affirmative action

[zorcas]

This changes style as it goes for dramatic effect.

AFFIRMATIVE ACTION
 
As the ten wheeler left the loading dock, his gaze went from bulking crates
to Alan, come to help.  Alan always came to help, though with the company
only six months longer and dark as he was light. Alan taught him how to open
cartons, slicing sides not tops so layers of product could be quickly removed.
 
Alan told him which supervisors to trust, which to avoid. Alan this, Alan that.
Helpful yes, but he would have learned all that by himself--sooner or later.
While Alan was only a high school grad, he had a bachelor’s degree
tucked for six years in his bureau. Same pay, same hours for both-
until Alan was promoted and moved elsewhere on the corporate campus.
 
Affirmative Action, thought the red-haired college graduate, condemned
to the same pay, complaints, remedial training and repeated orders.
 
The world wasn’t fair.
 
With his parents off partying, the darkening house is his.
Straightened from bending low to burn his diploma in the fireplace,
his eye catches the elegant chandelier twelve feet from the floor.
Check living room doors, assure they’re locked.
Chandelier tight to the ceiling? Knot at its base double tied?
Four-foot rope moving smoothly through the cylinder of eight careful turns?
Looped over, around neck, pulled snug? Feet square on step ladder?
A quick one-footed shove, ladder clattering to the floor,
its splayed legs collapsing with an unheard wooden bang.
The body jerks with a lifelike twitch just strong enough to prompt
a gentle chorus of faint tinkling from the fixture's crystal pendants.
 
Outside, as if impelled by Wagnerian opera, a car’s demanding horn mocks the end,
its swerving headlights briefly sweeping away living room shadows, signaling a curtain's
closing on an empty life.
 
Alan is the only company representative at the small funeral. He had sent a modest bouquet
with an awkwardly-written note, and now speaks softly to the guilt-ridden, broken parents.
 
Affirmative Action

[dukealien]

This changes style as it goes for dramatic effect.

AFFIRMATIVE ACTION
 
As the ten wheeler left the loading dock, his gaze went from bulking crates
to Alan, come to help.  Alan always came to help, though with the company
only six months longer and dark as he was light. Alan taught him how to open very subtle on the race here - nice
cartons, slicing sides not tops so layers of product could be quickly removed.
 
Alan told him which supervisors to trust, which to avoid. Alan this, Alan that. good - annoyance not chalked up to racism.
Helpful yes, but he would have learned all that by himself--sooner or later.  speaking in the man's thought-voice, cliche OK
While Alan was only a high school grad, he had a bachelor’s degree
tucked for six years in his bureau. Same pay, same hours for both-
until Alan was promoted and moved elsewhere on the corporate campus. a shipping company has a campus?  slightly off
 
Affirmative Action, thought the red-haired college graduate, condemned  "condemned" in his own mind - maybe a little strong
to the same pay, complaints, remedial training and repeated orders.  might use a different word for "same" since sense is different than when used above.  Not that the thinker would try to vary, but keep readers straight and interested
 
The world wasn’t fair.  A telling statement:  AA, which tries on its face to be fair, results in perceptions (if not the fact) of unfairness
 
With his parents off partying, the darkening house is his.  Now we're not in his head anymore, hence change of style
Straightened from bending low to burn his diploma in the fireplace,
his eye catches the elegant chandelier twelve feet from the floor.  Does the idea just now come to him?  No note?
Check living room doors, assure they’re locked.
Chandelier tight to the ceiling? Knot at its base double tied?
Four-foot rope moving smoothly through the cylinder of eight careful turns?  thirteen, traditionally
Looped over, around neck, pulled snug? Feet square on step ladder?
A quick one-footed shove, ladder clattering to the floor,
its splayed legs collapsing with an unheard wooden bang.
The body jerks with a lifelike twitch just strong enough to prompt
a gentle chorus of faint tinkling from the fixture's crystal pendants.  thought it was tight?
 
Outside, as if impelled by Wagnerian opera, a car’s demanding horn mocks the end,  Frankly, this verse is unnecessary.  There is, in us academic/military types, an urge to summarize.  Hard to resist, but see how the poem reads without it.
its swerving headlights briefly sweeping away living room shadows, signaling a curtain's
closing on an empty life.
 
Alan is the only company representative at the small funeral. He had sent a modest bouquet
with an awkwardly-written note, and now speaks softly to the guilt-ridden, broken parents.
 
Affirmative Action  As with the "Outside" verse, I think this summary is unnecessary.

This is very subtle - hope I've got it all (and readers who may lack some of the referents get it all).  Coments on the craft above, hereafter on the outer story.

