Young Writers Society

This is Nikayla here dropping in for a review!

So I came here to disagree. That's the main reason I clicked on your title. I'm actually a fan of the Beat Generation, though I won't have a bias towards the poem for that. I'm not a fan of the poem all that much for a different reason. Obviously the reference to William Blake is the poet, though other elements of this poem seem to touch on or focus popular subject matters and ideas of the majority of Beatnik poetry. I do wish this poem took more of an importance on structure and the overall aesthetic. Sure, most people wouldn't notice these aspects if it were read aloud or if it were a spoken word poem, though it's not. At least, you haven't claimed it to be.

I can't tell if you're in favor of punctuation or if you're not in this poem. The most I have to say is to be consistent with those aspects. Those are more technical. It's a stylistic choice of if you want to use exclamation marks and commas and not periods, though you still have to be consistent with that decision. In this form, I've found it a little hard to read, though it isn't that harmful to the overall perception of the content since this is a short poem. On the other hand, if this poem were longer I do think that the neatness of this would be a problem. At the same time, general polishing definitely wouldn't do harm.

I guess if your intention for this piece was to speak your mind about Beat Generation poetry (which is pretty obviously what it was), then I suppose you've succeeded, though I would have liked to see more references to the more popular Beatnik authors. Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, and even Charles Bukowski can even be considered Beat poets and I'd like to hear what you have to say on them in this poem if you've read any of them. There's only one name drop here, which is a little sad because I would have liked to hear more about that. I have to say that the three last lines are ones that impressed me to an extent with the phrasing used, so nice job on that.

If you have any questions, don't be afraid to ask! I hope I helped and have a great day!

Hey Werthan! Becca here for a quick review.

It's time this piece finally got a review. It seems like you have a lot of feelings about Beatnik poetry. You seem to be mocking the elements Beatniks use(d) in their poetry, namely, anti-depressants, self-harm, and swearing. You mention William Blake, one of the great Romantic era poets, "rolling in his grave" saying he would be sad to see the state of poetry of the Beatnik era. You end this piece sardonically saying Beatnik poets should stop these trite, cliche tactics, both in their work and in their lives.

It's wild how you're saying so much in so little space. I wonder if you could offer a more robust critique of the genre. You seem to have a lot of feelings, how scathing could you make this review, using a bit more substance?

Obviously your call as the author. Keep writing!