb, a matryoshka vivisection done in the mystic's design; rend being from mortality, find something base to build off again.

So where DO we return? To life itself. We look at the community, the camaraderie we knew was always there, but knew not and perhaps cared not to support it, yet, we'll say it was lacking the piece to set it all off. So our narrator has an pre-epiphany of sorts, after the madness but before the coming storm; we are reading Go the Fuck to Sleep by Mansbach not knowing a Glock is next to our dreams.

And we watch the play unravel, yes, though we know we are not God, and can never be God, yes? Still, we watch what we can plausibly, and here Gal, here, you use your very own community to establish everything. This is the resurrection from stone, realizing there is a problem and an almost near curse whispering us to go to sleep, and then going from there and pushing forward: you see Christ meet Magdalene across the US; distance is destroyed, existence is real, and with this comes a whole new set of realities.

I'll leave up to your readers to get this context, as with your next references. I love how you create this narrative that means both in what your sculpt and what you actually have used. Very well done.

I'll skip to the point now. The better days. Ominous end. Past? Future? Present? I would think none. And I find this to show your one fault here. You're desperately moving from Catharsis in this poem, and you do so magnificently because the poem manages to carefully, carefully maintain references and a tangible vision dream episode of a man frequenting the nightlife and underbelly of society. BUT, why better days? Why use the figures as references if they sre just actors?

Hit us with EVERYTHING on your mind. Do not be tentative here. But, that's not to say start littering it with apocalypse slang. No, you're original enough to avoid that. And then, let's look at YOUR growth.

Pace/Rhythm is actively manipulated where you so often before had a single beat, but now, we are paused. We slow down and we increase in speed. You're not using language anymore just because you can, there is resonance in your words. A renewed and reinvigorated sense of awareness and being. Good show there.

In the end, I can also see what you've experienced lately. Dark stuff. IT must weigh quite a bit Gal. As you've shown here, the community has its pitfalls, but it more than makes up for that in its ability to communicate; openness, a vice and a saving grace (just be careful what corals you choose to destroy with those words). Never forget, just as you have not forgotten the power of words.

A parting gift.

Okay so.. I was gonna review this but then I read MMM:s review and well... I also read you poem and you're writings are just so much deeper and advanced than my reviews will ever be and I feel like my review can't do this justice...and I'm not gonna be able to say anything even close to what MMM just said so... ehm... I'll just say this;

I like the dark, menacing feeling that's hanging over this piece and your imagery is quite amazing! I can't really grasp to deep into the content since there's so much going on and I feel like I could read it a hundred times and still find new things and get more insights. The stanza I liked the best was the last one... I feel like I was intellectual enough to get that part and it also flowed very well and was just beautifully written! Gaah, there's just so much to say about this and I don't know how to say it... So I'll just say! I thought this was quite astonishing... it's very deep and I'm sure there are things that could be improved but my english isn't advanced enough to detect them and neither is my ability to fully understand stuff like this. What I could read out of this was, it was somehows connected to religion, christianity and stuff... and I somehow imagined icons and people from the biblic stories wandering in to the modern world. But as I said, I don't have the english, or the capability mentally to understand this fully.
For making me impressed and confused I give you 6/5 spiders!

Good Luck & Keep Writing

// Demoness

An immediate review, for all my affection.

I'm going to assume that MrM's review is incredibly insightful and helpful, because I'm pretty sure I'm not going to be. And I'm also glad you always have your I'm-too-cool pants on, because I'm tired enough to be brutal. (Demoness also posted a review before I finished mine! I'm a slow-poke.)

This has to be the worst thing I've read by you, technically, ever. Your line breaks are all over the place and are completely ruining my read of the lines. I realise that this is more of an intuitive poem and I'm glad you're branching out from what I feel was a self-stilting method of writing, but man. You've run riot with this poem, and you've indulged yourself far too much, given not nearly enough editing to make this worth the page it has. It has element, it has the same kind of raw connectivity all of your poems have. You, sir, have an excellent voice and it works well in everything you write, but here it's wasted in the stream-of-conscious ramble that your poem becomes.

