MRussell Review

Review: Erin Wilson

I enjoyed reading your cento, “A Song for Small Souls.” It seems that it would be a fun exercise for a poet and a good way to learn to write poetry- reading, deconstructing and reconstructing the work of others. Your choice of lines in “A Song for Small Souls,” presented in conjunction with your poem titled “Abortion,” creates a powerful statement about good and evil and our own fallibility as humans. To create better flow, I would suggest crediting the original authors at the end of the poem, as is usually done in a cento.
“Abortion.” You are very brave. This is a volatile subject and your poem at first glance seemed a bit didactic with its strong UPPER CASE emphasis. Upon reading further, I realized that this was probably intentional. This poem reminded me of the Apollinaire calligram that we read in class; this is visual, concrete poetry. “Abortion” has a columnar structure and an emphatic, literal style. The satirical/ironic ending creates an epigram. There is rhyme in this poem, but, for me, it took several attempts reading it aloud to find it.
Thanks Erin!