z

Young Writers Society


E - Everyone

tattoo golem

by Lavvie


he moulds me
with liquid clay
Maharalian hands zinging skin
sharp erasure
of impurities invisible

needle & ink
fill spaces
between cloven vertebrae
crevassed & sore
slouched in a pyrrhic past

better remembered
on an organic canvas
where alephs are carved
in pretty disguise, grit wrinkled
in hues of tradition

red wet corporeal confetti
salute a battered body
revalued, ink-stitched
hailing solid resurrection
& whole love

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621 Reviews

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Sun May 31, 2020 9:18 am
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Rook wrote a review...



Hey Lavv!
This is a lovely poem! I love the sounds of the words and the scattered images that I'm given! It's really cool!
I think the main critique I have to give is just that this feels like it's like... a single step too abstract for me to understand what you're saying/what your point is. If all you're getting at is some nice word sounds and disparate images, then you've done it, but I get the feeling there's some story, some meaning here that I'm just not grasping. Maybe it's because I'm dumb or distracted or something, but this feels like it is probably super meaningful to you but because I'm not you, I can't understand it.

As far as I can tell, this is a poem from a golem's perspective about being made, and also getting tattooed. I don't understand the last stanza at all, but it feels significant. I'm also pretty sure this is a metaphor for something, but I can't really tell what at this point. I'm struggling to picture a tattoo working on clay as well, so I start getting really confused at the break between the first and second stanzas. Also, I have a guess for what the 3rd stanza means (especially the first two lines) but I'm really struggling to grasp its full meaning/significance.

I just want more clarity, I suppose D;

There are also quite a few words that I had to look up, and I wasn't able to find a definition for "Maharalian" or even "Maharali" or "Mahara". Needing to look up words can be good someimes, but I kind of feel like 3 (I also had to look up pyrrhic and alephs) is too many unless the poem is about hard words/looking up words/language/being multi-lingual/etc. Which this poem doesn't really seem to be? I like your use of pyrrhic and Aleph here so I guess I'm suggesting that you change "Maharalian" to something else.

Anyway, I hope this was helpful! I really did enjoy reading this, it was just on a deeper analysis that I struggled to understand it.

Best,
fort




Lavvie says...


ahhhh the absolute last thing I want to do is confuse people so this review was really helpful. "scattered images" wasn't what I was going for - I was hoping that the continuation of the golem imagery would kind of weave a common thread so I used language like "Maharalian" (according to legend, the Maharal of Prague was the one who created the golems) and "alephs" (which activate the golem or deactivate if removed). maybe a bit of a stretch? idk

as for what I was thinking when I wrote this: it falls under my NaPo theme of self-love, especially pertaining to my body. in a way, the golem is me and the tattoos ("liquid clay"; "zinging skin"; "alephs are carved"; "ink-stitched") are a reinvention of myself, allowing me to finally see the beauty in my body. the last stanza speaks to this directly ("red wet corporeal confetti" meaning the blood that is drawn during a tattooing session & the "salute a battered body" line is referring to the fact that these tattoos are reinventing (or revaluing, as I write in the poem) how I view/appreciate myself.

essentially, in this case the Maharal of Prague is actually the tattoo artist recreating my body through art and thus helping me actually appreciate my body with positivity

I'm sorry it wasn't clear :( I'll definitely keep this in mind as I revise this (which I am in the midst of doing so your review was well-timed)



Rook says...


ooh that's a lovely message! Unfortunately even with your explanation I struggle to see it in the poem. Usually in my poetry reviews I advise less narrative and more images, but with this I think I might recommend the opposite. Good luck in your revisions!



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Sat May 09, 2020 1:50 am
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Hijinks wrote a review...



Hello Lavvie! I here to review this beautiful poem!

I've never seen a poem before that uses "&" instead of "and", and I do find it intriguing. This is really a preference thing, but personally I don't feel like it fits the style of the poem; it feels a bit too ornate for how simply you've designed it. I almost feel like "+" would better fit into the poem - however, this is totally a personal opinion, and up to you as the poet, so feel free to disregard that comment.

sharp erasure
of impurities invisible

It could be that this is purposefully contradicting; how do you erase something that's already invisible, to begin with? I personally love it, as it made me actually focus on the words and think about what they were saying. But if that was an unintended contradiction, I thought I'd point it out so you knew it was there.

between cloven vertebrae

This is really just my own brain being silly, but "cloven" for me brings to mind "clover" (even though I am aware that it's completely unrelated). I'm not sure if other readers would associate it with clover, which might be momentarily confusing, and if so I would suggest changing it. It sort of drew me out of the poem, just for a moment, but it was a little jarring. It could very well just be me, but if other people experience the same thing, it would probably make sense to reword it, so as to keep the reader entirely in the poem.

Overall, I love your vocabulary. With words like "Maharalian", "Pyrrhic", "alephs", and "corporeal", it's a nice change of pace from words that the reader is familiar to. I also really love how you describe
red wet corporeal confetti

(which I presume is blood? forgive me if I'm wrong). It's so unique and unusual and feels really fresh, as does the entire poem, honestly.

That's it for my review, I hope it was helpful! I really loved this poem, and I hope my critiques made sense and were constructive.

Keep writing!

Whatchamacallit





i am neither a loose leaf nor do i like loose leafs. really, i am a piece of wide-ruled looseleaf paper
— looseleaf