I'm beating the point in because it's the only one I have. Why the tricksy parenthesis? Why the gimmicks and games with us? This poem isn't made in play or jest, give us the blank, raw, dirty honesty or stop pretending that you want to be open with the reader. This poem screams for the morgue cut through the chest - splay me open, it says, and look on the inside, where my bacteria grows in the death of my organs - and it's that melodrama and posturing that's making this poem a self-conscious and self-indulgent piece of prose poetry. Perhaps this would suit the slam world more than it suits my happily descriptive one, they need different things and ask different kinds of quality. I'm less interested in how clever your allusions are, and how well researched your metaphors appear, I'm all about the gritty details. Getting past the guff and onto the meat. And let me tell you, there are a lot of lines hiding very little meat. This poem needs a trim if ever I saw one.

I'm rambling a lot because this surprised me from you. However, as someone who has just come back from an extended period without anything newly written, I can see the slivers of genuine torture in these lines. Take your first strophe;

They say the poet's awake, < Okay, I don't mind it
that he's strayed out from the < Why would you ever end on "the"? It breaks the line incredibly awkwardly and loses the rhythm you could have going.
grave, that < And you do it to give us a pointless two words? Come on now, you should know better. You're losing my interest through poor structure.
he called out from < Again, from? Bump up "The cave" there's meat there.
the cave - murdered Plato < Omnom some Plato. If you bumped up the cave, this could stand as a strong two words.
at his own game! That this self introspection's < Self introspection is too self conscious. Are you being open or are you being metaphoric, choose one and let us settle into the skin of it. It's too modern to tell us that you know you're thinking out loud. Give us more, we want it.
a leper walking out of the flame, < A serviceable line.
that he's got Bud in his veins and < Bud is alcohol, I think. Boring but serves it's purpose.
skins the fish from naked < Bump "hooks" up.
hook(ers) on the street, dangling < I would alter "Hook(ers)" to "hooks" which serves as a shortened form of hookers, and will also serve the fishing metaphor more smoothly, making more sense. We know they're hookers because of "on the street"
like corpses on display, pre-riot
but post-rave. I < I like the last two lines except for this too-overt enjambment which is awkward and unsightly. I know that this is what your poem is; kind of ugly and unsightly, what with the attempts at honest exposure of the emotion, the raw inside, but it's unnecessary. Your poem can be contextually ugly without actually being structurally ugly, as you well know.

I'm actually happy to go through the rest of the poem this way, stripping it with suggestions. However, I'm not sure that's what you're looking for. This needs more work, which I also think you know already.

Ignore this entire thing if you think I'm being pompous and ridiculous. I am by no means an expert on the poetry.

With all my fondness.
-Le Guin.

Galeeerius!

So I got a good night's sleep and figured I'd review this immediately! Okay, well. Apparently, I'm still waking up. But at least I'm thinking a little more sanely this morning, ja? (humor me)

I liked your poem! And, uh. I'm not just saying that? I enjoy your work, and.. well, this is the classic I-wish-I-could-be-more-helpful paragraph. Let's just skip the rest since we know how it goes!

Like I said last night, I enjoyed your first stanza. The way you use rhymes in your poems makes me really happy. You make them work so well, and so naturally too. That aside, it's an awesome opening stanza, especially with the very beginning quote, which I'll actually get to later. Basically, that pleased me to no end.

I love how this feels like a narration, draws the reader into the speaker's thoughts as it's read. Certainly, your use of imagery is fabulous in explaining what's going on, and your poem leaves just enough room for some afterthought for the reader. This last bit I mentioned? It's what I look forward to in any poem I read. That lingering thought after reading it two or three times, and your poem did well well with that.

