On Receiving My First Student Loan Payment

[Todd]

Hi Jack,

Just a couple opinions on this piece. I like this quite a bit. Take or leave these comments as you will:

But who can carry the incineration of a universe? - Ted Hughes, Tales from Ovid

The disordered mind,--pull writhing up to the end of this line maybe. It feels too static to me I think ending on a stong verb would push the reader into this mind you mention.
writhing like a violated girl
in her heady mix of hate and shame,--these too lines are good granted hate and shame are a bit abstract but they don't bother me here because they are just there to enhance the simile
makes a "To Do" list:
1. Buy some pencils.
2. Borrow books.
3. Purchase a hot meal from the local diner.
4. Think It Over. An
itinerary forms now that money
is received.--okay here's my issue with this list you start with a disordered mind and then you show a sense of order. What I'd suggest you do is mix it up a bit you can even make the list longer if you want. For example (only. You'll come up with way more creative things)

1. Buy some pencils.
2. Are radio waves coming through my fillings?
3. Borrow books.
4. There's a stain...stain...stain.
5. Purchase a hot meal from a local diner.

They wouldn't even have to go back and forth.

In the original #4 Think it over would work well as a stand alone.

An itinerary forms now that money is received seems sort of prosey to me and I'm not very fond of it.

If I lived in America
I'd thank Uncle Sam,
but what such figure
of patriotic pride do we have on our shores?
Churchill? Kitchener? John Lennon?
I'm too ignorant to know.
I'm too ignorant to know I like the repetition and the enjambment with the next line is good but "a lot of things" is too vague to add much. I think you should absolute enjamb the line but I'd like to see something stronger.
a lot of things.
When I asked what "the cuts" were about,
why the kid with the megaphone
on the third college square
kept cursing a man called Osbourne,
they treated me like the man who arrived
at the banquet of his king wearing rags.[b]--The last lines were wonderful.

I hope some of that will be helpful to you. Again, it's a good poem (wonderful opening...solid conclusion. I like S2 a lot).[/b]

Best,

Todd