fingers

Indie,

<3 Good to see you again. I'm just going to dive right into this, because yes!

First thing of notice, I love the way you write imagery. I feel you very easily can submerge/captivate your readers, as I felt so in-tuned in that first stanza, and also sad I didn't have a cup of coffee with me to snuggle into and enjoy this. Also, throughout the poem, though the first stanza in particular really struck with me, I for one enjoyed the experience.

The biggest complaint for me is dealing with originality, that's not really so much a complaint, so much as it is I expect something bigger and badder and better from you next time, because this was the tea and crumpets, and now I want your next poem to be the meal. I think previous reviewers have said this, and I've said this in reviews before, ALL writers are going to write about two things: they're going to write about 1) love and they're going to write about 2) writing. Likewise, that's what readers are going to end up reading, about love, and about writing. That doesn't necessarily mean that you can't approach these topics, because let's be honest, everything under the sun is old news. So what we do, what your contemporary poets who make money off this stuff are currently doing, is they're mixing things up, they're playing with our expectations and delivering something surprising. Because writing poems, let's be honest, they're all about the same thing, right? It's either celebrating the creative process of writing, the muses, the tranquility and all of that junk or it's trying to tackle the difficulties of writer's block. For the reader, the enjoyment of these types of poems are going to come from the margins of [i]how different[i] it is from what we're expecting.

I think I like this poem loads better from a lot that I've read that's tackled the subject thus far, because it succeeds in voice and imagery, and I very much felt the tangible elements and the struggles of this poem. I feel at home and I feel familiar and I feel comfortable, and those elements are not necessarily bad things. It just needs a bit of polishing, which I'll go over in a second.

Your first stanza: The keys click, not the fingers, unless you have arthritis. Though, I absolutely love the contemplation/philosophical element here of the "who came first, the chicken or the egg?" type. Nicely, done.

Second stanza: Wow, you make lightning/thunder storms sound like bells I thought that was pretty fun. I think this stanza just kind of echoes your first stanza though (which shows you just how powerful that first stanza is, because it communicates so much in so little) the lightning storm and the tapping of the keys, all of that was already said.

The next stanza, there's truth in it, but I'm not sure if "comfort in the unknown" is the way to put it. I think the reason we are more willing to allow strangers to criticize our writings (when we're so vulnerable) has to do with the fact that we know the strangers do not judge the writer, that is to say, us -- they judge the writing, and that's okay, because we want to improve our writing. But people we know, to expose ourselves so vulnerably, we're afraid they could judge us personally by the things that we write, that may or may not even mirror our own emotions on the subject. So, I that line about the comfort in the unknown just feels so weak when describing such a complex thing.

Your next stanza: :3 The images, the images, the images <3 So much luffles.

The following stanzas I kind of just nod along - it's more hypothetical questions, than the tangibles. I think the contemplation is good - just not anything new.

Your last stanza is a mouthful to say the least though. immobilize/fulfillment/utterance/revitalizing/viscera soooo many lullmavizing sounds. It takes a moment to focus on what the words actually mean.

I hope this helps in some ways. Tackle me if you ever want to chat this over, or if you've got a new work out. Your images/voice are enjoyable. Now, it's all going to be about the crafting from this time forward.

~ as always, Audy

Sometimes when we start out writing something, we just let it go. It feels good, and we want to keep writing, and we move from one feeling to the next, and we can’t go back because we are too busy going forward. The problem with this is that although we enjoy wandering along, it’s not really the most efficient way to communicate our emotions to the future readers of the work.

It’s often effective when we’re trying to write big papers to get it all in one flush at once. That way you’ve all your material in front of you, and you can go back to look at the sections and start working on organizing. This is where you are with your poem, now. We need to examine the pieces, examine the flow and purpose, and get it tighter. At least, that’s what I think will best help communicate these emotions to an audience. You can work with my review if you agree with me.

So, let’s go stanza by stanza.
To me, the first stanza sets the intended tone. We are going to hear a poem about writing and we are working with the images, sounds, and textures of rain and pavement. For me, this evokes a sense of closeness. That it’s not too far from the keyboard to the outside.