It's all told third-person omniscient, which is about the only way it could be done without resorting to dialogue (including inner).  This way, it comes across just a bit cool and anlytical, which is not unreasonable (tracking a large issue with closeups).

The nameless suicide's motives are not explained.  There's jealousy, but no envy:  he doesn't want Alan to fail, though he resents Alan obtaining what was rightly (based on credentials though not seniority) his.  Maybe he sees he's in a dead-end job that disappoints his parents, though in fact (needs advice and retraining, has to have orders repeated) he's reached his level of incompetence.  What on earth did he major in, to have that little application?

So the connection between the policy of affirmative action and his suicide is implied, at most.  Nothing wrong with that:  mysteries are part of life, and certainly of poetry.  What's left equivocal is whether his suicide was in part motivated by the existence of the policy as an excuse for his failure when he might have pulled up his socks and earned promotion, or at least accepted his lot if the excuse didn't exist.

We also do not know, though it is implied, whether affirmative action bias did exist in his company and he'd seen it elsewhere - providing a possible background for what is apparently a delusion in his own case.

But most of that's external and speculative.  This is a first-rate exploration of that policy (as well as the tragedy of one man) with its unknowables very competently left so.

[zorcas]

This changes style as it goes for dramatic effect.  This wasn't a shipping company; the crates unloaded could be office supplies or parts for assembly.  A hanging like this doesn't break the neck but results in fairly quick strangulation, no? Thus the body could twitch after the ladder is gone. Not all suicides leave notes. The story continuing after the hanging is there because it is really a story mostly about Alan whose character is shown by his actions after his coworker is dead. Without that, the story would have been left hanging. Changing "same" and 'condemned" a very good idea; will do. As for the suicides' motive, I thought his general dissatisfaction with life was reflected in the way he never saw that he needed Alan's help.  The hangee's degree was probably in Modern Dance or a Studies area. Thanks for the thorough analysis;  now to figure out where to send it since poetic stories, as compared to slices of life, seem scarcer than he's teeth.

AFFIRMATIVE ACTION
 
As the ten wheeler left the loading dock, his gaze went from bulking crates
to Alan, come to help.  Alan always came to help, though with the company
only six months longer and dark as he was light. Alan taught him how to open very subtle on the race here - nice
cartons, slicing sides not tops so layers of product could be quickly removed.
 
Alan told him which supervisors to trust, which to avoid. Alan this, Alan that. good - annoyance not chalked up to racism.
Helpful yes, but he would have learned all that by himself--sooner or later.  speaking in the man's thought-voice, cliche OK
While Alan was only a high school grad, he had a bachelor’s degree
tucked for six years in his bureau. Same pay, same hours for both-
until Alan was promoted and moved elsewhere on the corporate campus. a shipping company has a campus?  slightly off
 
Affirmative Action, thought the red-haired college graduate, condemned  "condemned" in his own mind - maybe a little strong
to the same pay, complaints, remedial training and repeated orders.  might use a different word for "same" since sense is different than when used above.  Not that the thinker would try to vary, but keep readers straight and interested
 
The world wasn’t fair.  A telling statement:  AA, which tries on its face to be fair, results in perceptions (if not the fact) of unfairness
 
With his parents off partying, the darkening house is his.  Now we're not in his head anymore, hence change of style
Straightened from bending low to burn his diploma in the fireplace,
his eye catches the elegant chandelier twelve feet from the floor.  Does the idea just now come to him?  No note?
Check living room doors, assure they’re locked.
Chandelier tight to the ceiling? Knot at its base double tied?
Four-foot rope moving smoothly through the cylinder of eight careful turns?  thirteen, traditionally
Looped over, around neck, pulled snug? Feet square on step ladder?
A quick one-footed shove, ladder clattering to the floor,
its splayed legs collapsing with an unheard wooden bang.
The body jerks with a lifelike twitch just strong enough to prompt
a gentle chorus of faint tinkling from the fixture's crystal pendants.  thought it was tight?
 
Outside, as if impelled by Wagnerian opera, a car’s demanding horn mocks the end,  Frankly, this verse is unnecessary.  There is, in us academic/military types, an urge to summarize.  Hard to resist, but see how the poem reads without it.
its swerving headlights briefly sweeping away living room shadows, signaling a curtain's
closing on an empty life.
 
Alan is the only company representative at the small funeral. He had sent a modest bouquet
with an awkwardly-written note, and now speaks softly to the guilt-ridden, broken parents.
 
Affirmative Action  As with the "Outside" verse, I think this summary is unnecessary.

