02-06-2018, 12:13 PM
hi richard,
this is going to be a very subjective critique, which means for you: pick up anything that might be useful and ignore the rest of my sermon.
it seems benoit did not sedate his wife. (so i´d exchange "them" in the penultimate line with "him").
i don´t think he had sadistic tendencies, maybe he merely did not imagine the act to be so cruel. so he at least sedated their son.
what i miss most in your poem is pondering the reasons of the suicide. the WHY?
the "angels asleep with concussions" seem to move in that direction, but it´s a little to shy for my taste (remember, i said the critique is subjective).
could be all sorts of reasons, pressure from job, steroid abuse, early dementia, his son having some hereditary disease or not, maybe religious delusion made him believe to wake up together with his family in a better world.
i though the latter was the way your poem was heading when i read the first version: "he finds a bible and gives it to his son" (impactful double meaning, i think you shouldn´t lose that line).
but with this unanswerable question of WHY i find it banal l to read about benoit´s considerations of how to end his own life quickly, and even a little distasteful to read that narrator´s comment " i like to think nothing is truly instantaneous" (this is no criticism, just a personal reaction to content.. still it´s part of my feedback)
i think the problem you encounter in this poem is that speculating about reasons is walking on thin ice, but apart from speculations nothing much can be said about that tragedy and a mere description would be finished with the title.
this is going to be a very subjective critique, which means for you: pick up anything that might be useful and ignore the rest of my sermon.
it seems benoit did not sedate his wife. (so i´d exchange "them" in the penultimate line with "him").
i don´t think he had sadistic tendencies, maybe he merely did not imagine the act to be so cruel. so he at least sedated their son.
what i miss most in your poem is pondering the reasons of the suicide. the WHY?
the "angels asleep with concussions" seem to move in that direction, but it´s a little to shy for my taste (remember, i said the critique is subjective).
could be all sorts of reasons, pressure from job, steroid abuse, early dementia, his son having some hereditary disease or not, maybe religious delusion made him believe to wake up together with his family in a better world.
i though the latter was the way your poem was heading when i read the first version: "he finds a bible and gives it to his son" (impactful double meaning, i think you shouldn´t lose that line).
but with this unanswerable question of WHY i find it banal l to read about benoit´s considerations of how to end his own life quickly, and even a little distasteful to read that narrator´s comment " i like to think nothing is truly instantaneous" (this is no criticism, just a personal reaction to content.. still it´s part of my feedback)
i think the problem you encounter in this poem is that speculating about reasons is walking on thin ice, but apart from speculations nothing much can be said about that tragedy and a mere description would be finished with the title.
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