Carr's Review of Sarah's poems 11-28

To: Sarah
From: Carr

Re: “Pa-Cee-If-I-Cee” & “The Sarah Spectrum”

Sarah,

There are some things I really like about “Pa-Cee-If-I-Cee”. The whole sea imagery is working for me very well, and I like very much those sections where it stands out: they seem to be four-line clusters – “It took me a long time…”; “I spent hours…”; and “I’ve never been sailing …” (this last one has six lines, but I think you could cut it down to four). Within those clusters I like the way the lines work, particularly “tinsel strewn, blue cellophane”; “calibrating my compass rose”; and “except under a blue sea of sheets.” I think it’s the specific details of those lines that drew me to them. And also the slight unusualness to them. I was hooked by the cellophane sea. I thought that was really cool.
OK. That said, many of the other lines here don’t do much for me. All the “And you know that I am leaving” business doesn’t ring as true. It doesn’t strike any chord within me. So I have two suggestions: First, I suggest you cut out all those lines where you use or refer to the word “you”. See how the poem reads without that commentary (that’s what it is). And second, try reorganizing your poem so that you start with the four lines of “I spent hours…”; then move to “I’ve never been sailing …”; then close with “It took me a long time…” You’ll probably want to add another four-line stanza or section, but try it and see how it sounds. I think it will give us an interesting feel. Very sea-ish.
Cool.

On to “The Sarah Spectrum”. If nothing else, this is a great title for a poem, and it plays right into the idea of color here. Nicely played. Right now the colors that stand out to me are hazel and tan. The hazel because you do a nice job of repeating that not only in the hazel stanza, but then again later, where you have your best image of the poem: “reflects … off the mirrored edifices.” I like the hazel.
I can’t say the same for the tan. Maybe because it’s such a neutral color, but I found its repetition clunky. Maybe you could go for the same color, but use some objects or images that will call forth the idea. I don’t know.
I also found the transition from stanza four to the “guitar” stanza harsh. Is there a way to hint at or even mention the guitar earlier, so that we are ready for it to appear again later? Think about it.
In the end, this is a poem that I don’t quite get yet. I really like the way that you close – the last two lines are strong, I think – but the poem isn’t leading up to that for me right now. It seems a little disjointed. So maybe work on making it a little more coherent – maybe even with a frame (I had to get that in there).

All right. I’ve really enjoyed reading your work this semester, Sarah. Take care and good luck at Goucher.
Peace,
Carr

Review for Sarah

Pa-Cee-If-I-Cee: I really like the image of the sea you have illustrated for us in this poem and the allusion to your own life. I really liked the lines "calibrating my compass rose / oxidized copper embellished with reds". The poem has good flow, much like the sea you have introduced to us in this poem. Whether you are speaking metaphorically about this desire to explore the vast sea, I am not sure, but I like the idea of self realization and the idea that although you have never been sailing you understand that everything is connected somehow "as vast as the sea"

The Sarah Spectrum: Let me start off by saying I love the name you gave this poem. I think it perfectly portrays the message you are writing about and also adds a personal touch and helps the reader to understand you more. All of the colors you have used have completely saturated the poem with bright and bold images. One of my part parts of this poem is when you describe blue as the color of his eyes and how "blue is something he will never make me feel." Not to sound corny, but I thought this part was really cute =) I appreciate the way you have taken color here and incorporated it into a mood/emotion.

Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong

I liked this chapter alot, it said a lot about human nature, when Rat talked about how young and naieve they were when they had first arrived and Mary Ann was the same way, naieve. I didn't find the story sexist at all, I found it actually the opposite, here was a young girl, barely seventeen in Vietnam getting her hands dirty, learning, adapting, becoming an equal despite her gender. I thought it was great how at the begining of the chapter the men were infatuated with her on a physical level and she managed to gain their respect as well as the respect of the 'greenies'. Of course the story seems completely unbelieveable, and maybe thats why I liked it, it relishes in the most unlikely and unbelieveable possibility and runs with it. It dosent matter though, you can never believe a true war story