This is very subtle - hope I've got it all (and readers who may lack some of the referents get it all).  Coments on the craft above, hereafter on the outer story.

It's all told third-person omniscient, which is about the only way it could be done without resorting to dialogue (including inner).  This way, it comes across just a bit cool and analytical, which is not unreasonable (tracking a large issue with closeups).

The nameless suicide's motives are not explained.  There's jealousy, but no envy:  he doesn't want Alan to fail, though he resents Alan obtaining what was rightly (based on credentials though not seniority) his.  Maybe he sees he's in a dead-end job that disappoints his parents, though in fact (needs advice and retraining, has to have orders repeated) he's reached his level of incompetence.  What on earth did he major in, to have that little application?

So the connection between the policy of affirmative action and his suicide is implied, at most.  Nothing wrong with that:  mysteries are part of life, and certainly of poetry.  What's left equivocal is whether his suicide was in part motivated by the existence of the policy as an excuse for his failure when he might have pulled up his socks and earned promotion, or at least accepted his lot if the excuse didn't exist.

We also do not know, though it is implied, whether affirmative action bias did exist in his company and he'd seen it elsewhere - providing a possible background for what is apparently a delusion in his own case.

But most of that's external and speculative.  This is a first-rate exploration of that policy (as well as the tragedy of one man) with its unknowables very competently left so.

[dukealien]

...This wasn't a shipping company; the crates unloaded could be office supplies or parts for assembly.  A hanging like this doesn't break the neck but results in fairly quick strangulation, no? Thus the body could twitch after the ladder is gone. Not all suicides leave notes. The story continuing after the hanging is there because it is really a story mostly about Alan whose character is shown by his actions after his coworker is dead. Without that, the story would have been left hanging. Changing "same" and 'condemned" a very good idea; will do. As for the suicides' motive, I thought his general dissatisfaction with life was reflected in the way he never saw that he needed Alan's help.  The hangee's degree was probably in Modern Dance or a Studies area. Thanks for the thorough analysis;  now to figure out where to send it since poetic stories, as compared to slices of life, seem scarcer than he's teeth.

Thanks for the quick reply and consideration of my critique.

In a spirit of serious workshopping, please consider that this reader, at least, was able to mistakenly interpret the company as a shipping concern, and (more significantly) the unnamed redhead as the poem's central character.  If the integrated company and Alan as central character are significant to your project, you may wish to make them unmistakable.

What I meant about eliminating summaries is that the three lines ("Outside, as if impelled... on an empty life") while dramatic, do not actually add anything (in my opinion).  They're like the suicide's toes tallying compass points at the end of "Brave New World," but that's a novel (and they're also our first notice that he's dead, IIRC).  Italicized "Affirmative Action" at the end, on the other hand, could be the start (or end) of making Alan definitively your main character if he subvocalizes them during or after the funeral.  Just a thought.

[Achebe]

---

This changes style as it goes for dramatic effect.

AFFIRMATIVE ACTION
 
As the ten wheeler left the loading dock, his gaze went from bulking crates
to Alan, come to help.  Alan always came to help, though with the company
only six months longer and dark as he was light. Alan taught him how to open
cartons, slicing sides not tops so layers of product could be quickly removed.  .....the start isn't bad considering the rest of the poem,  but 'dark as he was light' is ominously hackneyed. 
 
Alan told him which supervisors to trust, which to avoid. Alan this, Alan that.
Helpful yes, but he would have learned all that by himself--sooner or later. .....prose. The charitable assumption is that the narrator is speaking from the POV of the red haired youth, in a sad attempt at irony.
While Alan was only a high school grad, he had a bachelor’s degree 
tucked for six years in his bureau. Same pay, same hours for both-  ...'while' and 'only' discredits the neutral POV of the narrator, saved only by the aforementioned charitable assumption
until Alan was promoted and moved elsewhere on the corporate campus.  .....prose
 
Affirmative Action, thought the red-haired college graduate, condemned  .....prose. Also, why is 'thought the...' coming in now? It should've carried on in the same tone as before, with the implied assumption that the narrator was speaking from the POV of the subject. Now the foregoing is looking very shaky.
to the same pay, complaints, remedial training and repeated orders.  .....faint sense of irony that's not developed later in the poem. Also, prose.
 
The world wasn’t fair.  ...boring. and prose.
 