I had to look up more on James Cagney 'cause that bit went right over my head, but now that I did, I'm on the right track with that. xD The one thing that I was most pleased with was the tie between the beginning and the end. And I'll admit, during the Cagney bit, I was starting to lose it. My head was swimming with everything that was said, trying to remember what was actually going on. Then your ending came, and I literally cheered (in my head though -- it would be awkward for my mother otherwise, ja?) because it was seriously the bow on top of my present. It made everything that much better, and I left this poem much happier than I was feeling beforehand. So I don't know if it was just getting long, or if I'm still waking up (which would be extremely sad since it's been almost two hours now), or if I'm just weak-minded. That would be the only thing that happened though -- it started to drag a bit near the end right before that massive, awesome impact of the ending. It's probably nothing to even worry about? 'Cause that was really awesome how the points kept falling into place after each time I read the poem after. I'm still giddy!

Bottom line? I enjoyed it. And I think it's excellent, considering it's been a while since I've read some of your work! I wish I could be of help, but all I can do is point out what I liked about it. <3 So great job!

Keep writing!

Jabber, the One and Only!

Eh.

I’m ridiculously torn on this one because it’s so damn different from your normal writing. But at the same time, it’s still unmistakably Galerius, which entails a certain choking factor that’s not quite as prevalent as it typically is, but is still there.

I’ll save you the trouble this round and not quote any of your actual piece in this review, but rather just talk about what you did and how it worked and what I think you should stop doing because I’ve said it before.

Opening with your quote was actually fantastic. Not gonna lie. And the first stanza was a good prelude to the bulk of the poem that you phrased to hell and back. That said, I’m unsure how your first stanza stands, either as another characterization to add to the four poets you’ve winked at in the body, or whether it’s just Galerius saying Galeriesque things because he wanted more Galeriesque length. It’s catchy and flashes a good ability with rhyme, but I don’t see the meat behind it. Jag and I were jokingly placing ourselves inside the poem alongside the four mentioned, and it was decided that I was the tartar and she was the dead harlot. And then she called me bad names.

I think that this would stand better as a gift poem rather than something you as a person who acts like you and writes like you and dislikes squishy emotions like you would post for a mass of people to see. It’s quite personal, which honestly makes me feel uncomfortable with it coming from you, you darn bunny, you.

Cut out the parenthetical gimmicks. You don’t need them and it just makes me want to kick you in the teeth. Trim the fat, or grow more muscle. It needs more substance.

Also, I think I’ve finally figured out how to describe your style—with all the images and descriptions so chokingly close together, all the metaphors and whiplash you get from everything all at once: you write poetic panic attacks.

Hope this helped,

Lumi

Youwiththeface, over there. Yea you.

I already told you that I think this is wonderful. And unlike Pengu, think it's the best thing I've seen from you (so far) but that's my personal opinion. Why? Because it's original, it's loosened up, you've humanized something we usually can't quite reach, like a kid not usually tall enough for the monkey bars who's found that someone has built a step for them. It's not your typical, grand and godlike at-arms-length Gal poem because you've gone and incorporated yourself, your thoughts and feelings and your community so very openly.

It unravels to the reader at the pace you want it to and you're pulling all the strings (or almost) all the way. I've read this a total count of 4 times and each time it rings in my ears and it sounds new and fresh. And the reader unravels as the narrator does leading us through the crowds by a linked finger and through dirty streets. And yes, perhaps we snag a little on parts of the poem that aren't as tightly woven and certain play on words that aren't the subtlest (hook-hooker for example)

And your winks at people here, they're actors in this construction of your poem and as odd and out of place as it seems to have Cagney in here, it has a purpose which I find often is lacking in more open poems. yes it's strange to suddenly have these references and we know exactly where they land but it's brought your poetry down from the high heavens that follicks among the clouds where we can barely see or let alone reach. Your poetry has always had its head in the clouds describing to the people too little to reach what it's like up there, so huge our minds can't picture it or so dusty with words that it's far to scarred out to read. And the sudden jerk to a modern scene and graspable human description while retaining the elements that made your poetry what it was before strikes me as the perfect balance. yea, it's not perfect and you, like I are only human and fall into over indulgence of words or of ideas that spill over one another like it's a race to the finish. And yea, some images have little depth to them, or depth lost in the minds of your reader.

