Thomas Postures

you too
can watch ink stains blot a police report,
can stand in line unemployed, eunuch faced,
can whisper hope while tasting rotting corn
and
anti-freeze,
dribble down your lips you
too much effort gone to waste,
too much time pedaled philosophizing
too much,
not enough you pray
not; you pray but,
if no one listens,
you too
cannot.

Hi
Ambiguos yet effective. It created sinister feelings and repulsion- in a very good way. The short lines are really interesting! I really like this part:

anti-freeze,
dribble down your lips you

because it really gets across an image of greed-its almost vampiric. I also really like this part :

too much time pedaled philosophizing

because its really true and makes a whole lot of sense! This part is also really interesting :

not enough you pray
not; you pray but,
if no one listens,
you too
cannot.

I don't know what technique you've used, whether its enjambement or simply just repetition of the word not but it works wonders! And i also love the idea of not listening because you can't listen. Overall I repeat it was ambiguous so i couldn't really grasp an underlying concept but the way i see it is someone's done something wrong that you are censuring, or someone's taken too much and got nothing in return. Perhaps someone's done something but you can understand why. I don't know, I'm a bit confused by it. But it was still really interesting so Well Done !!!! -Rachel.

Mustard.

You write a great deal about declining human conditions, dismayed idealists and decaying philosophers, but I never feel anything from your poetry; that’s always my biggest complaint, possibly in reigns alongside the occasional pretention, and I think it will remain my biggest complaint until you actually figure out how to shake off this stigma you seem to have about catharsis in poetry.

You see, you talk a big game around the poetry forums about “this is not poetry” and “if you’re just bleeding your heart into ink, then you should quit now”, but you seem to have gone beyond this idea and have placed yourself where I believe you think is above the cathartic poet, in a place where the reader will not—cannot—feel what you want to convey. And by this, you can write all the pretty little images and scenes from a soup kitchen you want; you can string together the most fabulous rope of words, tie it into a noose, and string it around the reader’s neck, but you have yet to make us feel the rope burns.

By all that, I mean that I want you to check where you are as a poet and understand that you, the writer that gets so much praise and adoration for both your written words and your scathing critiques, can think yourself no purer of a writer than the cathartic 14 year old girl writing in her diary. You aim for refined, profound art; she aims for emotional escapism.

The two of you are no different in the end. Her suicide poem with tearstains on the title will affect a reader of some age somewhere just as much as your religious analysis poetry will touch an agnostic academic studying in Europe. And so I suggest you allow your poetry some room to breathe, room to feel what it actually is instead of what you’re forcing it to be. Don’t be afraid for your poetry to become a trapezoid, I suppose, instead of a perfect Kylanesque square. And to reprise what I've seen others on that pedestal say, figure out how to fix it, or walk in another direction.

And so your poem.

First off, your lack of capitalization, as is the trend these days on YWS, does nothing for your concept, impact, or content. Your line breaks aren’t conducive to a good-or-intentional flow. The beginning-to-end flip is boring and doesn’t stab like it needs to. Your nod to religious cynicism is washed up, and the only line that strikes me in any way is your poor little guy poker-facing in the unemployment line.

Three cheers for economic downfall, right?

I don’t like this, but it has a good footing to show potential in the future. Take my comments as you want, but I think you should pay attention to the first part of this review, particularly.

With love,

-Ty

I'll respectfully agree Lumi; only because it means you, I, and everyone except a handful of writers on here in the history of YWS are those pedantic, cathartic writers. Thank you for the criticism, but figure out why tastes and the pot calling the kettle black are important elements missing from an otherwise all too familiar review in what I read in your post.