KWeiss1's comments

UVM Mentor

Great Job! The first five lines grab you by the collar and pull you in with great force. The timing from "black smeared mess" to "Everyday I become more like them" is excellent. Great use of punctuation throughout the poem to really set the pace. Each word before a period drops heavy on the tongue.

"They no longer make that soap." is such a great line. I don't think there's any other way to read this than to take a deep breath, emphasize each word to its fullest and then just pause and let it all sink in.

So where to go from here? I would start with the line beginning, " I feel the only people..." At first I wanted to say it was obviously too long for the poem, but then I wanted to keep it and italicize "ones" or "first place". Either way, because it speaks about getting "rid" of the words, it should be coupled with your "soap" lines. I think this makes a nice transition afterwards between the screaming words and your disappearance. It directly links the "words" as an active agent with your disappearance, making them the sole culprit.

The only other thing is the imagery of the "black smeared mess" streaming down your cheeks. THis "black" image, emptiness, lack of definition, I think it could work well coming back at the end of the piece. When you disappear is it into this "mess"?

I hope you revisit this. Good luck.

Kurt

UVM Mentor

Harlan,

I really like what you've done with the title of this poem. The transition from "People pass me by without a glance" to "Will spare a passing glance." is really well done. It demonstrates an overall theme of the poem which you have well accomplished, taking the literal sense and transforming it into a metaphoric sense. Did you literally fall in some street or hallway, or is a sense of abandon you feel represented by falling?

With that in mind, I'm curious as to why you chose the line: I wear all black. This seems too literal to match the rest of the poem. The shadow imagery is great in the following sentence, and this blatant line seems a little unnecessary to prepare the reader for that image.

WIth all this said, I think you have much more to address in this poem. This is a start to a terrific poem, but it leaves too much unanswered at this point. This is a mere introduction to a character or frame of mind, but what can be learned here? You cant simply state: I am alone. It's your duty as an author to find a meaning within that and press it to the page.

A few other notes.

Did you intentionally leave your "i" in the lower case? I would advise against it if so.

Punctuation. You don't need all the commas. Lines can end with no punctuation at all. Take each stanza and write it out as a sentence and place commas as you would for an english paper. This is where the commas will go in your poem as well. For instance, your first stanza might look like this: I fall to the floor. People pass me by without a glance. I do not exist. I wear all black and in the corner where I fall, I am nothing but a shadow.

Good luck.

Kurt

UVM Mentor

Catherine,

This is a really great poem. It immediately strikes you as being tender and thoughtful. As Hugh noted, it makes the reader want to be the "you" of your poem. Evoking that sensation in a reader is no easy task, good work.

Repetition is the key to this poem. You repeat whole lines: "Every time you're here with me" and even a verse is repeated. "here with me" is another phrase that pops up three times. More subtly there is the back-to-back repetition of "share" and near back-to-back repetition of "relief" and "relieved". This repetition makes the voice and content of the poem familiar to the reader as we progress and also underlines the yearning sensation of the poem.

While repetition alone does carry your poem quite well, I would suggest working with your meter. Count the syllables in each line. Do you see patterns, or places where a pattern almost exists? You'll notice that third line of your first verse is much longer than any other line. It's difficult to read with the flow of the rest of your poem? How might adjusting that line to a meter more in tune with other verses create a smoother flow for your peace.

Working within a meter gives you another tool to use. For instance, right now you use repetition and begin every verse with "Every time" and until the last verse, in the very last line, it appears nowhere else. The effect is that your last line is heavier than the rest. "Every time" takes on a newer, sadder meaning. It used to be followed by lines of love and hope. Now it is left on its own, longing, as the narrator longs, to be with more of "you".

Likewise, with a meter, when you do decide to stray from that standard, it will give a new purpose to the line.

Good luck down the road. I hope you decide to revisit this.

Kurt

UVM Mentor

Jordan,

As has been previously suggested, you definitely have a strong imagination, however I believe you're holding yourself back in respect to your poetry and even poetic imagination. What you've written here is an interesting piece, but as it stands it is not a poem. A man walks into a hotel room and blows up the whole building. This is a sequence of events. You're ability to make this into a poem lies in your imagination and the way in which you can bring this story to life.

The line which most provokes a sense of poetry is "Nobody cares". Why? Is this a statement about the people who do not care their lives are in danger, or about the bomber himself? This line hints at a greater truth, without revealing itself in full. In that verse it is coupled with "Nobody notices". The repetition here is a poetic tool, it hints that these two lines are important. The reader should "notice" them and should in fact "care".

