Young Writers Society

Welcome back to another week with the Group Review! Some things have changed since the first time it was posted, so let's jump right into that. This is for everyone to come and go and for everyone to comment--this isn't to say that we won't be talking about it, just that our responses won't be always and won't be grouped together.

If you don't know the rules of the Group Review, we take a poem each week and discuss it together, with the permission of the author, of course. This week's poem happens to be Loss of Pulse by TheStormAroundMe. I'm going to give a fair warning now that this does have some content that may be considered to need a trigger warning since it is talking about what happened in Orlando as that is the main part of the poem.

Now that's out of the way, I highly suggest reading the poem if you haven't, because you won't be able to participate very well in the discussion if you don't!




Some questions to think about while reading and forming your response about the poem, ones which are also good to think about when reviewing in general:

Code: Select all

[b]What are your first impressions of the piece?[/b]
[b]What are your interpretations of the poem? What is the message?[/b]
[b]Which lines are the strongest and why?[/b]
[b]How much do you think it actually relates to the subject matter that it was written off of?[/b]
[b]What did you think of the ending?[/b]
[b]In the poem, did anything else stand out to you that wasn't mentioned?[/b]


Again, these are just some suggestions and the discussion doesn't have to completely follow them, because it definitely doesn't cover the whole conversation that can be had.

That being said, discuss!

What are your first impressions of the piece?

The title definitely catches my attention and I think a neat way to allude to death, a slow-er paced gentler way. Then the first stanza fascinated me in the trainwreck, horrified kind of fascination. I didn't really connect it to Orlando's shooting perse until after I've read the poem and looked at the description, however I do think it stands in for the general shock and emotions of violence we see on the news.

What do people think of the "redwashed landscape looked prettier in white" line? There is just this general element of horror and morbidness in the image for me, but it leaves me wondering in the end what the line does to me, and it reminds me of how a voice in the back of my head might cringe at the mess left in a crimescene. We just had a killer commit absolute horror and yet why are my thoughts revolving around how to remove the bloodstains from that lush carpet? I thought that aspect felt brilliantly raw and real.

What are your interpretations of the poem? What is the message?
The first stanza definitely pulled me in to the aftermath of the violence, the terror of just witnessing. The second stanza brought me elsewhere, to the moments before the event, or perhaps to the people dancing in the next club over, how it is just so sudden and can happen anywhere, which is the truly terrifying aspect of the subject.

The last stanza, I understood it as the narrator's own reflections and once again, the horrors of witnessing.


Which lines are the strongest and why?
Absolutely loved the line about the spines, tracing the spines etc. It blurs the line of certain art exhibition and crimescene horrors for me. The similarities and how uncanny that can be and what it says of our society.

How much do you think it actually relates to the subject matter that it was written off of?

Looking back, I can see how the dancing lines are a direct reference to Orlando. My first read-through, I interpreted it as general-shootings and the dancing lines as a general scene and statement of life elsewhere.

What did you think of the ending?
The recycling line was an interesting thought. I felt the stanza before it with the bodies was much more powerful and evocative!

In the poem, did anything else stand out to you that wasn't mentioned?

When the speaker says "I thought nothing at all" I can relate to that so acutely. You have ascene of horror and you want to care abd react and be horrified, but instead sometimes you feel nothing and you are numb to it all.

What do you guys think?

What are your first impressions of the piece?
What a beautiful, while at the same time heartbreaking tribute to the victims of the Orlando shooting. My immediate thoughts are that the poem painted a dramatic scene and placed the reader right in the middle of the action, there's not a lot of time to get acquainted with the setting and scene, we're just jumping straight in.

As @Audy noted, the title is attention getting while being a clever play on words indicating immediately to the reader we are dealing with a loss or death, while also referring to the Pulse Night Club.

What are your interpretations of the poem? What is the message?
The thing with tribute poems or elegies is that sometimes they are hard to get beyond being well just a space for mourning. This isn't necessarily bad at all, some of the most beautiful work is written in sorrow, but sometimes it's hard to get past that to anything else. I didn't feel like this poem was all about sorrow though, but the poem puts the reader in a moment of passion and excitement as well - among "The final breaths / of the dancers and lovers".

I think this poem is maybe pointing out the ordinariness of the moment before tragedy. These were real and ordinary people. In line 3 and 4 the speaker acknowledges that before the shooting they weren't thinking of anything "at all". A lot of analysis of tragedies and terrorist attacks, make them seem like something to be gawked at or something that seems remote or alien and out of the ordinary, but so many of the sensory details in this poem make this situation more normal

Which lines are the strongest and why?
I think the strongest lines in this piece are where the line breaks have given the poem a dual meaning. You do this in the last two lines "Can no longer hold them / Upright". But my favorite place with the interesting line breaks is in the first stanza here:

"Music over / Everything."

This is a double entendre, first I read it as the music is over (like the party is over, or if the music's a metaphor for life their lives are over) and then I read it as "music over everything" as in while all the shooting and chaos is happening there is still music (literally and figuratively) the world is going on as "normal" while this horrible event is taking place. I think these two simple lines really nail the themes of partying mixed with horror that are expressed throughout the poem.


How much do you think it actually relates to the subject matter that it was written off of?
The subject matter is all the way through the piece. After you read the title if you're familiar with the shooting, I think it'd be difficult to misinterpret or attribute to a different event.

What did you think of the ending?
I like the finality of the ending, it didn't feel like you left anything hanging, but was a complete thought. It certainly doesn't leave the reader with hope but I do like that there's not an extra image thrown in at the last second, it all seems to go together.

In the poem, did anything else stand out to you that wasn't mentioned?

There were really strong images throughout the piece, particularly in relation to color. I liked this thread that was carried throughout the poem to the color red - which is of course the color of blood, but also brings up references of anger and of passion - all ideas that are interlaced through the poem.

Interesting piece overall!

@Audy I had felt the same at first glance because it is more of a subtle piece when it comes to that. I also thought the line, "I thought nothing at all" was quite a powerful one in the poem. It gets across a message without having to be a whole stanza long--it's short and to the point.

@alliyah I actually noticed the play on words in the title as well and thought it added a lot of layers to the poem and it made me look for more subtle hints while reading.