With his parents off partying, the darkening house is his.  .....prose
Straightened from bending low to burn his diploma in the fireplace,  ...I'm surprised he didn't burn it when he landed his current job.
his eye catches the elegant chandelier twelve feet from the floor.  .....unnecessary adjective in 'elegant'. also, makes it look like the idea of suicide came upon him all of a sudden. What caused said person to snap isn't clear, which is why the poem fails as drama.
Check living room doors, assure they’re locked. .....
Chandelier tight to the ceiling? Knot at its base double tied?  .....
Four-foot rope moving smoothly through the cylinder of eight careful turns? 
Looped over, around neck, pulled snug? Feet square on step ladder?
A quick one-footed shove, ladder clattering to the floor,
its splayed legs collapsing with an unheard wooden bang.  ....not bad from 'chandelier' to 'bang', compared to the rest of the poem, but it's still a done to the death -pun intended - description of a cliched suicide
The body jerks with a lifelike twitch just strong enough to prompt
a gentle chorus of faint tinkling from the fixture's crystal pendants.  ....'gentle' unnecessary
 
Outside, as if impelled by Wagnerian opera, a car’s demanding horn mocks the end,  ..... prose. and how does it mock?
its swerving headlights briefly sweeping away living room shadows, signaling a curtain's  .....the possessive pronoun suggest that the car's horn has headlights. Also.....prose
closing on an empty life. .....'empty' - again, the neutral POV is discredited. Given that the guy went to college, has a job, parents rich enough to party (how frigging old is he??), the emptiness is more juvenile angst than reality. Unless other facts have been withheld. Which they have, because apparently this poem is one in a series (nice excuse!)
 
Alan is the only company representative at the small funeral. He had sent a modest bouquet
with an awkwardly-written note, and now speaks softly to the guilt-ridden, broken parents.  .....Weak attempt at irony ('who should be guilt-ridden here?').
 
Affirmative Action

It is possible to write out any piece of prose as a poem with line breaks. English pronunciation follows a pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables, so anyone can make anything 'sound' like a poem.
But the poem above is too, too wordy to qualify as as a poem.
Also, the central premise is laughable. Guy doesn't get promoted in a dead end job, sees his black colleague move ahead, kills self. The characters haven't been fleshed out in any level of detail required for the reader to empathise.

[zorcas]

---

This changes style as it goes for dramatic effect.

AFFIRMATIVE ACTION
 
As the ten wheeler left the loading dock, his gaze went from bulking crates
to Alan, come to help.  Alan always came to help, though with the company
only six months longer and dark as he was light. Alan taught him how to open
cartons, slicing sides not tops so layers of product could be quickly removed.  .....the start isn't bad considering the rest of the poem,  but 'dark as he was light' is ominously hackneyed. 
 
Alan told him which supervisors to trust, which to avoid. Alan this, Alan that.
Helpful yes, but he would have learned all that by himself--sooner or later. .....prose. The charitable assumption is that the narrator is speaking from the POV of the red haired youth, in a sad attempt at irony.
While Alan was only a high school grad, he had a bachelor’s degree 
tucked for six years in his bureau. Same pay, same hours for both-  ...'while' and 'only' discredits the neutral POV of the narrator, saved only by the aforementioned charitable assumption
until Alan was promoted and moved elsewhere on the corporate campus.  .....prose
 
Affirmative Action, thought the red-haired college graduate, condemned  .....prose. Also, why is 'thought the...' coming in now? It should've carried on in the same tone as before, with the implied assumption that the narrator was speaking from the POV of the subject. Now the foregoing is looking very shaky.
to the same pay, complaints, remedial training and repeated orders.  .....faint sense of irony that's not developed later in the poem. Also, prose.
 
The world wasn’t fair.  ...boring. and prose.
 
With his parents off partying, the darkening house is his.  .....prose
Straightened from bending low to burn his diploma in the fireplace,  ...I'm surprised he didn't burn it when he landed his current job.
his eye catches the elegant chandelier twelve feet from the floor.  .....unnecessary adjective in 'elegant'. also, makes it look like the idea of suicide came upon him all of a sudden. What caused said person to snap isn't clear, which is why the poem fails as drama.
Check living room doors, assure they’re locked. .....
Chandelier tight to the ceiling? Knot at its base double tied?  .....
Four-foot rope moving smoothly through the cylinder of eight careful turns? 
Looped over, around neck, pulled snug? Feet square on step ladder?
A quick one-footed shove, ladder clattering to the floor,
its splayed legs collapsing with an unheard wooden bang.  ....not bad from 'chandelier' to 'bang', compared to the rest of the poem, but it's still a done to the death -pun intended - description of a cliched suicide
The body jerks with a lifelike twitch just strong enough to prompt
a gentle chorus of faint tinkling from the fixture's crystal pendants.  ....'gentle' unnecessary
 
Outside, as if impelled by Wagnerian opera, a car’s demanding horn mocks the end,  ..... prose. and how does it mock?
its swerving headlights briefly sweeping away living room shadows, signaling a curtain's  .....the possessive pronoun suggest that the car's horn has headlights. Also.....prose
closing on an empty life. .....'empty' - again, the neutral POV is discredited. Given that the guy went to college, has a job, parents rich enough to party (how frigging old is he??), the emptiness is more juvenile angst than reality. Unless other facts have been withheld. Which they have, because apparently this poem is one in a series (nice excuse!)
 
