Carr's Review of Matt's Poems 3/27

Matt,

In each of these poems I think you are striving for something that I like very much: you are trying to show us in images the feeling or emotion captured by a particular scene or incident. That’s good. And in each of these poems there is an image that stands out for me. In “Slip Away” the image comes at the very end of the poem: “Churning in the bitter dark.” That line is powerful – primarily because of the choice of churning there. That works very well. It calls up a very vivid and specific action. In “Untitled” the image also comes at the end of the poem: “I am/ Main lining/ On dreams.” Again, that’s an image that really works for me. It conjures up a wonderfully vivid scene.

So my advice here is to concentrate on those images more. You might want to bring them in earlier to your poem, and then let them be reflected in the entire poem. Try to let them be the controlling images of your work. For example, you might even start “Untitled” with those lines. Then from there you could proceed to actually show us how you mainline your dreams. (If you haven’t seen any of Michel Gondry’s films, you might check those out. He’s someone who mainlines dreams, I think. Definitely check out Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and The Science of Sleep).
OK. For “Slip Away” my advice is both similar and different. Similar in that I recommend you make the churning more prominent. Different in that I think that should still remain near the end. But in this poem I would suggest that you be a little more straightforward with the details of the scenario. I like lines like “I recall you fingertips weaving in and out of me” and “Traction in the city drew me towards this fate”; but I’m not quite clear about what happened, and I think a clearer narrative would make this work better for me. So work on using those good images, but making them work with a more coherent narrative.

All right. There’s definitely some good potential here, Matt. Keep mining and mainlining those dreams.

CK