06-02-2016, 01:38 AM
I hope to seriously get into this as soon as possible, but for now, a few small notes:
FIRST SECTION -- first sentence a bit weird:
I began as an actuarial calculation back when they did figures by slide rule, a strange alchemy of Euclid’s perfect numbers, my two-pound weight, and my mother’s painted on smile to determine a 38% chance.
needs just a tiny comma right after smile, I think, to work perfectly. though even without correction, when lined up, it's clear, so i guess it's enough.
SECOND SECTION -- dreams is also a bit weird -- fragments are bad in an otherwise grammatically conventional piece, I think, but connecting it to its preceding sister might complicate things. do so, and I would suggest using a comma, then changing the second line's "and" to a "while" -- but then, what would those dreams specifically refer to? hmm -- maybe give the statement a sense of time? "while.... / ...her dreams / becoming a blighted field. Children" but then that would remove the elusive sense of the original wording...
FOURTH SECTION -- better, I think, to remove the and in "and they hunt in packs", then use a colon preceding. impact through brevity, I suppose.
i'm so happy no one caught this --- and kinda annoyed the poet didn't. it's "friends let go", not "friend's let go", xP also, why would the principal say that while the speaker was doing all that violence? that is, i'd rather you use "after" than "when". and, for my first proper stylistic note, i would prefer "as his friends / let go of mine", simply because it sounds cleaner -- granted, a lot of other bits of the poem sound just as dirty, to the same good effect.
FIFTH SECTION -- irony: the typical spelling (though i believe even corporate breaks this one) is McDonald's. the comma in "fighting, 138" i think should be a colon, though that presents a bit of a problem regarding the next stanza, whose two lines definitely should be separated by a colon. or at least a period, since you have other subordinate clauses so separated (that.....hey, haven't yet been introduced! but anyway, it's more excusable in this sort of poetry than completely incomplete fragments, at least).
SIXTH SECTION -- the em dash appears -- once. how dare you! xD
FIRST SECTION -- first sentence a bit weird:
I began as an actuarial calculation back when they did figures by slide rule, a strange alchemy of Euclid’s perfect numbers, my two-pound weight, and my mother’s painted on smile to determine a 38% chance.
needs just a tiny comma right after smile, I think, to work perfectly. though even without correction, when lined up, it's clear, so i guess it's enough.
SECOND SECTION -- dreams is also a bit weird -- fragments are bad in an otherwise grammatically conventional piece, I think, but connecting it to its preceding sister might complicate things. do so, and I would suggest using a comma, then changing the second line's "and" to a "while" -- but then, what would those dreams specifically refer to? hmm -- maybe give the statement a sense of time? "while.... / ...her dreams / becoming a blighted field. Children" but then that would remove the elusive sense of the original wording...
FOURTH SECTION -- better, I think, to remove the and in "and they hunt in packs", then use a colon preceding. impact through brevity, I suppose.
i'm so happy no one caught this --- and kinda annoyed the poet didn't. it's "friends let go", not "friend's let go", xP also, why would the principal say that while the speaker was doing all that violence? that is, i'd rather you use "after" than "when". and, for my first proper stylistic note, i would prefer "as his friends / let go of mine", simply because it sounds cleaner -- granted, a lot of other bits of the poem sound just as dirty, to the same good effect.
FIFTH SECTION -- irony: the typical spelling (though i believe even corporate breaks this one) is McDonald's. the comma in "fighting, 138" i think should be a colon, though that presents a bit of a problem regarding the next stanza, whose two lines definitely should be separated by a colon. or at least a period, since you have other subordinate clauses so separated (that.....hey, haven't yet been introduced! but anyway, it's more excusable in this sort of poetry than completely incomplete fragments, at least).
SIXTH SECTION -- the em dash appears -- once. how dare you! xD