But, at the end of it all, I can't do much but delve into the raw, gritty honesty of this piece.
(This comment is useless as I said it would be, but you asked my thoughts)

Kamas

PS. put the first line back, heathen is a nono

It's been a while, eh? I'm rusty at my poetry crits...but I think I say that every time.

Firstly, I'm not sure how to approach slam poetry differently from your regular work, so I don't think I will. I think poetry should be able to be read aloud anyway, slam or otherwise. That being said, I do think this lends itself better to the spoken word than many of your others. I'm not sure why, exactly.

I'm torn about this. I like it in a way that I don't always like your work, and although I won't be able to articulate why as elegantly as previous reviewers, I'll still try. I won't go as far as Kamas in saying that it's my favorite work from you, and I won't go as far as Pengu in saying that it's my least favorite. I like Lumi's line: you write poetic panic attacks. I find that incredibly amusing and very accurate. This is a different sort of panic attack than your usual ones, though-- it starts out much more contained and then progressively speeds up, loosens up, breaks apart (unravels, as others have said) before snapping back together at the end like someone trying-- and failing --to hide the fact that they've been crying. Someone who has seen too much and is trying to pretend that they haven't.

The first line: heathen or poet? I can't decide. They give off very different vibes-- starting with "heathen" and then following with all of the religious allusions we're conditioned to take everything a bit more literally, to visualize an actual, tangible character instead of some amorphous thing floating around and holding the subject of your poem. "Poet" doesn't connect as well, I find.

As far as this first stanza goes, I agree about axing the "hook(ers)" bit-- the clever wordplay comes across fine just as "hooks". I would really like the rhymes if there weren't quite so many of them. Grave, cave, flame, game, veins, dangling, rave? When has Galerius ever used such rhyming-- and all at the ends of lines, no less! Maybe they weren't all intentional, but after "grave" and "cave" my mind started picking out the "ay" sounds and I couldn't ignore them. Again, I like the consistency that rhymes provide, but I'd cut back a few, or at least rearrange your line breaks (which are exceptionally weird, btw) so they're not as obvious. I also found the word "Bud" very out of place.

Second stanza: I'm digging the continued sea metaphors. I have a burning desire to see the phrase "fishers of men" thrown in this poem somewhere, despite the blatancy of the phrase.

Third stanza: "Coral(s)" is, again, pointless. I like this bit though. The line separation of "death - breaths" works.

Fourth stanza (a monster!): I thought you were losing me until the mention of "temples", where we were brought back, if only briefly, to the religious currents running underneath this poem. I feel like we're hurtling through time, propelled from some ancient philosopher's study in the first half of the poem to a very contemporary setting-- New York, Toronto, coke, meth. Those last four lines, though...why? I'm genuinely curious about your line breaks here. What do you achieve through that wandering run-on besides giving your reader a headache? It's like attaching a glowing sign that says "LOOK HERE: IMPORTANT LINES" just because they're so un-uniform, and while that approach is effective, it's also awkward.

Love the last stanza. We're shooting down a dark tunnel, grasping at the images that flash by, drowning in a sea of phrases and yesterdays and hell and temptation-- and then it all grinds to a halt.

All this and I still have only a minimal grasp on what it might mean. Oh, well. I've learned to expect that coming into your poems. A good read, all in all.

~Evi

I don't like poetry slams, so I read this simply as a spoken word poem. The important part, though, is that this poem is very much intended to be spoken. So I spoke it.

