Autotonomy and Apoptosis

Hello!
I'm here to save your poem from the green room. This will be my 250th review with which I get my fifth star! Yaaay! *confetti*

So I looked up the words, and even though I know exactly what Autotonomy is (I have a gecko that can will do it if you mishandle his tail), I didn't know the word for it. I still can't say I completely understand Apoptosis, but from what I understand, it's basically a cell committing suicide. I love sciencey poems, because yes, these things are really poetic if you think about them. You also taught me the term "lysis."
yay learning!

Okay.
This poem was genius.

I have absolutely no qualms with the content of it: you related these scientific terms (that seem to lack pertinence to love) to your subject in such a flawless, seamless manner that I forgot to look for mistakes.

Here are the problems I found, they're mostly little:

turn cheek to the end of you

This phrasing seems a little awkward. What does "the end of you" mean? Perhaps the narrator isn't going to see this person again?
But it sounds like they're staying, especially with the "I'll wither with you here" part.

biology itself says there
must be death for there to be growth.

I thought this line break here was a little awkward.

the last kiss you pressed into me

too much of you

These lines seem to flow together great, but you separated them, both in space, and in the fact that one is italics. Why?

it seems my body cut it away,
its only reflex to stop the pain

I think I'm having a problem with that comma, or maybe with the second line. Something here seems off, and I'm not smart enough to pick out what it is. :p

the growing back

I think this might sound better if it was phrased differently? It's pretty okay the way it is now, but it was a stumbling block as I was nearing the end.

Speaking of stumbling blocks, those bold words make this poem feel like two separate poems, when they go together quite nicely. I can see why you'd maybe want to have a larger separation between the two, but right now they literally look like two poems. Maybe de-bolding it and putting a colon or a dash or something would give you the effect you want?

Anyway, the way in which you included these scientific concepts was perfect. A++ (two plusses for paying attention in class, not three because you were probably distracted by poetry XD )

I really really liked this though.
Great job~

Hi there! Noelle here to review as requested.

Sorry this review is a bit late. Life and all that, ya know? This is going to be a long review, just to warn you :3

I can't decide if these two poems are supposed to be related or not, so I'm going to assume their not. Just so I can keep my review separate and not waste time trying to compare them if they weren't meant to be compared. Correct me if I'm wrong Let's get started!

Apoptosis
Just so I'd understand, and because my vocabulary is a lot more limited than it should be xD, I looked up the word apoptosis on google. The definition I got is "the death of cells that occurs as a normal and controlled part of an organism's growth or development". Makes sense enough to me. Expect some intense title analysis later on

it seems so cold
to turn cheek to the end of you but
biology itself says there
must be death for there to be growth.

First thing I notice is this. All of the lines start with a lowercase letter. Not really that important of course, as capitalization isn't a rule of poetry. One can use all lowercase or all uppercase. It doesn't matter. As long as you get the right image out of the poem. What I'm curious about though, is why the very first word isn't capitalized at least. A part of me wants to tell you to capitalize it because as of now, it just seems like the middle of something else. A capital letter would clue me in that it's the beginning of something. *shrugs* That's the way I see it.

it seems so cold

I don't think the 'so' is needed here. The image you're trying to get across here is that this idea is cold, dark, rude even. Adding the 'so' gives it an image of being not quite what you're trying to get across. You know what I mean? For example, saying 'the room is empty' is so much different than saying 'the room is so empty'. The first one really emphasizes the fact while the other kind of dances around the description.

to turn cheek

To be honest, I'm a bit confused about this part. Does this mean the same thing as "Turn the other cheek"?

says there
must be death for there to be growth.

This could be a great paradox. "There needs to be death in order for there to be growth". However, adding in here that biology says this takes away from the effect. It's something that is said, something that is absolute. There's no reason for us to even consider thinking about it. Without the part about biology though, it makes us really think. Can there really be growth after death? Shouldn't it be the opposite? Does this really make sense? There is so much that we could be thinking of, considering at this point. Linking this statement to biology though, takes away that affect. I'm a bit torn saying this though, because the poem seems to heavily lean on biology since the title is a biological term. So it could actually be very important to have "biology itself says" in there. Either way you write it, it's a good paradox. I just think it'll work better on its own, minus the part about biology.

and didn't we know, already

I like the word order here. It's always interesting to analyze the word choice of a poem. It adds to the speaker's tone and our overall understanding of who the speaker is exactly. This line makes the speaker seem more proper than a random guy/girl on the street. How many of us say "and didn't we know, already" instead of 'and didn't we already know'? It's a subtle clue, but it really gets me thinking about who the speaker is. I'm guessing that they're someone older and more sophisticated. Maybe even a biologist.

Ah, so now the poem has taken a different turn. Interesting. It's become more about relationship than a statement about biology. It's a pretty interesting turn. You set us up with he title and the first two stanzas, making us think that we're going to read a poem about biology. By the third stanza however, even from the first line, we understand that that is just a cover. The real subject of the poem is this relationship that the speaker has with his/her lover. Or ex-lover as it seems.

Why is it that the last stanza is in italics? Just like the capitalization bit, it's not really something that needs to be fixed. It just leaves me wondering what is so important about it that it needs to be in italics. Could it possibly be dialogue? Maybe the thoughts of the speaker? Just wanted to mention that.

The last two lines are actually quite ironic, now that I read through it again. Here I was thinking that the speaker was thinking back on the sweet memories they had with their lover and would be wanting that feeling back. Then the last stanza reveals that their lover was nothing more than killing them. Figuratively of course

The title is quite relatable now that I've read it through. First off, it gives off that biology feel. It's a word used in biology that makes it fit the first few stanzas that focus on biology. It's that way connection that sets up the turn halfway through.

The title also seems to be a symbol in itself. Apoptosis is cells dying as something grows. That represents the idea of the speaker's idea of loving their ex-lover dying within them. It's a nice connection between life and love and biology.

Autotonomy
I do believe that you meant 'autonomy' (I couldn't find autotonomy on Google...)

There's a lot of good imagery in this poem. It's completely different from the first poem. All the imagery brings the feeling of loss and pain to life. That's always important, as I'm sure you know. There seems to be more of a story here, an idea of what the speaker is going through.

wriggling against a pale floor
my heart
thrashes

A quick nitpick here: 'a pale floor' should be 'the pale floor'. The spacial setting is just too vague at this point. 'a pale floor'. Which pale floor? Where is this pale floor? Does the speaker even know themselves? I feel like if I was lying on a pale floor, I'd explain it as the pale floor. At this point, the setting is just too vague.

I really like the different types of lines you use in this stanza; parsing lies mixed with annotating. They're the two least stable lines of the three (end stopped being the most stable). They really fit the feel this part of the poem is trying to relay. Not only is the speaker's heart racing, but it's thrashing. That's brutal. Having that annotated line there at the end emphasizes the word 'thrashing'. It really brings out that intense feeling.

One thing about this poem though is that there's only three pieces of punctuation in it. Usually I wouldn't comment about punctuation because it's all a personal preference of the writer, really. And it's not especially needed in every poem. However, I feel like you could really play with the pace here. The way you split the lines in the first stanza creates a sort of rhythm. But where is it in the rest of the poem? The other stanzas are less impressive than the first. I'd love to see it all match up, to see that sporadic, desperate feel from the first stanza in the rest of the poem.

Overall these are good poems. The more I read them, the more it seems that they seem to be linked together. Like I said, I'm not completely certain so I'm going to leave that part alone. Very good job with these. They were very nice to read.

Keep writing!
**Noelle**