review 10: Sarah Dillon

Pa-Cee-If-I-Cee has a good opener, "It requires patience", I wanted to read on for the explanation, for the lesson I expected to follow. (As a matter of personal taste, I think the beginning would read nicely without the second line, just as,"It requires patience/ to see beyond the sea".) I connected to this poem and liked it for my own reasons but I think anyone could appreciate the artful image at the center of the poem, "I spent hours searching all the maps,/ calibrating my compass rose,/ oxidized copper embellished with reds-/ and I wasn't making believe." This is such a strong image that I think it could follow the opener, as an example of the patience you mention, searching the maps and calibrating the compass patiently. You're hinting at a revelation, stepping back from or above the sea of events to make a difficult decision, you're leaving- that's my interpretation anyway. You're making the connections in the events that led you to your decision? "How all along it's been connected/ as vast as the sea." (An author, Neil Bowers, wrote that "Looked at in reverse, anybody's life seems inevitable"- it stuck in my head for some reason.) If that's what you're talking about, maybe you could explain the connections you made, the "you" in the poem. It's not so much important to me what the you's relationship is, boyfriend, parents, but I'd like to know whether you're leaving in the sense of leaving a relationship, leaving an era of your life, going on a journey, otherwise, or all of the above. I can't decide whether you're happy or afraid or sad or what. I'd like to know how you feel about leaving, how they feel about your leaving maybe, more explanation. I do like the fact that the vagueness the poem has now lends it to many different experiences but I think you can still maintain this with a little more explanation.
The Sarah Spectrum also has a nice opener, "the shag brown carpet itching my back". I like the color images, I went through to find a pattern but I didn't see one. There's a children's book called Hailstones and Halibuit Bones that goes through each of the colors and describes them with every sense, the taste of blue is blueberry pie, the sound of white is a whisper, etc. I know you're following the chronology of your life and life doesn't organize itself by color but maybe you could try to create a pattern. Maybe choose one color for each stage of the poem, childhood is yellow, adolescence is orange, etc. This might be too simplistic or it might be fun. Colors have so many associations. I like the lines "Blue is the shirt that makes him look oh so fine./ Blue is something he will never make me feel."

Pa-Cee-If-I-Cee & The Sarah Spectrum

Pa-Cee-If-I-Cee has excellent imagery, my favorite being the description of the sea as blue cellophane lined with tinsel. I like how it departs from the traditional description of the sea. I’m not sure exactly what the journey the poem is about, but its seems like a journey of both exploration (With the whole world to see) and a kind self discovery, acknowledging that one cant see the future as well as the whole feel of the poem, as if moving on or purposely breaking away from something. The entire poem has a calm introspective feel to it, as if the breaking was foreseen or inevitable but not necessarily painful. The last two lines of the poem speak to an interconnectedness that I think should be explored more in the poem, make every thing interconnected but hide it until the end.
In the Sarah Spectrum I love the use of color and in particular how it helps contrast, as it’s used in both a positive and negative context. I also like how the poem contains very personal emotions about two different people and also contains her feelings of a city and the people in it. I enjoyed the entire poem but particularly the repetition of all around, all around really stuck out to me, giving me an idea of vastness in the poem that I think otherwise would have been lost.

TTTC

First, I want to respond to what April was saying about The Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong. Yes, the girl is an idealized high school sweetheart. But isn't that the point? This is a morality tale about the insidious nature of war. It's as though O'Brien knew we would dismiss the young men's moral degeneration as somehow natural. Doing hard things, unspeakable things is part of becoming a man. There is this idea in our culture that men can be brutal when necessary, maybe we aren't too suprised to see these male characters behaving brutally. So he brought in this spotless innocent, this girl next door, to show us how once the war touches you, you're never the same. Sexist? Yes. But it works here, he's playing off of our notions of gender roles, certainly not reinforcing them. If anything, it seems this girl, set free from the social constraints of what a girl should be, becomes just as brutal and despicable as her male counterparts. So in this way, the tale is actually feminist. No matter how sweet and gentle you might be when you come to Nam, war makes you a monster, you end up wearing a necklace of tongues(which I thought was a nice touch, playing on the gender roles again). It's not supposed to be based on what happened, as he's said so many times, but what might have happened, how it felt.

