This Must Be The Placenta

This is Kaos here for a review!

At one point in time,
my face had a view
of downtown.

Jumping right into this, I liked the start of the poem but the "my face" feels awkward sitting there and I don't know if you intentionally made it that way or not, but I generally think that substituting it with "I" would have more power and impact behind it with the simplicity of it.

All I saw were dentist offices and thrift stores;
not to mention all the vulgar displays
of public urination behind the local bar,
because when a teen boy gets cat called
by a construction worker while a stream of water
provides background music,
there's no way you can't tell that to all your friends,
or at least an English teacher,
and let go all frustration you have
about the place you live.

We see that this connects to the first stanza and I didn't particularly like how the lines kind of dragged on and on, and I would have rather liked to see a period or two in the stanza. More about the flow here, the last four lines also feel a little awkward and could use some rewording. Moving away from the flow and punctuation of this stanza I thought that this gave off a unique feel that described downtown and what it feels like well. It captures something that people can relate to as well as working as a poem on its own as well.

There's nothing to do here.

I started watching French films in reverse.
If life starts with death and death starts with life,
then the plot will never change.
Amelie loses a relationship,
then Princess Diana dies,
and alone she sits on a plank
in her apartment.

We take a transitioning from the second stanza that I didn't really find to be that strong as the third stanza and the second don't really connect, but it is strong in that it shows that the speaker doesn't really care for the downtown area. We get the usual-Strange stanza from this and I liked the idea that you imbued in this stanza quite a lot actually with the insightful second and third lines. I'm also giving points for an Amelie reference, so props for that. The rest of the stanza carries on past the main gem in it and I don't mind that but it does feel like a bit of filler though it does give off more of an affect than not showing it or saying the last four lines.

The next three stanzas use repetition as well and they're mostly just standard-Strange to me though that doesn't mean that I dislike them for what they are. They tend to jump around a lot in their ideas as well as the poem in general because at this point we don't really have much direction towards what the theme of the poem is or why this is relevant to it. I like that the three stanzas all feel kind of random and similar though and that they have this sort of soft-but-powerful impact to them with it being minimalist, so props to you on that. At first it did feel a little out of place but eventually it helps set up the last stanza so I understood why it was there.

The second to last stanza is something that made me laugh with the joke that was put in there and I enjoyed how it tied in to the last stanza of the poem as well. We see that the ending ties itself back to earlier in the poem and I like how you wrapped it up bringing us back to that point. I loved the pun that you threw in there with the placenta and it's basically what sold the poem for me that you were able to tie it all together so wonderfully and with the sense of cleverness.

I hope I helped and have a great day!