The Party

[hopefularahant]

hopefularahant,

My feeling of this after the first read through was, OK, so what. For me, this poem generated little energy and gave me nothing to emotionally connect with which is necessary to make a poem meaningful to the reader. I think part of this is do to the scene being "in line," which is generally more of a submissive attitude than a place unless one is using it in it's most literal way. So there is no physical plain on which to play this out. The characters were generally so vague you might have just as well called them character A and character B. Calling one character a "wolf who isn't" doesn't do much to firm this up enough to give the reader enough to feel they know how A and B relate, what is their history and so on.

"With dead heart and high hopes,"

One can take this literally or metaphorically. There are major problems with it both ways. If one takes it as literal, the person/creature does nothing because he is dead. If taken as a metaphor, having a "dead heart" is contradictory to "high hopes. These two emotional states cannot co-exist, no more than despair and hope can. They may alternate but they can never occur simultaneously.  

"the wolf falls in line." (no comma between wolf and falls)

As we discover later on the title of wolf or sheep are metaphorical and only describe certain behavior or personality characteristics, although there is little of either. The phrase "in line" not only becomes repetitive and boring, but also nonsensical. Since being in line means following the rules and the idea of wolf means a rebellion against those rules, thus being outside of the line, to say the wolf is "in line" is contradictory.  

"Cutting deals with her emotion, he takes meat in his fangs, in line.    

I really like the phrase "cutting deals with her emotions", it's fresh, but immediately recognizable. However, there is nothing in this poem that gives us a clue as to what "meat" stands for. Obviously if this were literal, it would mean that he had eaten her alive and now she was dead. "he dumps her, barebones" (BTW it is generally written as bare-bones, or simply bare bones), as she is now a skeleton. However, between " he takes meat in his fangs" and the "bare bones" phrase, it says "she stumbles along as well". So this also seems to contradict what surrounds it. Plus disregarding that, the full two lines seem to make little sense.

"He drags his prey,
she stumbles along as well."

Being dragged generally means their feet are not under them, thus the concept, "dragged". If she is stumbling along behind him, she cannot be being dragged. These are exclusionary states. This all along with her being dead, but also being animated.  

One line I must point out is "Glassy amber in red". If this is suppose to be wine, a liqueur, or liquor, I would think the red would be in the glassy amber. As smoke and snort are both accounted for, "drink" must be for this and as such this must be a drink. As the two others were drugs and this is at a party, one must assume that this is some alcoholic drink. However the way it is described does not paint any kind of picture for me and offers no clue to tell if it is a Burgundy, a Sherry, or something else altogether. That description needs badly to be changed.


Best,


Dale  

Dale,
Wow, thanks for the in depth critique, i appreciate your time and effort alot, and it seems you read through my poem more than i did! And though i will attempt to salvage one or two points, it seems apparent i didnt state them or bring them across welk enough in this poem.

As far as the "dead heart" line, i think that "hopes", Was the wrong word. I meant simply to state that his heart was dead, and he had high expectations for the day ahead of him. I will change this part, since i can now see how confusing it could be.

And to the "in line" phrase, I kind of felt that it lost its power as well. Though about the wolf falling in line, that was the point of the poem. The wolf is a symbol of rebellion and such as you say, but as it is with the kids nowadays, everyone does what everyone else does to be unique or special. So i guess he may see himself as a wolf, though truly he is one of many "unique and rebellious people" standing in line. I hope that makes sense. A sort of purposeful contradiction, though i see how it doesnt exactly work how i saw it.

And i meant "takes meat" as an image for the boy latching to the girl, and i see the trouble with my "stumbles along" line also. Though i guess i meant to say that she is not completely helpless or opposed to the idea of being taken by the wolf.

And to the party drug descriptions, the red was meant to be a plastic cup.

In the end, i see how though i had plenty of ideas i was trying to move across, the words i used as the vehicles failed to do so. Thanks!