This is the jist of Good Form (179). Earlier, in The Man I Killed (124), he is leaning over the body of a young man who he shot, inspecting the wounds and inventing the man's life, trying to absorb his role in the war, his responsibility for this death. Within fifty some pages he tells you "I did not kill him. But I was present, you see, and my presence was guilt enough." How fitting that a book about something as big as a war should come back to personal responsibility. The theme comes up again and again. There is a great passage in the previous story, In the Field, on page 177,
"When a man died, there had to be blame. Jimmy Cross understood this. You could blame the war. You could blame the idiots who made the war. You could blame Kiowa for going to it. You could blame the rain. You could blame the river. You could blame the field, the mud, the climate. You could blame the enemy. You could blame the mortar rounds. You could blame people who were too lazy to read a newspaper, who were bored by the daily body counts, who switched channels at the mention of politics. You could blame whole nations. You could blame God. You could blame the munitions makers or Karl Marx or a trick of fate or an old man in Omaha who forgot to vote."
A war is a big thing with many players but O'Brien always comes back to personal responsibility, the only actions you can control are your own. So in times of war, where do you put the responsibility, in god's hands? the politicians? the scared shitless kids fighting? From the beginning, O'Brien emphasizes the importance of individual choices. The Things They Carried- the soldiers choose what is most necessary to their survival. Choices make the man. He introduces each character by their choices: pantyhose, pot, tranquilizers. Already we know they are soldiers, they have made that choice (maybe agonized over it like the author but either way, decided to participate in the war).
In Good Form he says "I want you to know why story-truth is truer sometimes than happening-truth." And this is why: real life choices are never simple. They are not like a story, the characters' motives are not clearly delineated illuminating a certain hero and villian. In real life, standing by while a man is shot can make you a murderer. There are no heros or villians, and, especially when you're young, the meaning in all the muddle of choices doesn't come until later.
In book club we're reading another of O'Brien's books, Going After Cacciato, in which he describes a difficult march up a hill on a hot day. The main character, Paul Berlin is moving out of habit, knowing that he will not fight well when they arrive at the battle, not wanting to reach the destination, but telling himself that he will stop marching when he chooses. Then, he decides to stop, "The decision was made but it did not flow down to his legs, which kept climbing the red road. Powerless and powerful, like a boulder in an avalanche, Private First Class Paul Berlin marched toward the mountains without stop or the ability to stop." All the while he is being watched by his lieutenant who is admiring "the oxen persistence with which the last soldier in the column of thirty-nine marched, thinking that the boy represented so much good- fortitude, discipline, loyalty, self-control, courage, toughness. The greatest gift of God, thought the lieutenant in admiration of Private First Class Paul Berlin's climb, is freedom of will."
I don't know who chose The Things They Carried for us to read this semester but I hope that they were hoping the readers would take this message regarding the war and regarding their lives. Individual choices count. Each of us carries responsibility for the state of the world and our part in it.

Review: Pa-Cee-If-I-Cee and The Sarah Spectrum

The title of this poem, Pa-Cee-If-I-See, sounds like a nursery rhyme and caught my attention right away. The poem itself seems like a journey, a journey of self discovery and that ends with the realization of something that was previously unknown. The tone of the poem, to me, seems calm, quiet and with a bit of awe. There are some really nice images in here: "Tinsel strewn blue cellophane, oxidized copper embellished with reds." I love the lines, "It took me a long time to sea beyond the sea" and "... it gave me a feeling that no one else could see-How all along it's been connected as vast as the sea."
The Sarah Spectrum continues the themes of color, journey and the concrete jungle of the city, the topic of her poem Homeward Bound. Of the thirty lines in this poem, 26 contain references to color and the use of color unifies the imagery in the The Sarah Spectrum. I was intrigued by the line,"The hazel stare fades to black, now uniform with his last resting place. And the green grass grows all around, all around. Th use of the phrases fades to black , final resting place and the word uniform makes me think of a soldiers death. In a war far away? In a concrete jungle? Also the "tanned boxes" feed this image of death as well. The tone of the poem changes abruptly, becoming lighter, in the fifth verse.It is another aspect of the Sarah Spectrum? I like the line, "That red guiter walked away with my heart." Maybe the last part of the last line ,"...has made me, well, me"could be reworked.

Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong

There is something about this story that really pisses me off. I'm still trying to figure out exactly what it is. It could be that the premise of the story is so ludicrous. A seventeen year old girl fresh out of high school leaves her home town of Cleveland!, Cleveland?, somehow ends up in-country and hooks up with 6 Green Berets. In a short period of time this big boned blondie in a "sexy pink sweater and white culottes" is accessorizing her wardrobe with a necklace of Viet Cong tongues. I kid you not! The list of nonsense in this story requires not just suspension of disbelief, but a lobotomy as well. There is a disclaimer in the first paragraph that speaks to the veracity of Rat Kiley's memory, but it is contradicted by the assertions in the following few paragraphs that he "saw it with his own eyes" and "it's no lie."Does it matter? Probably not, after all, it is just a story. Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong seems somewhat sexist and I can't help wondering if Mary Anne's white culottes ever got dirty after weeks spent in ambush in a Viet Nam jungle or did she carry her suitcase on the missions?

The Things They Carried Assignment

Stockings Pages 117 - 118

In Stockings, the story of Henry Dobbins and a pair of women’s stockings is described. Dobbins carries around a pair of stockings that his girlfriend back home had given him. The stockings are referred to as “soft and intimate, a place where he might someday take his girlfriend to live.”. Through this another level of the stockings is displayed. “Like many of us in Vietnam, Dobbins felt the pull of superstition, and he believed firmly and absolutely in the protective power of the stockings.” (page 118). After a series of many events in which Dobbins cheats death, “It turned us into a platoon of believers. You don’t dispute facts.” Ultimately, Dobbins’ girlfriend breaks up with him at the end of October. Believing that this would change things, the story concludes with Dobbins stating “No sweat,” he said. “The magic doesn’t go away.”

I believe that the ultimate message of this story was most pronounced in that final line. I don’t think it was the idea of a woman, but the presence of delicacy in such a time as war.

Carr's review of Felicia's poems 11/14

To: Felicia
From: Carr

Re: “Snow” and “Ache”

Felicia,

In both of these poems you have some interesting and important topics. In “snow” I really like the idea that winter “is a time for rekindling old flames.” That’s cool, and my curiosity is definitely piqued. Why is winter such a good time for that? I really want to know.
The image here is nice – the burning wood of “rekindling” is reminiscent of that warm, even feverish lovemaking that can occur in the winter, when we are prone to “getting lost in the sea of blankets of flesh”. It is romantic, and that’s something that can stick with us for a long time – all the smells, the feeling of the rug, the way our clothes have to come off. It’s all very sensual and ripe for exploration in a poem.
So consider making that the dominant idea for the poem, really working off that image. You might even remember that old flame, all those details about him that you can convey to the reader to make us understand – no, to feel – what he did for you. Consider taking yourself in this poem to a place where you’re just about ready to go back to him in some way (literally or figuratively). And then do – by making some gesture – or don’t. That will be the turning point, and it will be where the reader can really connect and feel for and with you. Make sense? All right. You might try reading some Billy Collins. He’s very good at taking these almost ordinary events of our lives and imbuing them with special meaning.

OK. Your poem “Ache” I think is similar. You have this great image and idea at the end of the poem: here it is that “all I have left is my father’s death.” That’s a great line in many different ways – rhythmically, thematically, and philosophically. So now I think you need to exploit it more. Right now the heartache of the terrible pain of losing a parent is evident, but I think this poem would rise to another level if you can start to give us the real details, the little things that make you hurt the most. For example, in the first stanza you say, “I don’t know when it started.” Well, by the end of the poem I don’t believe you – I mean, seems like you should know exactly when it started. But of course that’s not how it always works. So maybe what you really know is when it didn’t start. That would be a cool approach to take, like “It didn’t start when I took the photographs of your wedding out of the shoe box. It didn’t start when I saw that grin you used to give me when you were making toast …” See what I mean?
OK. So I think the poem really needs all these little details. It will be more effective by being more personal (that bit of irony, that to become more general you have to become more personal). Remember, “All I have left is my father’s death.” That is such a powerful line, that I think you need to start there (not literally with the words, but with the feeling) and then show that to the reader by showing us the real things in your life with him.

