meghancurley's profile

meghancurley avatar
AGE: 28
LOC: Long Beach, NY
GEN: Female
LAST LOGIN: October 12

Why I’m here:  
I make plenty of expensive mistakes in life. At least in poetry, mistakes are free. I’m here for educated criticism, not pep talks or handshakes.
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Why You’re Here:
If you ask for a review, you’re going to get one. I’ll back up every comment I make. If you can’t handle that, keep the poems in a journal, nestled in obscurity.

About Me:
On any given day, I’m busy getting away with nothing.

Education:
-Kinesthetic learner
-Benefits from frequent breaks, background noise, and pacing.
-Student of teaspoons, broken things, surrender.
I gossip with disaster.

Vanity:
http://www.myspace.com/megcurley

Item Stats
Reviewer Stats
Items
Poetry / Grunion Memory
Version 1
7 Reviews   2 Comments
Grunion Memory In the goat heat of summer, beneath boardwalk planks with their nail-strung coronals over sand borrowed from another time and laced with urine and ocean, we lay in a blur of sixteen and no home and a boy unfolded his tongue at the edge of my lips, saying "Never."
Ratings & Rankings
Poetry / October
Version 1
9 Reviews   2 Comments
Something can't be said about the way October falls upon us-- silent and precise. Our windows are still open. The same slow noises gather on the sill-- crickets and cars, cans and papers tripping by. If we had fields they'd be empty, our cellars would be full. But we're suburban and economical. Wrapped in the dust of April and August, we're using three blankets. Soon enough we'll wear masks and test each step for icy promise. And so I take you in the orange morning moment by moment by moment.
Ratings & Rankings
Poetry / Encounter
Version 1
9 Reviews   4 Comments
Insects lumbered into the house all year, surprised and terrified as we were to find them here. Ants on the window. Centipedes in the sink. It was best to not think of them until tonight when an orange spider ambled across the white of my page, skirting the dark forest of a poem. That lover of connections, born to praise lines, I scraped him into the binding and shook him to the floor. Tonight we lie together each in our separate darks. I dream of Whitman in a garden, angry with me for not lo...
Ratings & Rankings
Version 1
6 Reviews   2 Comments
We keep getting introduced at parties because our friends think we’d be perfect for each other. So here you are again. You search my eyes for a reflection of yourself. Frankly, you swagger. You walk into the room. You contemplate the fruit. It’s fine that you’ve forgotten my name every time we’ve met. The first one on the balcony when you watched me smoke a cigarette and I proposed the death of consonants. Tears gathered in your eyes, your lip trembled and I can't remember anything you said. ...
Ratings & Rankings
Version 1
7 Reviews   5 Comments
Everyone has awkward years, but yours will be fantastically so. You will have a series of bad haircuts. You'll smoke two packs a day and be overweight. You will marry badly and always make that face when your mother says your name. Your own voice will deepen then get softer like stones of melting chocolate. You'll work fifty hours a week and always want to get out of Queens. You will never get out of Queens. Don't put your tongue on that window. Though the rain there makes a mosaic of your fa...
Ratings & Rankings
Reviews
Interesting ending. Also, thanks for making me learn a new word today (katana). I went to wikipedia BUT your readers may not want to do that. Might you be able to put the word in context so that we know or have some idea that it's a sword? Maybe a short description of it ?I like the alliterative "as wide as the width of his eyes" and the rhythm of that as well. Maybe put it on its own line so we really get that rhythm. I don't think the third stanza is satisfacorty at all. I don't mind that i...
Poetry / Shards of being
I like the starkness and think it quite fitting for the subject matter. Still, some of the language is awkward and high-falootin' dagnabbit. "Gone is the light..." Gone also is Tennyson. Why not simply "The light is gone"? This would be more effective, more mysterious. Why are there "ice drippings"? This is particularly strange because of the "cherry cheekbones"...do you mean "cheeks"? Is the whole bone cherry? I also suggest the final three lines be reconfigured for optimal effect. Perhaps "...
Poetry / Cocoon
Well, my reviews are workshop reviews. Hope you don't mind. The caterpillar/butterfly metaphor for growth is a bit cliche, but one that's also totally workable. Some beautiful lines but I believe there are "technical details" that would make the metaphor starker/more dangerous, by making the poem a bit more impersonal. My suggestions: strike "the" from "the past from future." Can it be "a caterpillar" as in "any old caterpillar" which would make the next lines be more confessional? I suggest ...
Poetry / Love
I find this poem to be far too in love with itself. First stanza: Aren't eternity and infinity the same thing? If they aren't, I'd like to know how you're defining them. Also, there's something absolutely ridiculous about Eternity "surfing". A sky IS celestial so there's no need to qualify "sky" with that adjective. That's like saying "The apple is maroon red" or something of the sort. Alliteration can be nice and also very interesting, but this language is sloppy, if not downright irresponsi...
Poetry / This
Not sure if it's urbis or if it's your decisions, but the linebreaks are a bit sloppy. I think long lines would work in the poem, though I think you may also go with shorter, epigrammatic lines. Of course the content reminds me of Pound's "In a Station of the Metro" and maybe that's why I'm leaning toward shorter bursts, images and such. There are just a lot of words getting in the way of the final image and sentiment, which are quite lovely. Consider opening with Spring; you can bring in win...