The second stanza seemed to want to continue with that. It keeps the storm imagery, bringing in more sounds and more feelings. I think, however, it’s that pattern I see and perform very often: we have a strong first stanza and don’t feel the same impulse to carry over into another, but we know we should try, so we do. It comes out weaker. It comes out a little forced. It opened with promise. I like “And for the storms -”, but I think it’s kind of narcissistic to say your creativity is your insanity. If that were what your poem focused on (trying to convince me you’re insane), I might buy it, but girl, you can produce coherent and poetic sentences, and I think you can grapple with the specifics of your existence in a more graceful way than calling it insanity.

And thennn we get way too meta. I guess I don’t like meta poetry, because it’s all familiar and it’s all been done before. We are writers and sometimes we want to write about writing, but when we do, it all comes out the same way. You feel protective of your writing and don’t want to say it to anyone but yourself in an empty room. Luckily, there’s something with promise near the end. You seem to say, “But this is the end point of all production. Why do I write if I don’t want to show anyone?” My voice brings my soul alive after typing it. I like this, and you can do more with it, but now it’s buried under pretty normal/cliched “I talk to my cat and I like tea” sort of thing. I don’t mean to be insulting, but it seems we all like tea and cats. And if we don’t, that’s fine, but we write about tea and cats a lot, don’t we. There is a ridiculous amount of tea and cats in writers’ lives.

Anyway, in closing, I’d recommend you try again. I’d recommend keeping your original impetus -- the storm imagery comparison – to carry your message, and skip the “I am shy” to go straight to “This is the reason words are put down at all: to shout them, to communicate”.

Of course, keep in mind that that’s only what I think would work for this poem. If you go through and dissect it differently, see a different avenue you feel is more pressing, I’d like to see your edits then, too! PM me with any questions or comments, please, and good luck! Keep writing.

This poem definitely has a pace about it. I would almost like to see you take more time with each image that you build, or only build one image in the poem. Right now we have several which can creep together and cause a little bit of confusion depending on how you're reading the poem, I think. I tend to read for tone, so for me, it was alright. Someone going for a more symbolic aspect might have a little harder time with this poem though. That being said let's get to the review, eh?

The first thing we are introduced to is the rain outside, and how it is coming down. I think this really works well and I almost wanted to yell STOP! That's a poem. Next~ just because of how well you resolved things. So, I am perfectly pleased with simply this stanza.

Next stanza, I would cut off the top line. There is no need to attach this to the last stanza because we already have the image of things raining-hard, so why do you need to remind us of this when you've continued with the complete thing? We can easily see this. I feel that insanity is a bit too strong a claim without anything to back it up. Insanity is a legal term and I would rather hear something less jail-birdy when the narrator is burying into something nice and warm to keep writing.

This next stanza, stanza three, is where we seem to be getting another image. This is an internal image within the cocoon of the narrator's chest, in the speaker's heart as it spews pussy words. For me, this was gross enough to fit with the jail-bird from earlier and tie things in nicely, but I am a little confused on how we got into the chest from out in the rain. The last stanza stopped with thunder, that's outside. Why are you making us jump right into the speaker's chest from the thunder? Is there a particular reason you ordered it thusly? Does the thunder, too, break through the cocoon of warmth? In this stanza we also have to travel around the world to where-ever we are because we are the strangers. It's quite a lot of distance.

I love the next two stanzas, you're back to the sweet, easy imagery that is all tucked close together.

The end, with all of the questions, is a little hard considering the questions stretch for lines at a time. Also not having "One" capitalized after the question mark is a little strange. These also seem to be introducing a new idea, suicide, and I feel like the rest of the poem doesn't really discuss this, or bring it up, so why is it that we're getting this here?

Personally, I'd just cut off the rest of the poem and keep it at the first stanza. It's absolutely beautiful. The rest of it doesn't quite match up to that stanza in my opinion and could use a bit of work. There also seems to be too many ideas in this one poem. I hope to see this split up into like, the first stanza as it's own poem, a poem about suicide, and a poem about using strangers to review things that are too personal.

This is the first poem I read at YWS, and I thought it was excellent. I am a little restricted on time but I'll try and put a few points down -

The use of enjambment was really well done, and served a purpose in the poem to make the words flow a bit more without me stopping to contribute to the structure. The imagery was really nice as well, I especially liked 'those vessels that drain her waning questions of existence?' it's thought provoking and at the same type, relatable.

You're quite similar to me actually, using a mix of viewpoints and pronouns to try and involve and engage the reader -it mixes it up a little bit and just makes an interesting poem.

Sorry it's really short, but I have to scad-addle out of bed at this pitifully late time

- h.