All right. Good luck with these, Felicia. There is good material to mine here. So put on your miner’s hat and dig it up. Have a great time in Italia. Be nice to the locals. Take care.

Carr

Carr's Review of Meaghan's Poems 11-7

To: Meaghan
From: Carr

Re: “pussy” and “lessons in color at the jazz festival”

Meaghan,

I really like the rhythm of your poem, “pussy.” It reminds me of the song “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised” (I think we listened to that one in class that night). All the “don’ts” work to good effect. My favorites are “does not read cosmopolitan or count carbs to fit a bikini”; “not on display and you are not on her mind”; “not be your date, your mate, or your evening entertainment.” Those are good, and the first two I like because they connect or wrap into a statement about me, the male reader – but also me, our culture at large. I had a sense of guilt there for my complicity in the whole thing. Good.
OK. I also really like your closing here. “dreaming at the foot of my bed” is a very nice line – nice tone and feel – but I will have to admit that it took me two readings to understand the play here (again my male streak works against me, and perhaps that is what is clever here. That you know what will lure some of your readers on, and use that to get them to get to the end. Nicely played). But once I did see the whole cat imagery, I liked it, because it allows you a stance as the poet of innocence. After all, you are just writing about your cat. At the same time, you are able to make more biting social commentary while writing this homage to your…kitty (sorry, I couldn’t resist). Cool.

OK. So “lessons” is a poem that I really like. And what I think I like most are two things. First, I like the way you come to a revelation here at the end. You learn something in this poem, and frankly I didn’t see it coming. You sweep us up with the vivid details of the “jazz man obscene …riding some wild thing we can’t see”, his music traveling “through the crowd like summer love” and working its way so deep into your pores that it comes “sweating out sticky.” Those are all beautiful lines. Then, because love won’t feed his family, you light a cigarette and leave, making your way to the “elephant tents,” where the artisans think you “beautiful in that saffron sash” and their other wares. And you believe it (very nice). But then you see the posters, and something clicks: you realize “forty years is less than a lifetime.” This is a simple, yet powerful line, and it carries a lot of weight, Meaghan, a lot of weight. That’s very nice. Very nice.
Another thing this poem shows, Meaghan, is your fearlessness (This is a quality that I see in most of your work, and I encourage you to stick with it. It will take you to places that you don’t always want to see, but that you will be fuller for). You start the poem with a real grabber: “I’m counting white people to pass time.” Yes. Right away that gives us a tone to hold on to. Thus one of my critiques is to stick with the first person POV. It contains more power. Right now you step out of it for just an instant in that third stanza, but that’s enough to take us out of it as well. So don’t. Just tell us what you feel.
My second point is on the same lines and concerns the closing. There you stay in first person, but you switch to first person plural. Uggh. Don’t tell us what we should do, just show us what you did. Along these lines I suggest you try to close the poem by coming back to you – and the image of the jazz man. Maybe you can hear him again, or look at the crowd again. But show us something that will make us think what you have said in those last lines. Make sense?
Finally, as much as I like the revelatory line, I don’t think your setup line works very well: “I never really forgot it but now I’m sure”? Clunk city. Again, show us. Take a cinema guy’s advice: Let the pictures do the talking.
All right, Meaghan. I’ve certainly enjoyed reading your work this semester. Keep it up and see me with questions.
Peace,
Carr

Review: Ache & Snow

Snow & Ache presented together, remind me of the two sides of a coin. In this case one side is positive and hopeful, the other, negative and despairing.
Snow presents some lovely images: angels wings, grown people acting like little kids, red sleds, rekindling old flames. I also like the use of the words happier, calmness and look forward. That this poem opens and closes with the line,"Every year when the snow falls" is really nice. So nice in fact that I want to know more and see more of these great images in the middle. I think the simple couplet style works well too. I would rethink the line"Getting lost in a sea of blankets of flesh." I can guess your intent , but this sounds like it belongs in Sylvia Plath's poem Daddy not in Snow.
Repetition of the line,"My heart still aches from this pain" reminds me of a heartbeat. As if, with every beat and every breath this pain is part of you. Although the line, "This pain I cannot describe,"is contradicted by these strong descriptions: consumes me day and night, It brings me to my knees and that it is without beginning and without end, it speaks to the sense of unreality that loss can bring. "I don't know where it started"offers a good place to begin to explore what becomes obvious to the reader in the line, " All I have left is my father's death."

