Poetry / Sociopathic Strut

Wow, this is really good.  I’m going to go through this maticulously because it deserves it.  

Suggestions for change:

The title – It’s not grabbing AT ALL.  I passed this like six times in the queue.  Titles with possesives in them are usually boring, and the same thing goes for abstractions (my, acceptance).  Maybe you could just call it Strut.  

Stanza one – Take out “in the alley near school” it is unnessecary information that doesn’t add to the poetics.  Take out the comma’s after I and real, and the elipses after now.  

Stanza two – Cut the word for from the third line and start that sentence with a capitol letter.  I also think the second to last line could be dropped, “thinner is necessary” says it all.

Stanza three – You need a capitol letter for the third line, and the last line has to many comma’s, maybe you could break that line up.

Stanza four – (love this stanza) Lose the capitol letter in the second line.  

Stanza five – Lose everything after “Exercise I say”  It’s just too much, and a little too unbelievable, even if it really did happen.

Stanza six – This is also too much, it makes you sound a little arrogant.  i would suggest simply stating “In English class I am full of shit.”

Stanza seven – Cut the word and in the second line, it flows better that way.  I also think you should re-word the last line or lose it.  

Stanza eight – I would consider losing the whole thing.  You use way too many abstractions.  If you don’t want to lost it stick with the image lines like the last two, instead of the abstract lines like the first two.

Stanza nine – I would also suggest losing this, it’s a tad cliche.

Stanza ten – lose the comma after throat, the line break does enough

Stanza eleven – Cut the first two adjectives, “holding your voice” says the proudly and cowardly for you.  Great ending.

Good luck, I can’t wait to see the revision.

I don’t know what the notes mean, but there is something very raw and real about this poem that borders on prose or short-fiction. I like the clean clarity of it, how it is fresh and doesn’t fall into melodrama or maudlin cliches. At times there is a rhythm and lilt to the stanzas (S3 & S9) that if this could be embellished or maintained would make this a stellar poem, for at times it goes into flat prose and it wouldn’t take much to turn it up a notch. Nice work.

This will ring home to quite a few. Words are plain, yet very intense through out the poem. The section below was my favorite piece.

I duck into a bathroom,
the last stall still scented with my gym class cigarette.
slick the bag from my bra,
flick two taps, dunk the key, flush, sniff, repeat.

This is a very heart-felt series of pleas and I liked how it captured everyday feelings and events, almost documentary-like. I felt that there were lots of points you were making, but that they didn’t sit together very cleanly: they were just thrown in as they occurred. While this captures anxiety, it makes it harder for the reader to pull any conclusions out, while feeling like they should be able to (the question on line 3 makes me feel like this).

Maybe it’s just a case of focus: perhaps take out the stuff about “What is intelligence?”, maybe take stanza 4 out, concentrate on the theme of fitting in?

It feels more like prose to me, and I think it would actually work better as a short story.

On the minus side, I couldn’t quite see how the first three lines tied into this. You also never return to answer the question you pose there. By the way, “your” should be “you’re” in the second line.

li. 1: “you’re” instead of “your”

I think the second and third lines are sort of unecessary, you would do better to just continue straight to “encompassed…” because I like that particular line, it grabs the attention.

2nd Stanza:
I see what you’re trying to get at here, but are these details integral to the entire focus of your poem? You might want to find a more interesting way to examine this instant, rather than relating it in simple, factual statements.

How does this stanza support your main point? I think it seems unneeded :”Mr. Kent peeks…to be fun?”

These lines are nice as well: “Peer into the…in my throat”

What does this line mean? The structure is very awkward: “my diatribe against my polite declines to every invitation”

I think the last stanza could be deleted, and you could end with a more concise form of the above sentence, as a way of wrapping the whole piece up. I think I get the just of what you were trying to say, but you need to fix the verb agreement.

The most important thing is that you get a concrete focus in your mind, of what you want to say with your poem. Is this about highschool life, is it about an eating disorder/self-destructiveness, is it just asking yourself questions? Pinpoint your subject and stick with it, make sure all of your poem supports your main focus and it will help tie all of the lines together nicely. I think you have a few good images and insights here, but a lot of it is lost within aimless questions and statements that are better suited for a journal entry.

This is a really good poem, I like poetic stories.

I think you portrayed a high school (rebel) girl very well, but for all I know, you could have been one, I don’t know.

“Buy three valium from another stall’s ghost,
Listen to a cigarettes worth of her rambles.
Certain she is so fucking past repair.”
That would definitely be my favorite stanza.

I think you could make the ending a bit stronger, it just doesn’t seem like it ends. I would suggest a statement after the questions that ties them together, or just a statement about something.

Other than that, I really like this, good job!

Most of these kind of poems tend to be too “emo”. Although, this is an example how journal poetry should be. You didn’t overflow it with drama and just stated details and thoughts in an eloquent way.

how do you know the difference between depression and pms
it take me back to when i was in high school and in navy a school

you write from the heart i like that

I suppose this is about a school aged girl hooked on drugs and fading away. Is that correct? This seems like a very personal poem, not sure. I felt like it may have been written by that same drugged up girl. You may have intentionally written it that way. All in all a pretty good poem. Thank you for sharing.

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December 21, 2006

by izzy421096

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that is what it seems like to me
i think thats what i relate to
as i was using at that time in my life
i think of both the good and the bad that drugs brought to me

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