11-07-2016, 03:23 PM
Thank god for cell phones:
you never look around anymore.
Now you don't need to fire your rifle
out the window of your Firebird
at whatever bunny or chickadee
catches your predatory eye. this is a stern accusatory open which I think you sort of move away from in the rest of the poem. Imagery is good. I can imagine the teenage juvenileness.. I think adding the word predatory conjure a differnt feeling. If that is your intent, ok, but then I think you could make the peice even stronger by adding a stanza at the end. Technology makes it easier for predators.
You don't need to speed along
gravel roads at midnight,
swerving to pick off raccoons
as if the thud under your truck
from their busting brains
earns you points in some video game.
You don't need to careen
into a neighbor's cornfield
—headlights off, doors open—
and slam the pedal to the floor
just to see what happens
[to make something happen]. ive read those a few times and I dont think the poem gains or looses anything with the almost repitition here... and I'm also not seeing a reason for the brackets.
You don't need to whack
mailboxes with your baseball bats,
or make up jokes with your dawgs
to throw at the ugly dog on her bike odd phrase for a ugly bitch; also not loving dawgs. Feels dated and a bit too... ethnic for this peice
or pin a pretty chick up againstcontrast is nice, but the first half, as I said should be reworked a bit.
the backside of the corner store. not where I'd put one. Consider bathroom stall
You don't need to dispatch
your mom's hatchback into a ditch
on a dare, flipping your best friend
sixteen feet out the passenger window,
breaking his skull open on a tree,
dissolving both your lives at sixteen. compared to the rest of the examples, this one is overly heavy.
You don't seek ecstasy or boast destruction.
Now you sit next to your friends in silence—
phones lighting your faces from underneath
like expressionless paintings—
and the world goes on without you
as it should have all along. its like ok. You started prosecuting but never made any closing arguments. I think this poem has a lot of potential. I feel like you were unsure how to end it.
you never look around anymore.
Now you don't need to fire your rifle
out the window of your Firebird
at whatever bunny or chickadee
catches your predatory eye. this is a stern accusatory open which I think you sort of move away from in the rest of the poem. Imagery is good. I can imagine the teenage juvenileness.. I think adding the word predatory conjure a differnt feeling. If that is your intent, ok, but then I think you could make the peice even stronger by adding a stanza at the end. Technology makes it easier for predators.
You don't need to speed along
gravel roads at midnight,
swerving to pick off raccoons
as if the thud under your truck
from their busting brains
earns you points in some video game.
You don't need to careen
into a neighbor's cornfield
—headlights off, doors open—
and slam the pedal to the floor
just to see what happens
[to make something happen]. ive read those a few times and I dont think the poem gains or looses anything with the almost repitition here... and I'm also not seeing a reason for the brackets.
You don't need to whack
mailboxes with your baseball bats,
or make up jokes with your dawgs
to throw at the ugly dog on her bike odd phrase for a ugly bitch; also not loving dawgs. Feels dated and a bit too... ethnic for this peice
or pin a pretty chick up againstcontrast is nice, but the first half, as I said should be reworked a bit.
the backside of the corner store. not where I'd put one. Consider bathroom stall
You don't need to dispatch
your mom's hatchback into a ditch
on a dare, flipping your best friend
sixteen feet out the passenger window,
breaking his skull open on a tree,
dissolving both your lives at sixteen. compared to the rest of the examples, this one is overly heavy.
You don't seek ecstasy or boast destruction.
Now you sit next to your friends in silence—
phones lighting your faces from underneath
like expressionless paintings—
and the world goes on without you
as it should have all along. its like ok. You started prosecuting but never made any closing arguments. I think this poem has a lot of potential. I feel like you were unsure how to end it.