Young Writers Society

What a colourful juxtaposition there, friend

And I mean in all ways. This poem is so demanding I had to read it through a good four times before I felt satisfied enough to review it, and not nearly enough to feel satisfied that I've truly read it. So forgive me if this lacks the depth this poem needs.

That being said, wowza.

There is something oddly comforting about the second stanza. Possibly the language, the use of explicit words. I can get behind the second stanza possibly through how humanizing, if not vulgar, the language is. Familiarity can be an odd tool to play with, especially when the familiar hangs on feelings and experiences not usually expanded upon. It's comforting, but not really comfortable, and I really like that about this stanza.

The first is painful. Bold and real. Nothings getting hidden there and the rawness makes it very hard to digest. However, some of the language in its rawness is rather basic. Concepts like the bright and beautiful, etc. I like this and yet there is a part of me that feels I probably shouldn't, so take that with a grain of salt. I'm not sure if I think I shouldn't like it because I don't or because I've been told not to and thats not the kind of advice you nor I would want.

So what I will say is I liked this. I liked the bold and the familiar. It's a beautiful working of the two.

~ Walker

Ahhh <3

This poem is a full frontal attack.

At first, shock and a kind of horror like a slap to the face. It is the things we wished we said out loud, right? Laid out so plainly and unapologeticallly, for that I love its brevity and stark language and form. It is engrossing in its conflict here to where it begs a closer look, and what I see is a recollection of a memory where one example served to be enough for this narrator as if to say, "this" -- "this here is what I've had to put up with", and putting up with seems to be the takeaway(?) at least in that we're left hanging with the conflict. Just serving to depict it as it is and that's what I love about this poem because by bc doing so, we're able to pick up on pieces and strands that seem to transcend even the narrator's intentions and tha is hyper cool.

For me, the real sting becomes the lack of REAL communication. Differences in ideals and perspectives and neither narrator nor father validating the other's point of view, it is just there, it just exists in contrasts without resolution and it stings.

My sympathies are made to align with the narrator outright, and it does so succeasfully. We fall into his ideals that are treated and even told to us with beauty and warmth, and the second part negates his existence, doesn't it? It is relatable and we sympathize. your mama, like a fault/ "when you was born", again, like a fault and out of no where with little acknowledgment to what was so eloquently said previously.

The narrator tries to be inclusive, gazing out to the mountains "look father", and what hurts is that his father is NOT really looking out to what is right in front of him, but backwards to some buried past. It is clear upon second reads that the father is hurting too. The narator acknowledges so briefly, contained in one line, as though he sees his father's tragedy but likewise, like father, like son he's not really LOOKING he points it out to us: a recession (and there may be subtext of affairs? Or at least unhappiness in marriage) but caught up in his own values (and slighted by his father's words) it's chalked up to "country ignorance" deserving of his circumstances due to lack of knowledge/understanding or just lack of trying to pull himself out of it or both, but as readers we can't feel the blame or whether or not he is deserving because it remains unexplored in the poem. So I am torn by that. I hardly want to sympathize with a character who says tits and shit, and I don't in this poem, but I do want to further understand this character and I don't in this poem, but I think there's purpose in that.

So yes, hardly a critique, but maybe helpful in other ways I hope.

~ as always, Audy

hello hello hello,
let's jump right into this.

The first thing one notices is the narrator's ostensible aversion to actuality, which intrigues me immediately because I'm a sick romantic. They've been portrayed to have picturesque ideals, and it makes me wonder why they're pondering this life with 'you' in the first place. Is this a case of love in spite of conflict of interests? Is this a relation being arranged without choice? Is this the spiteful criticism of a foe?
I'm not sure I fully understand the bone-knuckled part- I've heard of knuckle boned, but this you'll have to break down for me later.
I'm very fond of this particular character because of their lovely description of the mountains. I'm resentful of the lack of nature admiration in contemporary poetry. Artists appear to have collapsed so far into themselves that their view of the simpler aspects of this world has turned foggy. Anyway, I commend you for that.
We arrive at the second verse and now I wonder if 'you' is the father of the narrator. I won't attempt to pretend I've comprehended this work to its infinitesimal intricacies. I like the mention of tobacco gum recession- vulgar, but it gives good support to and solidifies the 'country grown ignorance'.
The parallel between the glory of nature and that of the human body never grows old. It's a unique stamp when expressed by the uncultured tongue of this country goose, refreshing because his intentions surely aren't to be quoted in poetry.
It's not uncommon for fathers to be bitter about not being the only object of a woman's affections anymore- most children are too smothered in love to notice, but hey, not everyone can thrive in sugarcoated niceties.
I dig the country English, by the way (is it just me or does complete disregard for language laws make people even more interesting than they already are? of course, in this case we're talking about someone who probably didn't have the opportunity to learn)

It tried very long to muster something that will actually be of help in this review, but didn't really succeed.
Just for the sake of nitpicking though,

...bone-knuckled and dry
and eternally robbed of...

...your mama used to too but she...