Alan is the only company representative at the small funeral. He had sent a modest bouquet
with an awkwardly-written note, and now speaks softly to the guilt-ridden, broken parents.  .....Weak attempt at irony ('who should be guilt-ridden here?').
 
Affirmative Action

It is possible to write out any piece of prose as a poem with line breaks. English pronunciation follows a pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables, so anyone can make anything 'sound' like a poem.
But the poem above is too, too wordy to qualify as as a poem.
Also, the central premise is laughable. Guy doesn't get promoted in a dead end job, sees his black colleague move ahead, kills self. The characters haven't been fleshed out in any level of detail required for the reader to empathise.

Excellent post mortem suggesting I stick to rhyme, though the  poetry establishment frowns on it

[Achebe]

Excellent post mortem suggesting I stick to rhyme, though the  poetry establishment frowns on it

I wish there was a 'poetry establishment'. Poetry is too insignificant, too niche, too inconsequential a club to support an 'establishment'. The heads of this purported 'establishment' would make less money than a 30 year old investment banker or (in Australia), a truck driver in the iron ore mines; and have less influence than a lifestyle columnist for the North Shore Times.
What you mean is that the modern trend is to eschew rhyme, but that is not true. What is true is that better poetry has been written in the last 150 years (since Hopkins or so) than in the centuries before, I mean in the English language, and much of this has eschewed rhyme. But the same is true of any other feat of human endeavour, such as athletics, cricket, or mathematics.
Whether English is suited for rhyme is a separate and longer discussion.

Coming to your poem, the chief problem is that it's a short, dramatic poem, and the merits or demerits of the drama overshadow any technical virtues of the poem itself. As a poem, I would say that with a few tweaks, it can be quite a decent poem up until 'campus', but you need to change the trajectory of the story after that to avoid aforementioned drama. The suicide is S2 is too sudden, and too melodramatic to be credible, given the sparse buildup and insufficient lack of motive therefrom.
If you want to stick to the suicide, then you need to provide more insights into the mind of the red haired guy, so that a credible motive can be discerned.

Best

[zorcas]

Excellent post mortem suggesting I stick to rhyme, though the  poetry establishment frowns on it

I wish there was a 'poetry establishment'. Poetry is too insignificant, too niche, too inconsequential a club to support an 'establishment'. The heads of this purported 'establishment' would make less money than a 30 year old investment banker or (in Australia), a truck driver in the iron ore mines; and have less influence than a lifestyle columnist for the North Shore Times.
What you mean is that the modern trend is to eschew rhyme, but that is not true. What is true is that better poetry has been written in the last 150 years (since Hopkins or so) than in the centuries before, I mean in the English language, and much of this has eschewed rhyme. But the same is true of any other feat of human endeavour, such as athletics, cricket, or mathematics.
Whether English is suited for rhyme is a separate and longer discussion.

Coming to your poem, the chief problem is that it's a short, dramatic poem, and the merits or demerits of the drama overshadow any technical virtues of the poem itself. As a poem, I would say that with a few tweaks, it can be quite a decent poem up until 'campus', but you need to change the trajectory of the story after that to avoid aforementioned drama. The suicide is S2 is too sudden, and too melodramatic to be credible, given the sparse buildup and insufficient lack of motive therefrom.
If you want to stick to the suicide, then you need to provide more insights into the mind of the red haired guy, so that a credible motive can be discerned.

Best

The poetry establishment written about in a 2012 Harper's poetry slam followed by one in Boston Review details how certain influentials control output to the extent that almost all poetry magazines eschew brevity, levity and social comment, concentrating almost entirely on craftsmanship at the expense of content so that, as one critic noted, readers have little choice but to put up with beautiful but empty poems. This rigidity is propagated by MFA programs and the telling fact that poetry contest judges seem always to be poets themselves. This reflects an emphasis on production with no particular concern for consumers. My poems please me and are designed to also please readers, an effort involving poems having subjects, often forward  motion and always defined takeaways.

