Posthumanism / Dark

Ok brother, my first review in a while so i had to pick a good piece, i found it. First of all the way u capture setting is dope, its very last of us vibes. You dont see fictional poems very often so im all there for it, and i love that at first it seems soley based on setting but you snuck in a ton of good emotional lines to help me FEEL the setting with more than just senses. but i wont waste ur time and gas you up too much! Every good poem can be made better, so let me tear it apart for ya

You have some lines that are just absolute bangers but would hit even more heavy if you cut out some filler words that you seemed to be relying on? I do it way too much, its like a comfort thing to keep inflection from being to harsh, that i dont usually dont realize. Like if im talking to the bro i will say "im kinda over it" Instead of "im exhausted". But obviously a poem shouldnt have too too much room for conterproductive language. So, in ur piece specifically, i ran thru it and took out most instances of " the" and it felt alot stronger, (to me at least) check it out;

Sounds of whistling chain-link gates
scraping across pavement
and distant whines
of crushed metal.

&

through winding
city streets, great hollow
girders, footpaths with iron grooves
and rain-silvered asphalt casting
digital shadows:

Another filler i think you used once or twice too much was "you" but thats up for debate. The first you is essential but some of the other ones can get lost without harming the narrative aspect of it, for example;

Move not to live, not to feel
(Also could lose the but in this)
&

Leave your footprints in the darkened city, Move slowly in the darkness
(Sidenote nitpick: darkened and darkness are clashing, they arent friends in this stanze)(same with cold and cold in another part and flesh and flesh in another)& (truth&truth) (was the repitition intentionol? I wasnt sure. If so i dig it, maybe introduce the concept sooner in the poem?)

Also, its safe for me to say that theres some minor bloat not just in filler words but in the adjectives. Another thing im guilty of too, especially when writing a setting i can really really feel and i get over zealous with the descriptions (not that you are giving too many details, hear me out) . i will feel my way thru a paragraph, moving the perspective as little as i can in order to squeeze in as many descriptive words in as i can fit without breaking the english sentence formula, adverbs on every verb and adjectives to every noun, stacking them whenever i can, and adding lots of ands when i think of good words that didnt quite fit in the last line. Often putting words together because i think theyre pretty and want to utilize the formula of an english sentence to its max capacity, and not because theyre essential to the composition. Essentially prioritizing the sentence/line over flow, if that makes sense. At best it comes out as a dense piece of EAP or frost style poetry, at worst your poem is full of redundancy and dead weight and tough to read. U have alot of perfectly (perfectly) selected words that are making ur piece fly, mixed with some weaker links in between that arent holding the quality together. Some words that could b weighing you down: shimmering, strange or slowly(big if though, because it was a really pretty callback), crackling

whatever you delete dont get rid of : iron, veil, horizon , despairing, ancient, the entire first stanze

For the actual metaphor i cant say i fully understood the concept , which isnt a criticism as much as a note. Many good poets are evasive with their intention which i think youve succeeded with, its unclear to me what some of the lines mean or whether the "character " is actually dead or just obsessed with death. Either way, tone was set masterfully, i like the structure of your stanzes, it has great bones.

and i hope ya keep writing and keep improving! Xoxo

Ok brother, my first review in a while so i had to pick a good piece, i found it. First of all the way u capture setting is dope, its very last of us vibes. You dont see fictional poems very often so im all there for it, and i love that at first it seems soley based on setting but you snuck in a ton of good emotional lines to help me FEEL the setting with more than just senses. but i wont waste ur time and gas you up too much! Every good poem can be made better, so let me tear it apart for ya

You have some lines that are just absolute bangers but would hit even more heavy if you cut out some filler words that you seemed to be relying on? I do it way too much, its like a comfort thing to keep inflection from being to harsh, that i dont usually dont realize. Like if im talking to the bro i will say "im kinda over it" Instead of "im exhausted". But obviously a poem shouldnt have too too much room for conterproductive language. So, in ur piece specifically, i ran thru it and took out most instances of " the" and it felt alot stronger, (to me at least) check it out;

Sounds of whistling chain-link gates
scraping across pavement
and distant whines
of crushed metal.

&

through winding
city streets, great hollow
girders, footpaths with iron grooves
and rain-silvered asphalt casting
digital shadows:

Another filler i think you used once or twice too much was "you" but thats up for debate. The first you is essential but some of the other ones can get lost without harming the narrative aspect of it, for example;

Move not to live, not to feel
(Also could lose the but in this)
&

Leave your footprints in the darkened city, Move slowly in the darkness
(Sidenote nitpick: darkened and darkness are clashing, they arent friends in this stanze)(same with cold and cold in another part and flesh and flesh in another)& (truth&truth) (was the repitition intentionol? I wasnt sure. If so i dig it, maybe introduce the concept sooner in the poem?)

Also, its safe for me to say that theres some minor bloat not just in filler words but in the adjectives. Another thing im guilty of too, especially when writing a setting i can really really feel and i get over zealous with the descriptions (not that you are giving too many details, hear me out) . i will feel my way thru a paragraph, moving the perspective as little as i can in order to squeeze in as many descriptive words in as i can fit without breaking the english sentence formula, adverbs on every verb and adjectives to every noun, stacking them whenever i can, and adding lots of ands when i think of good words that didnt quite fit in the last line. Often putting words together because i think theyre pretty and want to utilize the formula of an english sentence to its max capacity, and not because theyre essential to the composition. Essentially prioritizing the sentence/line over flow, if that makes sense. At best it comes out as a dense piece of EAP or frost style poetry, at worst your poem is full of redundancy and dead weight and tough to read. U have alot of perfectly (perfectly) selected words that are making ur piece fly, mixed with some weaker links in between that arent holding the quality together. Some words that could b weighing you down: shimmering, strange or slowly(big if though, because it was a really pretty callback), crackling

whatever you delete dont get rid of : iron, veil, horizon , despairing, ancient, the entire first stanze

For the actual metaphor i cant say i fully understood the concept , which isnt a criticism as much as a note. Many good poets are evasive with their intention which i think youve succeeded with, its unclear to me what some of the lines mean or whether the "character " is actually dead or just obsessed with death. Either way, tone was set masterfully, i like the structure of your stanzes, it has great bones.

and i hope ya keep writing and keep improving! Xoxo

UNDERRATED POET ALERT
if I could just skip forward a few years and have a degree in marketing I would partner with you.
This one is a little harder to understand. I think combining some of the lines would help, like

You move
But not to live
Not to feel

Or whatever
Plz keep it up
much <3

Hi Glauke,

Mailice here with a short review!

I'm not so good with reviews in the direction of poems , but I'll give it a try, since I liked your piece of poetry very much.

Your first paragraph is a very good introduction. You can put yourself directly into this dark cloudiness and at the same time you ask a very philosophical, exciting question. There are certainly as many answers as there are individuals on earth.

You inhabit your body
and float above it.

You move
but not
to live,
not to
feel.

For you, this after-life is like death:
passive and haunting,
the sound of whistling chain-link gates
scraping across pavement
and the distant whines
of crushed metal.