Yesterday, 10:42 PM
My overall critique of this poem is one of distaste. This reminds me most of the Meat Loaf song "Bat out of Hell", which is already the grotesque version of the more-than-decent Bruce Springsteen song "Born to Run". "Born to Run" works because the ridiculousness that is the car crash is internally acknowledged as ridiculousness, gradually mellowing out to a plain statement of the speaker's frustrations living in a small town, plus there's a second verse that situates the whole song in the boudoir. "Bat out of Hell" doesn't work for me because it really is just about a car crash---it builds towards a series of images that, taken literally, are not nearly visceral enough, and taken metaphorically they don't amount to anything more than what was said before. V1 of this maybe attempts the Springsteen route of relating the car crash to sex, but sex is barely a step up from death, while V2 really is just a less campy Meat Loaf. If I were to suggest a revision, I'd say reverse the stanzas: open with the car crash, then build towards the critique of modern society.
But my main, practical issue here is the title. V1 at least justifies it by having the words in the poem, but even with that justification....might as well title this "Retard Waltz", since the piece does nothing with the pejorative.
But my main, practical issue here is the title. V1 at least justifies it by having the words in the poem, but even with that justification....might as well title this "Retard Waltz", since the piece does nothing with the pejorative.