"At present I'm seeking poetry which is to a greater or lesser extent verbally-led, i.e. which foregrounds the patternings and intricacies of language, through which, rather than directly, the poem's message emerges...  This perhaps means "poetical" poems."

Those are a fortnightly's poetry editor's words which effectively rule out all poetic styles not meeting his but not necessarily readers' preferences.

Welcome to the poetry establishment which doesn't much like drama or muscularity either.

.

[just mercedes]

This changes style as it goes for dramatic effect.

AFFIRMATIVE ACTION
 
As the ten wheeler left the loading dock, his gaze went from bulking crates The ten wheeler truck has eyes? Clunky construction here.
to Alan, come to help.  Alan always came to help, though with the company . You're 'telling' a story, rather than allowing the actions of the protagonists show it to your reader. Readers hate being  lectured, but they like to be involved.
only six months longer and dark as he was light. Alan taught him how to open Six months longer? Time is a measurement of distance now? Why wasn't I told?
cartons, slicing sides not tops so layers of product could be quickly removed. Actually, factually incorrect, as with sides removed, layers are not accessible to be unpacked. Only removal of the top does that.
 
Alan told him which supervisors to trust, which to avoid. Alan this, Alan that.
Helpful yes, but he would have learned all that by himself--sooner or later. What is '--' supposed to be? It's not a recognizable notation in grammar (or language).
While Alan was only a high school grad, he had a bachelor’s degree Again, confusion between 'he' and 'Alan' - Alan has a bachelor's degree, is what you've said here. I think that's the opposite of what you mean. Though it's hard to tell.
tucked for six years in his bureau. Same pay, same hours for both- What is this hyphen for? What portmanteau word is it creating?
until Alan was promoted and moved elsewhere on the corporate campus. Corporate campus? This is a very uneasy image, and not backed up anywhere. You've taken me unwillingly into a male white supremacist type of privilege mind-set that is actually pretty ugly.
 
Affirmative Action, thought the red-haired college graduate, condemned
to the same pay, complaints, remedial training and repeated orders.
 
The world wasn’t fair.
 
With his parents off partying, the darkening house is his. Why is it important to the poem that the parents are partying? You lose my interest totally by now. Your poem is actually about a spoiled little whiner who throws a rope over a chandelier because he didn't get promoted? As if. 
Straightened from bending low to burn his diploma in the fireplace,
his eye catches the elegant chandelier twelve feet from the floor. 
Check living room doors, assure they’re locked.
Chandelier tight to the ceiling? Knot at its base double tied?
Four-foot rope moving smoothly through the cylinder of eight careful turns?
Looped over, around neck, pulled snug? Feet square on step ladder?
A quick one-footed shove, ladder clattering to the floor,
its splayed legs collapsing with an unheard wooden bang.
The body jerks with a lifelike twitch just strong enough to prompt
a gentle chorus of faint tinkling from the fixture's crystal pendants.
 
Outside, as if impelled by Wagnerian opera, a car’s demanding horn mocks the end,
its swerving headlights briefly sweeping away living room shadows, signaling a curtain's
closing on an empty life.
 
Alan is the only company representative at the small funeral. He had sent a modest bouquet
with an awkwardly-written note, and now speaks softly to the guilt-ridden, broken parents.
 
Affirmative Action

Of course these points are all my opinion, and you are free to use them or ignore them, as you wish.

[zorcas]

---

This changes style as it goes for dramatic effect.

AFFIRMATIVE ACTION
 
As the ten wheeler left the loading dock, his gaze went from bulking crates
to Alan, come to help.  Alan always came to help, though with the company
only six months longer and dark as he was light. Alan taught him how to open
cartons, slicing sides not tops so layers of product could be quickly removed.  .....the start isn't bad considering the rest of the poem,  but 'dark as he was light' is ominously hackneyed. 
 
Alan told him which supervisors to trust, which to avoid. Alan this, Alan that.
Helpful yes, but he would have learned all that by himself--sooner or later. .....prose. The charitable assumption is that the narrator is speaking from the POV of the red haired youth, in a sad attempt at irony.
While Alan was only a high school grad, he had a bachelor’s degree 
tucked for six years in his bureau. Same pay, same hours for both-  ...'while' and 'only' discredits the neutral POV of the narrator, saved only by the aforementioned charitable assumption
until Alan was promoted and moved elsewhere on the corporate campus.  .....prose
 
Affirmative Action, thought the red-haired college graduate, condemned  .....prose. Also, why is 'thought the...' coming in now? It should've carried on in the same tone as before, with the implied assumption that the narrator was speaking from the POV of the subject. Now the foregoing is looking very shaky.
to the same pay, complaints, remedial training and repeated orders.  .....faint sense of irony that's not developed later in the poem. Also, prose.
 