Snow and Ache

In ‘Snow’ I especially liked the difference between the fourth and fifth stanzas, how the fourth related adults acting like kids when it snows and the fifth tackling an adult subject like passion. I think the poem could benefit from this idea, a revolving juxtapose of the childlike images and the adult images. I really like the idea of winter as a poetic subject because it has different effects on different people, and the effect it has on Felicia seems well suited to a poem. I would like to see it be longer and more descriptive however, talk about specifics on both sides of the idea, snowball fights, snow angels, fogged up car windows, kissing, etc. Bring it home for the reader so to speak, put us into that first snow fall when you are acting like a child and that flame rekindled.
I have to applaud the subject matter of ‘Ache’, I know for a fact that it’s difficult to write about, and that’s why my favorite line in the poem may be the most cliche. "This pain I cannot describe". I also like the repetition of ‘My heart still aches from this pain’, it solidifies the idea, but (and I know it’s not easy) describe that odd feeling in your chest, describe the pain and strange hollowness of it and also (maybe if you do this like I do) how you try and detach yourself from the pain. I also like the last stanza a lot as well, and I think with a little added description to the idea of memories (almost like ghosts) that it would sum the poem up very well.

Pussy and Jazz Festival

In ‘pussy’ I love the idea of what the perfect woman is, what she does or more importantly what she doesn’t do. She is the ultimate social anti-perfection of what we are told women are supposed to be, and in as much she is perfect and beautiful, ‘au natural’. I dig the ‘philosophy’ of this poem, the giant ‘F’ you to social standards of beauty and the amazing comfort of the woman who could give the proverbial ‘two shits’. The second and third stanzas of the poem are my favorite, they show exactly how she treats herself in full confidence outside the social norms and also how unimpressed she is by the standardized male courting rituals. I like the fact that the woman is mostly faceless, that her distinctive features aren’t how she looks but who she actually is.
Ironically when I first read ‘Lessons in Color at the Jazz Festival’ I was listening to Miles Davis, (Kind of Blue if you really wanted to know). I like the first line, it sets the tone of the poem with out giving too much away and holds the tone until the final stanza. How the music is described as ‘the color of sweet Georgia peach, drippingly dense, filling you up and sweating out sticky.’ I’m not sure if I have ever heard it described that well. I also like the description of the jazz man’s face as obscene. But the social context of the poem is undeniable, the race issue of being at a jazz festival. It’s an odd flip on what’s standard for white people, where all of a sudden they are the minority but also a sobering realization of what it’s like to be on the other end, to be the minority and taken out of normality. And how Meaghan seemed to imply that ‘white is the same as money’ in the eyes of the vendors (I hope I’m interpreting that right.) And the final stanza to me seems to speak almost lovingly of music outiside the realm of race, how the music speaks for itself regardless of skin color if we (the listeners) would just close our eyes and hear it for what it is. My only critique of this poem is calling comparing the music to summer love, it reminds me more of classic rock or folk music instead of the chaos and dark tone of jazz. Ha of course it may be because I’m listening to Miles Davis (Bitches Brew now) instead of Count Basie. Let me know what you think, I won’t be in class tonight..

Snow and Ache

Snow: I like that you chose this topic because writing about the seasons or the elements gives you a lot of room for description and interpretation. This reminds me a little of the poem I submitted for my workshop, except you have all but negative things to say about the snow. I like the line "Getting lost in a sea of blankets of flesh" this gave me a warm visual in my mind, quite a contrast to the coldness of the snow. I feel that you could add a little more description. There are some good images you have presented like when you compare the softness to an angels wing, but I feel that you could go a little more in depth. Your poem is fairly short (I don't mind, so are all of mine!) but I feel that you could really elaborate more because the snow is symbolic of so many things and many comparisons and metaphors can be made.