The first thing I couldn't help doing, with the mindset that this is an attempt at a slam (different form than usual), was compare this to past works of yours that I've read. And, as I believe past reviewers mentioned, it was far more personal, human, raw, and vulnerable. The main subject seems to include yourself, someone named Gabriel, his counterpart anti-Gabriel, a girl in Toronto, and not to mention references to at least one other member of YWS in divine terms. It begs to be read aloud not just because of its technical aspects, but because of these people who inspired it. So overall this felt very fresh, and in that sense fun to read.

This is commentary for the most part, with more of a review at the end.

You're opening quote is perfect. It was the fulcrum from which I gained the leverage needed to better understand this piece. This poem is showing that "gargoyle" while it was still clay, through visions, memories, and the "gray photos," its very bones. In this sense it is like an archeological investigation of a prehistoric animal's short life. Then you open up with two subjects: "they" (society) and "the heathen" (speaker) who is rumored to be awake. This statement is very mysterious and sets a tone for the poem. It also gives you wiggle room to tell about yourself as this unbeliever who has, "strayed out from the / grave"

There's a lot of aquatic language but one of the most prominent examples is when you next use the image of a marlin as a prostitute. It gets "skinned," "battered / and served with tartar," and so on. This image I thought was extremely powerful. The way it was subtly introduced but sticks around and grows. The relationship between the heathen and the harlots reveals to the listener a relationship between the speaker and the people that surround him. The people he catches like fish at "disco bars" then releases right back into the teeming "post-rave" ocean, waiting for a riot. At this point, whether you intended it or not, I saw Kafkaesque ideas become present. The use of animals and the idea of the speaker's body being this shell. When the heathen wakes up, it's similar to Samsa waking up in his new body. It shows this estranged state of the speaker. But at other times it elevates him, as he is contrasted as a human, unlike everyone else who are fish. Or, to go further, he is a fisher of men.

Then to solidify the religious accents, your friend is related to Christ. There is as much divine language in this poem as there is aquatic. By the time you mention "the spirit" that shows you a new vision, the listener begins to see that the speaker is more of a prophet figure, woken up perhaps by force, hinting to me that this poem could have social themes. That new vision from the "spirit" is Cagney, either in a film I haven't seen, or on the actor's farm. You're description of the haystacks as a "blue collared chain of / chemicals" was really an amazing metaphor. The scientific jargon (alchemy, chemical chains) did feel out of place though, contrasted by the following information that they were made to a lost farmhand's prayers. It's almost like the science and religion are trying to accommodate one another. But then the listener is thrust into a new vision via flames. This spirit then becomes a "He" which is a nice subtly to lead the listener along, and keep this poem from being too overwhelming (which at times it is). My last praise on the religious aspects is what proves to be clever irony: the speaker is a heathen! There's such a disconnect from him and his divine peers.

Then the speaker is shown a mortal, a girl. A girl before she died as well, waiting for a sign. And the "rest / of the Fallen" join you. Who are they? More people the speaker knew? More fish? More heathens? They join the speaker as worms in his grave. Was the speaker always dead? Was this his life flashing before his eyes or was this poem a privileged hiatus from Hell? Either way the speaker's death is final, and his bones become stones, like the gargoyle.

To conclude, I really was intrigued by your poem. Your clever wordings, worldly references, powerful metaphors, breathtaking imagery, and almost seamless pacing are what make your poem so wonderful. The amazing vulnerability of it came through so believably to me. This poem wasn't just some quip, it held your deepest fears and anxieties, it was sublime catharsis. On a grander scale it was about the human condition, but wasn't relatable enough at times. I would like to see this poem keep its vulnerability and personal aspects without so many references that I and many other readers won't understand if we don't know you well enough. It alienates the listener. When a poem becomes too personal, it can only be read to that person.