The world wasn’t fair.  ...boring. and prose.
 
With his parents off partying, the darkening house is his.  .....prose
Straightened from bending low to burn his diploma in the fireplace,  ...I'm surprised he didn't burn it when he landed his current job.
his eye catches the elegant chandelier twelve feet from the floor.  .....unnecessary adjective in 'elegant'. also, makes it look like the idea of suicide came upon him all of a sudden. What caused said person to snap isn't clear, which is why the poem fails as drama.
Check living room doors, assure they’re locked. .....
Chandelier tight to the ceiling? Knot at its base double tied?  .....
Four-foot rope moving smoothly through the cylinder of eight careful turns? 
Looped over, around neck, pulled snug? Feet square on step ladder?
A quick one-footed shove, ladder clattering to the floor,
its splayed legs collapsing with an unheard wooden bang.  ....not bad from 'chandelier' to 'bang', compared to the rest of the poem, but it's still a done to the death -pun intended - description of a cliched suicide
The body jerks with a lifelike twitch just strong enough to prompt
a gentle chorus of faint tinkling from the fixture's crystal pendants.  ....'gentle' unnecessary
 
Outside, as if impelled by Wagnerian opera, a car’s demanding horn mocks the end,  ..... prose. and how does it mock?
its swerving headlights briefly sweeping away living room shadows, signaling a curtain's  .....the possessive pronoun suggest that the car's horn has headlights. Also.....prose
closing on an empty life. .....'empty' - again, the neutral POV is discredited. Given that the guy went to college, has a job, parents rich enough to party (how frigging old is he??), the emptiness is more juvenile angst than reality. Unless other facts have been withheld. Which they have, because apparently this poem is one in a series (nice excuse!)
 
Alan is the only company representative at the small funeral. He had sent a modest bouquet
with an awkwardly-written note, and now speaks softly to the guilt-ridden, broken parents.  .....Weak attempt at irony ('who should be guilt-ridden here?').
 
Affirmative Action

It is possible to write out any piece of prose as a poem with line breaks. English pronunciation follows a pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables, so anyone can make anything 'sound' like a poem.
But the poem above is too, too wordy to qualify as as a poem.
Also, the central premise is laughable. Guy doesn't get promoted in a dead end job, sees his black colleague move ahead, kills self. The characters haven't been fleshed out in any level of detail required for the reader to empathise.

Someone seems unaccustomed to non-personal stories not Instagram slices of life, aka selfies. Given that poor souls often enough do themselves in because of poor grades or lost girlfriends, this fellow, still doing grunt work six years after college, reasonably offed himself. Noted also complaints about the work being too dramatic, a weird reaction, given that a norm in contemporary poetry is the lack of any emotion other than a kind of  self-centered wooziness.

[Achebe]

The

---

This changes style as it goes for dramatic effect.

AFFIRMATIVE ACTION
 
As the ten wheeler left the loading dock, his gaze went from bulking crates
to Alan, come to help.  Alan always came to help, though with the company
only six months longer and dark as he was light. Alan taught him how to open
cartons, slicing sides not tops so layers of product could be quickly removed.  .....the start isn't bad considering the rest of the poem,  but 'dark as he was light' is ominously hackneyed. 
 
Alan told him which supervisors to trust, which to avoid. Alan this, Alan that.
Helpful yes, but he would have learned all that by himself--sooner or later. .....prose. The charitable assumption is that the narrator is speaking from the POV of the red haired youth, in a sad attempt at irony.
While Alan was only a high school grad, he had a bachelor’s degree 
tucked for six years in his bureau. Same pay, same hours for both-  ...'while' and 'only' discredits the neutral POV of the narrator, saved only by the aforementioned charitable assumption
until Alan was promoted and moved elsewhere on the corporate campus.  .....prose
 
Affirmative Action, thought the red-haired college graduate, condemned  .....prose. Also, why is 'thought the...' coming in now? It should've carried on in the same tone as before, with the implied assumption that the narrator was speaking from the POV of the subject. Now the foregoing is looking very shaky.
to the same pay, complaints, remedial training and repeated orders.  .....faint sense of irony that's not developed later in the poem. Also, prose.
 
The world wasn’t fair.  ...boring. and prose.
 
