the dancer

Okay, I suppose I'm here to become a fanatic of this poem, too.

First off, I want to applaud you for excellent imagery - and I thought 'the call' was stunning. The images in this poem absolutely blew me away. An especial favorite would have to be "her memories of thwarted desire/turning into a sensuous diversion", because that gives the dancer's movement meaning, and turns her into a very powerful metaphor that resonates throughout the piece. I won't say for sure what the poem is about, but it feels like a very infinite loneliness to me, searching for something more than an earthly existence, yet longing to return to the earth. Your images slowly build on each other, forming a world that houses this character, this dancer, and this loneliness and regret and longing as well, and it's all wrapped up quite nicely in the last two lines with that blunt statement.

I especially love the rhythm that you have going in the lines without having a truly set meter, because it feels like there's sense to it, and it's not just words thrown together willy-nilly. Each line, again, flows into the next as if they were always meant to be together and you just put them in place, which of course is never true when it comes to a great poem like this. It floors me, what you come up with, and I honestly, again, have no true critique. It's been an honor.

Sunshine from Team Plasma here to review! See, and I always thought of you as a Storybook person. It's nice to know you write very good poetry as well.

This poem, as entitled, as a very rhythmic flow to it. That's why I thought first it was a five-two-five-two-five-two stanza scheme, but on second looks (and feeling rather silly) I noted that I was wrong. It isn't a major throw-off, but whispering it to myself, I did notice a change in pace in the stanza that went to five to six. It mimics almost a stutter of a dance step, because the rhythm feels changed there. (I know squeezing in a line could also throw it off, so....)

Speaking of rhythms, the last line feels too real for the general dreaminess of the poem. It, like the five-line before it throws it off.

Getting out of my rhythmic nitpicks, the fact that you used the word 'eye' for what feels like a lot in such a short poem, though rhythmic flowing, is a bit disconcerting. I would love for eye to be associated with the dancer, as I think it would have an interesting connection with all the dancer's visual metaphors. Associating that with her, I'd like "when she catches an eye;" to use, perhaps, 'gaze' or something of that route.

This line (I apologize for not knowing how to quote box)

"or escape in the cold, harsh earth,"

is also a bit confusing for me as a reader. Cold, harsh earth is generally assorted with endings and the like, a general contrast to oceans and still-growing trees. I understand the darker connotations at the end, but that's still a pretty drastic change.

Overall, a great piece. Unlike the reviewer below me, I'm fond of no capitalization, and it moves well with this poem. Keep cranking them out!

Right off the bat, the must be capitalized, and other than that I only have issues with the flow. For example when you wrote "but no escape is found in the city's infamous brothel". I would suggest you change it to something like "but no escape can be found in this city's infamous brothel". Or maybe cut out the but completely, as the connection between the previous and last paragraphs seems to be one of comparison, not predicative. Other tha that it was a very interesting poem. It made me think of how first we tend to dream, than realize later in life that we were living the dream, and our memories stray into our desires. Good writing, our grammer was proper, and I hope to see more like this from you