In regard to more tangible matters, as others said: this poem would be better without the pretentious parentheses. Also, not wanting to be too pedantic, I believe a period belongs at the end of this line:

walking within eye of the earth that swifts waves like fins of the shark

Thanks for sharing, Galerius. Forgive me if my review is way off.

Jesus, Gal. I haven’t felt more disinterested by your work before. I actually haven’t felt more shut out by any piece of writing before, and I’ve read some fairly doorslam-in-the-face works on this site. I have tried - sincerely - to read this in different moods, at different times, but the result has been exactly the same as the first time: I can’t read this for the same reason the dense warzone of Lord of the Rings averts me, or Mahabharata dulls me, or hard rock fails to move me, or classical writing glances off me; I feel like I’ve seen it all before, and I fail to see what new angle we’re getting here -- I rather think you try so hard to haul out a new perspective that you shoot coherency and feeling in the foot in the process.

Firstly, just so we’re on the same plane, this is what I look for in a piece of writing in the first instance when reading it: I look for surprise. I want to be touched. I want to be moved; I want to be inspired, enlightened, understood; I want character -- but more than that: I want to connect. I want to feel and not just ‘see’ feeling written and not experience it. I just want a piece that addresses my heart before it attempts to force its head down my throat. I hate hard theme. Worse than that is feigned emotion, or emotion that simply does not work, and that is exactly what I am seeing here. One other thing I particularly dislike: trying to use the head to barge into the heart -- you rely far too much on the reader’s intellectual catharsis to initiate their emotional response - a feeling of awe at having -- finally -- understood what the hell you are talking about. That is derived emotion; long term, and, for me, it just has no appeal because you’ve discarded my short-term sensibilities entirely.

As for slam - forget it; I’ve seen slam at some of its worst, and that is when it is at its most inaccessible, which this is. This won’t address the ordinary audience in the slightest -- try it on such an audience, if you will.

For example:

First lines - where’s the hook? You’re already shutting out an ordinary reader - yes, I am speaking as your ordinary reader, the one that knows little about your Greek myths and Christian characters; and this line is like one, long stone gargoyle that means absolutely nothing to me because I can’t connect with it emotionally. That ‘me’ you’ve got there has no character. You further destroy character by the generality and somewhat predictability of all your language; we have demons [a mundanely common word that tries far too hard to seem interesting], stone, gargoyle, heathen, stray, grave, cave, murder, self-immolation, vein, skin, naked, corpses, riot, rave, bruised, battered, tartar, stubs, dead, harlot blah blah blah. The words are practically the same. It’s one big battlefield and its boring. There are no close-ups on any faces - and, if there are (in those uncommon ‘I’ lines), then you mute them so fast that it was a zoomed-out pan-shot anyway. There are only drums in the background and no other instrument. I just feel like we’ve been here before, and, if we haven’t, then I don’t care for it because you don’t make me care for it. There’s too much distance between the reader and the poem. Using demons, Plato, corpses, angles, Gabriel and whatever is all fine so long as you don’t do it in such succession and with such disregard for the character that the allusions make vague the narrator. In short, mundane and repetitious word choice that tries too hard to seem different coupled with allusory hence vague imagery and plotline just makes this unappetising. If you can’t draw me in, I can’t care enough to dissect it.

So, basically. It’s just war, blood, death, cowardice, withering, flames, more blood, fright, grease, more death, flatworms, bursting, obsidian, slaying, even more blood, dust, crawling, lust, some God and massacre, sweat...bleargh. Sorry, Galerius. This doesn’t cut it with me. Not even your coke, meth, chemicals, 3:00 a.m., cigarette, New York blitzkrieg, girl in Toronto and general city lights and slant can stop this from being the bore that it is, for a simple reason: it’s the same warzone, just in a different setting.

A last note; I’m not like you. I can’t stand so much conflict in such succession with such little variation in mood and pulse, with so little character; I can’t take generalities and theme and gulp it down in one and attempt to get some forced intestinal catharsis from this. I am only human, and I am not seeing the human in you from this because of how utterly relentless you are. Early review because I wouldn’t have reviewed this at all if I left it for later.