Ache: I think that anyone that has ever experienced loss can really relate to this poem. It's hard to move on or think of anything else when you are so consumed by a memory and trying to cope with the loss. I like the repetition of the first line of each stanza, I think you did this intentionally just to reiterate your feelings. I like the line "it brings me to my knees" because pain can really do that to you. When something so devastating happens it can really break a person's spirit and bring them down. Like I had mentioned about your previous poem, I think you could elaborate more. Pain is so strong that you could add a lot more depth and detail to create images that stick with the reader.

Review: Pussy & Jazz

How ironic. I am trying to write this review for Pussy and Jazz, and my pussy Jazz is sitting on my desk purring, shedding and blocking the monitor. He also stepped on the keyboard. He decided to title this blog 4444444444444444444444. Don't worry , I changed it.
Anyway, In the poem titled Jazz I laughed at the line,"standing in line counting white people." Did you need one hand or two? I am intrigued by"it" in the 5th line, more so by the 6th line and the image that follows,"it comes through the the crowd like summer love" I'm thinking soft and sweet, hot and sweaty.
"eyes stitched up," "stomping the green from the grass" are really great visuals. I'm tapping my foot. Nice climax,"yes yes yes! oh please don't stop! Hell, you don't even need the exclamation piont. Then back to reality, "...jazz won't feed his family."And the cigarette after.
I like the use of music as the thread that unifies the poem. William Congreve wrote:'Music hath charm to soothe the savage breast,to soften rocks, or bend a knotted oak,I have read that things inanimate moved,And as with living souls have been informed,By magic numbers and persuasive sound.' I like the message in the last lines," it would be so simple if we could close our eyes and listen" What meaning would color have if we were blind to it? References to color are found consistantly throughout this poem, but I stopped hearing the music after line 22,"...make my way to the elephant tent." The theme picks up again in the last few lines. Perhaps adding a few more notes or changing the title to Color would help.
Pussy. Great title. It is clever, witty and funny.Initially, I expected to read a feminist diatribe and maybe beneath the humor there is a bit of that too. The repetition of the line, "the sexiest woman in the room at all times" adds emphasis and focuses the reader, the lines following offer alot of concrete information. I like the reference to T.S. Eliot. Another clue that foreshadows the ending as does the the use of the words catcalls and purrfect. The line,"she has Buddah in her eyes conga in her step and cushion to her curves" kicks ass. All these clever clues lead the reader to the conclusion, but i think the use of the term "woman" is misleading(an adult female human being) and could be changed to "female"in the lines " the sexiest woman in the room at all times."
PS. My other pussy, Lolita, eats mice and licks her butt. My husband, affectionately known as Humbert Humbert, says this is not sexy.

review 8: Felicia Plato

In Snow, there are some nice sensory images like "sea of blankets", "red sleds" which we imagine agianst white hills, and the softness "like an angel's wing". You begin by describing the effect snow has on you- an excitement, child like giddyness- but then you lapse into a description of the snow itself before returning to more description of the snow's emotional effect- the playfulness outside and the intimacy of getting warm with someone- where I imagine a fire and hot chocolate. I would suggest reorganizing the images to describe the snow first and then the way we react, the sentimental feelings attached. Also, I think these thoughts could either be expanded upon or deepened in another way. If you want to take the route of sparse prose like W.C. Williams, the words must be powerful, purposeful, packed with meaning, dense and tactile. Here is an example by Mary Oliver:
The Plum Trees

Such richness flowing
through the branches of summer and into

the body, carried inward on the five
rivers! Disorder and astonishment

rattle your thoughts and your heart
cries for rest but don't

succumb, there's nothing
so sensible as sensual inundation. Joy

is a taste before
it's anything else, and the body

can lounge for hours devouring
the important moments. Listen,

the only way
to tempt happiness into your mind is by taking it

into the body first, like small
wild plums.

In Ache, I like your approach of describing the Ache by what it does- that it keeps you up at night, brings you to your knees, controls and consumes you- since the pain itself is something you can not describe. This is good, we understand from the actions what is not conveyed by words like "sad" and "pain". You can still move further in that direction to really paint the picture- instead of saying controls and consumes say how. Give more real details. We can all relate to lying in bed being kept awake by our thoughts so maybe begin there. You could use that experience to explain or represent the whole. This works well in poetry, letting a neat little microcosm stand for the whole messy truth.