01-09-2015, 03:59 AM
I'm having trouble with the tone and word choices. You call them "Mother" and "Father" but default to "Dad" in the last line. "Acquiesce" is a formal word choice, and so is "demise" and you set that tone early in the poem, but then you slide into contractions in "You'd think she's sedated". The phrase "tattooed teenager disturbed" is quirky and doesn't fit with the tone of the rest of the poem. If you keep it, I think it needs hyphens (tattooed-teenager-disturbed) since you are using it as a kind of adjective. "Disturbed by tattooed teenagers" would work just as well, since the alternative (if you want to be consistent) would be something like "She is tattooed-teenager-body-piercing-LED-lighting-internet-disturbed.") Re: "cultural paralysis," she can't be paralyzed if she is broadcasting and recoiling. I translated it to "culture-shock" when I read it. The only reference I could find to "cultural paralysis" on the internet was the following: "Cultural paralysis: a condition of complete social helplessness brought on by an inability to distinguish among the taboos and etiquette of multiple societies. CP is most acutely experienced by those who have travelled and lived in 3 or more countries and can no longer remember which rules apply to which location."
"Compact" doesn't work very well as a verb. It's too much like the abomination "impacted, impacting" which has language-raped its way into the dictionary. May I suggest "compress" or "solidify" instead?
I hesitate to give you any punctuation advice, until I follow Tectak's advice about my semi-colons, but I do think you need to review the punctuation and add a few commas here and there. Also, line breaks are really important in free verse, and are usually used to indicate where you want the reader to pause, and to delineate a grouping of words that may indicate a shift in meaning or context. Try putting line breaks after each period, and then review to see where else you want to put them.
I like the subject matter of the poem very much, it is a difficult subject to tackle. I like the emotional ambiguity of the last few lines.
Best, Leah
"Compact" doesn't work very well as a verb. It's too much like the abomination "impacted, impacting" which has language-raped its way into the dictionary. May I suggest "compress" or "solidify" instead?
I hesitate to give you any punctuation advice, until I follow Tectak's advice about my semi-colons, but I do think you need to review the punctuation and add a few commas here and there. Also, line breaks are really important in free verse, and are usually used to indicate where you want the reader to pause, and to delineate a grouping of words that may indicate a shift in meaning or context. Try putting line breaks after each period, and then review to see where else you want to put them.
I like the subject matter of the poem very much, it is a difficult subject to tackle. I like the emotional ambiguity of the last few lines.
Best, Leah