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purity (defilement)

by spunkyspacekitty


(your) lipstick smudges (my waterbottle)
(your) lacey dress enwraps (my skin)
(your) prejudices spew forth (my words)

are the lines too blurred?

(your essence) corrupts its (my) environment
(your preferences) morph into (my) absolutes
(your emotions) break (my) resolutions

is reformity a necessity?

pernicious reverberations weave themselves
into mind blistering echoes.
they linger in dark crevices
unveiled by a cataclysmic intimacy

Is blood too thick of a bond?

(your) envenomed cloud smothers (my) ears
pricks (my) thoughts
obscures the bitter seed
(you) planted in a deep fracture
the roots (trapping) caressing my body,
the leaves (marring) enlightening my vision,
satiated by (my) dripping (altercations) appreciation

does purity require rebirth?


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Sun Jun 16, 2024 6:59 am
OrabellaAvenue wrote a review...



Hello!! This is Orabella, here with a short review. ^^

It's not as often as I'd like that I see poetry formatted in a wonderful way, so thank you for giving me such an amazing poem to look at, among the other things that make it wonderful.

First of all, some things I love:

The way the first stanza has 'your' in parenthesis is interesting, and it adds a cool second way to look at the lines. On one had, it's (at first) descriptions of ordinary things, but you emphasize it with 'your', which is one: an interesting thing to read and look at from the reader's point of view, and two: it sets up more of the poem later on, as the first half revolves heavily around the person the narrator is addressing. When later on you add 'your ______', it gets even more interesting with a different meaning. Before, the 'your' was kind of like an add-on, saying that oh, and also, this was yours. The way 'your ______' changes this in the second stanza makes it feel like the thing is yours, and is more direct and less like an afterthought. Which makes the whole thing more interesting and with so much more behind it than someone might think. (Maybe even the author, because I have a tendency to make up strange random theories about poetry that don't turn out to be true at all) That's all just to say, I really like the way this was obviously thought out, and has so much meaning that you just can't get from reading one time through.

I also love the vocabulary within this poem. I don't know as many words as I probably should, but I doubt many use "pernicious" in everyday conversation. I feel like this adds many more layers to the piece, and it also makes the poem a little less vague. (Which is another great thing you do here)

Keeping poems not to vague helps readers connect more deeply with what you're saying. If a writer was to say, "The roses are pretty," it's vague, overused, and not very interesting. If a writer can describe roses in a unique and unexpected way, this can better hook reader's attention. This is also something you do very well, so nice job hooking my attention!

The thing about vocabulary like this is that it can sometimes scare readers off if they don't know what it means and don't want to bother looking it up. It really depends on what audience you want to have on this poem, but if it's not people that would generally know a little more complicated words, you may want to replace them. (But if you like them, great! That's the most important thing you can do; make you like the poem! Don't bend it to what readers want)

Thank you so much for sharing this lovely work! I really enjoyed reading it, and I'd love to read any other poems, or stories, or really anything you have! Is there anything specific you'd like me to take a look at? I hope you have an amazing day, and don't forget to keep writing! ^^




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Sun Jun 09, 2024 4:14 am
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Que wrote a review...



Hi spunkyspacekitty!

Que here to review your poem. I read it straight through with all the words in parentheses as part of the line, and the italics just read in between each stanza. But, I'm sure there are other ways of reading it too!

(your) lipstick smudges (my waterbottle)
(your) lacey dress enwraps (my skin)
(your) prejudices spew forth (my words)

From your title, I thought it might be possible to read the words in parentheses separately, but although "lipstick smudges / lacey dress enwraps / prejudices spew forth" make a kind of sense together, I'm not sure that sense is different when "your" and "my" __ are added.

I thought the first stanza set a nice tone, though. The last line didn't quite fit together for me; it's a little different from the other two in subject, and I'm not sure how "your prejudices spew forth my words" works without a word like, "in my words" or "using my words."

are the lines too blurred?

(your essence) corrupts its (my) environment
(your preferences) morph into (my) absolutes
(your emotions) break (my) resolutions

I like the transition line in italics pretty well, I think it helps with the interpretation, though the next stanza is fairly clear as well! I like the direction you're going with this, and I like how you've captured this feeling of two people blending into each other in not always good ways.

is reformity a necessity?

pernicious reverberations weave themselves
into mind blistering echoes.
they linger in dark crevices
unveiled by a cataclysmic intimacy

One thing I might note, I'm not sure if "reformity" is a word? Maybe reformation?

There are a lot of cool images in this stanza -- "pernicious reverberations," "blistering echoes," "dark crevices" and "cataclysmic intimacy" are all strong phrases. But, I'm not sure what they all mean together. What are the echoes and reverberations mirroring? There's definitely a negative tone, but I'm not sure what it's referring to, exactly.

It's also interesting that there are no parentheses here. Does that indicate that these are the narrator's unfiltered thoughts, without the other person involved?

Is blood too thick of a bond?

(your) envenomed cloud smothers (my) ears
pricks (my) thoughts
obscures the bitter seed
(you) planted in a deep fracture
the roots (trapping) caressing my body,
the leaves (marring) enlightening my vision,
satiated by (my) dripping (altercations) appreciation

does purity require rebirth?

Here, I think your parentheses are doing a little more heavy lifting -- the (you) in the first and fourth line changes neutrality to accusative, and then the trapping/caressing, marring/defiling, altercations/appreciation set up a cool difference in thought.

I think that maybe you could ease the readers into this a little earlier in the poem, maybe you could slip in some parentheses usage like this in the second or third stanza? That might help build a little more progression to this point. It also might be interesting to introduce some of that plant imagery a little earlier, since it doesn't connect with much except for maybe the second stanza.

Overall, it would be cool to have a little bit more of a descent or growth throughout the poem -- I can see how things are changing, but it would be cool if it were just a little clearer stanza by stanza! If that makes sense.

I do really like the tone. You've woven together a lot of interesting imagery and stylistic decisions to make a dark little web, and I think it's very cool. The title sort of sets readers up for a positive (negative), and I feel like until the last stanza's efforts at a positive spin, the poem is mostly negative. It would be interesting to see some more elements of the "purity" side there for contrast!

Also, I think this is a cool way of depicting a relationship and the conflict someone might feel with the other person and also themself. It feels really interior in that same kind of dark, I want to say cluttered way (like a heart basement or something), it's just a really need mood and that's what I enjoyed most about reading!

Let me know if you have any questions. Keep up the good work!

-Q





A poet is, before anything else, a person who is passionately in love with language.
— W.H. Auden