With his parents off partying, the darkening house is his.  .....prose
Straightened from bending low to burn his diploma in the fireplace,  ...I'm surprised he didn't burn it when he landed his current job.
his eye catches the elegant chandelier twelve feet from the floor.  .....unnecessary adjective in 'elegant'. also, makes it look like the idea of suicide came upon him all of a sudden. What caused said person to snap isn't clear, which is why the poem fails as drama.
Check living room doors, assure they’re locked. .....
Chandelier tight to the ceiling? Knot at its base double tied?  .....
Four-foot rope moving smoothly through the cylinder of eight careful turns? 
Looped over, around neck, pulled snug? Feet square on step ladder?
A quick one-footed shove, ladder clattering to the floor,
its splayed legs collapsing with an unheard wooden bang.  ....not bad from 'chandelier' to 'bang', compared to the rest of the poem, but it's still a done to the death -pun intended - description of a cliched suicide
The body jerks with a lifelike twitch just strong enough to prompt
a gentle chorus of faint tinkling from the fixture's crystal pendants.  ....'gentle' unnecessary
 
Outside, as if impelled by Wagnerian opera, a car’s demanding horn mocks the end,  ..... prose. and how does it mock?
its swerving headlights briefly sweeping away living room shadows, signaling a curtain's  .....the possessive pronoun suggest that the car's horn has headlights. Also.....prose
closing on an empty life. .....'empty' - again, the neutral POV is discredited. Given that the guy went to college, has a job, parents rich enough to party (how frigging old is he??), the emptiness is more juvenile angst than reality. Unless other facts have been withheld. Which they have, because apparently this poem is one in a series (nice excuse!)
 
Alan is the only company representative at the small funeral. He had sent a modest bouquet
with an awkwardly-written note, and now speaks softly to the guilt-ridden, broken parents.  .....Weak attempt at irony ('who should be guilt-ridden here?').
 
Affirmative Action

It is possible to write out any piece of prose as a poem with line breaks. English pronunciation follows a pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables, so anyone can make anything 'sound' like a poem.
But the poem above is too, too wordy to qualify as as a poem.
Also, the central premise is laughable. Guy doesn't get promoted in a dead end job, sees his black colleague move ahead, kills self. The characters haven't been fleshed out in any level of detail required for the reader to empathise.

Someone seems unaccustomed to non-personal stories not Instagram slices of life, aka selfies. Given that poor souls often enough do themselves in because of poor grades or lost girlfriends, this fellow, still doing grunt work six years after college, reasonably offed himself. Noted also complaints about the work being too dramatic, a weird reaction, given that a norm in contemporary poetry is the lack of any emotion other than a kind of  self-centered wooziness.

Guys also kill puppies for fun.
Note my point about the central problem being that the reader is unable to empathise because at the end of the day your poem seems to be about one weird fuck. Why bother giving a motive at all then? 
Still doing grunt work after college is no more reason to off self than Brazil's loss to France in 1998. The motive in such cases is more complex, and often underachievement at work is symptomatic of broader failures in life. For the drama to be convincing, and there is only drama in this poem, a more complex motive needs to be supplied or hinted at for credibility.
Also, in response to your ad hominem, someone seems unable to write anything other than doggerel. Clue - its you.

[Leanne]

There are plenty of journals that will accept fusion prose/poetry, poetic prose, personal essays, etc. There is no lack of a market, just a lack of financial reward within that market

While the overbred sense of entitlement -- and therefore the skewed perception of "fair" -- is not at all unusual in our society, and anything that shakes that entitlement can indeed lead to a (perhaps tragic) overreaction such as you describe, what is lacking here is sympathy for either character. Alan comes off seeming like a bit of a know-all goody two-shoes, and the protagonist is just a spoilt dickhead. To build sympathy, it would not be too difficult to insert a series of perceived slights in a more subtle way than just saying "Alan was better and the ginger didn't realise".

I enjoyed the way you used the suicide stanza to describe the very privileged life this fellow had led, and further contribute to the sense that he was just an ungrateful little shit. I don't think there's much to be gained by mentioning that his parents were away partying, as it's clear he's old enough to be left on his own. He's had his degree for six years, after all.

I actually enjoyed the Wagnerian stanza. It was nice to see some showing come into this rather than pure tell. "an empty life" is probably a step too far though.

It is probably best to cut out more of the tell: "the world wasn't fair", for example.

And Alan's background? Some more contrast would be good. Make us care. Build the tension. As it is, it's anticlimactic.

Despite some of the backbiting and nastiness that's been creeping into Serious Workshopping lately, I find that there is something here to be workshopped into a decent work of fusion that, with enough care, could certainly strike a chord with a wider audience.