I thought a lot about this poem, Gal. Most of your work passes me by, sometimes I get it, sometimes I don't want to go through the effort of getting it, and sometimes I just can't. This is kind of in the middle of all three. First off, I will agree and disagree with just about all the reviews. This is strong work, Gal. In some parts, you have this written AS a person, you wrote this in a human way, but in others it's ridiculously difficult to relate.

Rhythm: Honestly, by far, I thought this was the best aspect of the poem. We talked very, very briefly about this but it's obvious you spent time sculpting out the rhythm and yes, you've managed to reflect a bit of who I think you wanted to reflect. You did an excellent job in pacing and controlling the reader as they read without making anything stilted, so congrats to you on that.

I think that too much conflict can be a bad thing. CAN be. But it isn't always. This, yes, does get overwhelming at points despite the parts in which you've slowed down, but it feels honest to me, and in some way, that's what is most important. Granted, I tend to be all over the place in my style and bursting with gore and conflict, so I may be a bit bias. Try paring some of it down for contrast. Right now, it's blunted in that there is just so MUCH of it. The conflict isn't the problem so much as the fact that when you have a single tone in a long piece such as this, it can seem monotonous rather than bursting with energy or pain or experience, which it should be, especially if read as a slam. You could definitely fix this, though, if you read it with the right energy. Slams are always different on paper.

I must agree with Navita in the matter of character. You seem to almost rely on the symbolism of Christ here rather than making your own, which I've noticed you doing in the past, and I really don't know how I feel about it. In one sense, it drives your poem along with pre-created force, which is nice because you can create conflict with familiarity-- but, at the same time, I feel like you're kind of taking the easy way out. You've built reliance on a character that is SO entirely different in everyone's eyes, and so there the image changes for everyone's perspective, dramatically. It always does, in the manner of a filter, but this is to another extreme, where people draw assumptions because they feel that, having known this character, in some cases, having had him as a household name, they are able to do so. Just a thought or two.

Last thought-- you lose me in the end. It's a pretty dramatic tonal change, and it's... I dunno. Completely different in the last two and a half lines, and it just doesn't hit for me. You seem like you want this silence at the end of your slam, this haunting little line about "better days" to last over a second or two, and the last phrases make that, but they don't quite fit your poem in a way. They do, of course, through content but they feel so out of sorts, especially with the nova and pencil. Just something to consider.

Overall, it IS strong, rhythmically and in content, you have the strength and the beat down and it's well done. This is probably one of my favorites from you just in the fact that I feel like you've put yourself into it a bit more in some spots. I kind of wish that it was uniform in that sense, and you covered the entire piece like that, but perhaps that's just my reading. Regardless, well done.

Hi Gal! Here I finally am, sorry for being so slow.

That ... I

I really like the rhythm and the rhymes of this stanza. It seems to flow off one's tongue so easily and nicely, apart from some syllables that felt extraneous. A question - you said slam was poetry meant to be spoken, so how exactly would you read "hook(ers)" out loud?

death
...breaths,

I don't like this that much... So far, I've enjoyed the rhymes in this, but in this case they make the line sound almost childish.


I'm not able to produce an analytical review. If I heard this spoken as it's meant to be, I'm sure I would listen to this in some kind of a trance and like it a lot. However, I've just read it now (granted, out loud), and if it weren't for the somewhat steady rhythm (and the rhymes I keep talking about) for me to grab onto, I would be so lost right now. I can't say I really understand what this is about, so I might be missing all sorts of philosophies. However, there was something rather enchanting about this, and (because I really want to say this) though I've read better poems, I've also read verse. Hahaha. Ha. Get it.


Demeter
x


P. S. Reading the critiques you've already got, I feel so insignificant. Maybe this is why you even ask me for reviews...

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