Young Writers Society

Bon Appetit:

Great poem. Really, one of my favorites here. The first verse I enjoyed particularly -- I've always enjoyed eggs, but if I think too hard about them, they're absolutely disgusting. I've also had similar thought processes as you here. It's just creepy looking at a slab of meat and thinking -- that used to be like me. It used to be part of a whole that was running around a pasture munching on grass, making noise, flowing with blood and life.

So, clever piece. The ideas explored are true and unpretentious, which I also like. Didn't think your conclusion was as strong. Unlike Sarg, I'm not really digging the chewing sunlight image. Also the whole omnivore bit was a little ho-hum...

-Kylan

Torn between digust and morbid fascination, I think was the effect I was going for - so thank you, Sarg and Kylan, for letting me know it worked . Erm...Kylan - the first stanza is actually about eating oranges (as in: the flesh is what used to be the ovary of the flower, and the seeds that I've swallowed are the zygotes, ahem) - and this was done so that I was making a point about BOTH vegetables and meat. But I fully get what you're saying about eggs - yeah, they're gross if you think too much about them. Chewing sunlight was about finding the only alternative energy source (I'm thinking rather scientifically, here) - weird, I know, and maybe not as strong as it could be. I'll probably delete the omnivore bit in my own copy; I wasn't very attached to it, either.

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Fighting Form - really, really enjoyed that. Nice and intimate and soft, very nice stuff. The only thing I would mention is, find another way to say

the dog-eared corners of
the night

because it steals from the brilliance of

and firewood red daubs the ears
of clouds, listening to our echoes

and that is truly a shame, because that image is stunning.

Good stuff.

Thanks Jiggity - I will change it as requested .

Hi, Navita!

I like the theme of "Opus 10 No. 3", though I think you could have pulled it off more delicately. I don't mean the poem itself, because I like it that this is rougher and harsher and different from the usual piano stories, but more like the text. Basically, I mean that some of your images and word choices were quite ordinary, like "he/frets over every note" and "head moving side to side"... it's often the problem when you're writing about something you see at the very moment; it often becomes too narrating. Personally, I'm not a fan of the mention of his name in the beginning, I would have liked it if it was just "he". I feel like naming the characters in your poems takes away the certain mystery, and I think there should always be a tiny barrier between a poem and its reader. But this poem was quite a clever one too

I like the imagery in "Snapshot". I especially like "I/will hand you this sonatina", "watching me paint the afternoon", and even though it's simple, "The windows are almost clean". It is slightly disjointed, but oddly I feel like the title fixes it all by itself. If you're going to change the poem anyway, by all means do it, but if it wasn't for the disclaimer, I wouldn't have thought anything wrong with it since it's called what it is. But if you do change it, I'll be interested to see the result!

Keep writing and I'll keep reading


Demeter
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Thanks, Demeter! And yeah, when I'm a little more sane, I'll redo Opus 10, No. 3 - it's definitely rather cliche right now. Glad you liked Snapshot - and I'll likewise keep reading, too!

I enjoyed this, because, though you didn't really hook us to begin with, you did you job in picking me up mid-poem, and carrying me to the end. The first stanza is a little weak. I think that you mentioned that in my poem To Marie, several of my images are too stiff and scientific for the kind of poem I am writing. In this first stanza, I think the problems are the same -- quantum, alveoli, cobalt (what is cobalt anyway? ) Just the feeling of the first stanza is kind of average. I don't get anything from it.

However, you totally nail it with the second and third stanzas. I love mentions of both blackberries and music in poetry. I love these lines:

palms stained with the lust of purple
afternoon

I lie beneath the bulging map of eve,

hand fluttering in the heart-
-breaking regions of the sky

Good stuff. There are a few tweaks I think you could make though. I don't like the piano having a waist, and it feels like there's something wrong with the opening lines of stanza two. I checked wikipedia to see if farmed blackberry patches are called "orchards", because I'm pretty sure orchards are only for trees. Not only did I find out that the word orchard works just fine in this context, but that Oregon (the state I live in) is the leading world producer of blackberries! Which actually doesn't surprise me all that much. We've got a lot of blackberries. Anyway. I don't like the use of the word "splay" -- I think you could choose a more exciting word in this case. Blackberry vines are so describable! Drowning tongue of the day...meh. Does its job I guess.

Keep up the good work!

-Kylan

Your descriptions are phenomenal: both exhilarating and unexpected. They are so convoluted, however, that sometimes I felt lost reading them. There was a gorgeous intensity, to be sure, but it felt a little overstuffed with heavily described images; also, you played with syntax/vocabulary a bit too much sometimes. In spite of the negatives, I still loved this. You had very strong elements, like the aforementioned descriptions, and there was a luscious quality that you captured well. So really, great job!

Thanks for sharing this with us, but I do hope you'll tweak it a bit for clarity.

–antimelrose

>>Kylan - Hmmm...I think you're right about the scientific stuff in the first stanza; on second thought, it was just in there for fun, and doesn't really have the effect I wanted, which was that of absolutely being crushed in water, almost dying for air, heart hammering; kind of sounds quite clinical and therefore distanced right now. Thanks for looking up blackberry orchards - I had no idea whether that was correct, actually. I'll work on rewording...

>>antimelrose: I'm not sure if you've had a read of my earlier poems, which are very different to this one - I was GOING FOR the overboard effect here - 'convoluted' sounds about right; it was meant to be overpowering and crushing and suffocating because of the topic in question (desire/love) - so thanks for telling me it worked! If you want clean-cut poems, check out the others on this thread.

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I absolutely love Ice Skaters, particularly that last line. Lovely ending to a lovely little poem. Well done *goes to look up Ted Kooser*

Kylan wrote:In this first stanza, I think the problems are the same -- quantum, alveoli, cobalt (what is cobalt anyway? )

Cobalt is a beautiful blue (or red, depending on your rxn!) element that I kind of accidentally poisoned myself with once.

Your stuff makes me want to know French, btw.

Thanks Bubbles and Snoink!

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