Contrast this with your second to last verse:

I place the plastic explosives
Next to the bathroom door
I slip out of the room
And leave the building

This is purely narrative. "I place the plastic explosives next to the bathroom door, slip out of the room, and leave the building." I've very quickly turned this into a simple statement. You're only repetition here is of "I" which doesn't change at all in meaning. I did this and then I did that. The "I" is still the same after it slips out of the room as it was placing the explosives.

I really hope you take the time to rework this poem. What you should see happening as you become more intentional with your use of poetics, is that your lines of narrative become the imagery to your poem's meaning.

Go in through the back
Nobody notices
Nobody cares
They’re all paid

Good luck.

Kurt

UVM Mentor

Hassan, as someone who can spend in entire afternoon watching Jordan commercials and highlight montages on youtube, I couldn't agree with you more.
Your content is flawless. We need now to examine your presentation. You've chosen to write a poem, and again I could not agree more that an ode to Michael Jordan is one of the best poems you can write. That said, in order for this to become a poem, it needs a lot of work. And on the other hand, in order for it to become a biographical essay, it needs a lot of work. As you've chosen poetry, I'll focus on that.

Your first two lines are true statements, but they are simply statements. Michael Jordan is a unique [and?] famous basketball player. This is a statement of truth. In poetry, the writer attempts to convey truths such as these by creating images with his words or calling the reader's memory or senses to attention.

What makes Michael Jordan so great? Are there specific images that you look at and just know, Michael is amazing? Try in your poem to make the reader understand Jordan's greatness without coming out and stating: Jordan is great.

Good luck with this.

Kurt

UVM Mentor

Bjorn,
This is a really nice poem. Right from the get go you pull the reader in with a slight twist on a very familiar line. Now seemingly by adding so much distance to a line already about distance, we might find ourselves in a time before pianos. However, coupled with your next line: A kid played piano, it becomes a more personal concept. We get the sense that someone is looking back on their life. An older person might actually refer to their youth as having taken place "once upon a very long time ago".

The poem itself is short and sweet and does well to tell your story. The three-line stanza work well in the second two of that kind. In the second stanza though, the last two lines seem forced. I like the image of the piano kid drawing the audience's attention with his music, but you might work that imagery into some more comfortable lines.

Another note on the form side comes in reading your last stanza. The first line is 8 syllables, comprised of 8 words. The next line starts out nicely coupling two syllables into one word and repeating "c" and "ly". Then the pace picks back up with one syllable words leading to your rhyme, however you have five syllables. It's a subtle change, but in reworking that to flow with the tempo of the first line (8 syllables) the effect will be pleasing.

Finally, for all your poems, try writing them out in sentence form. Focus on punctuation. Right now, you have a comma after every line though it is often unnecessary. In other places, a period would do much better. For instance, I would say that each line in the second to last stanza is a sentence and should end in a period.

Good luck with this.

Kurt

UVM Mentor
Mango, I just had the pleasure of reading your poem "Running in Rain" and I stumbled on this. It's nice to see that you stuck with a similar form (4 line stanzas, often short) but managed to produce two very different poems. Compared to "Rain" this is much more of a blatant introspection. To further this poem, I think you need to dig deeper into the metaphorical self-reflection. As the poem advance you stick with the physical reflection, "mocking my lanky limbs" and "we who look alike". The end smashing of the class will take on a much more ironic meaning, if the poem develops outside of what can simply be smashed to bits.

Again, the punctuation is often unnecessary. Use my advice from "Rain" to figure out some of these sentence. Notice how much punctuation can change the meaning of a stanza. For example, Stanza 2 can be written two ways. 1. Am I real? Or is she? Who sits and stares like I? In this working of the lines, there are three direct questions. 2. Am I or real? Or is she, who sits and stares, like I? Here there are two questions, and the third line of the stanza becomes an adjectival phrase, which describes "she". The meanings between the two stanza written with this punctuation become rather different. Punctuation in poetry, when used intentionally like this, can go far in expanding the meaning of your words.

Good luck in further drafts.

Kurt

UVM Mentor

Mango, this is a great poem. It moves along with great pace attacking the reader's senses and memory. You make a great turn in paralleling the rain with crying. It's a romantic notion to think of what happens when we cry in the rain. I think that for this poem to reach its potential, this is an area you should explore. To do this you need to be very intentional with you stanzas. I like that the fresh leaves fall from the weight of the rain. I can easily identify that with the emotion behind tears. Not long after however, the rain is a fluffy cloud lifting me towards the sky. These two images seem to be in contradiction. If this contradiction is something you were trying to establish, then again you would need to be conscious of how you develop it in other stanzas.
As far as form goes, yours works well to establish a nice repetitive pace. You don't need all the commas however, lines can end with no punctuation at all. Take each stanza and write it out as a sentence and place commas as you would for an english paper. This is where the commas will go in your poem as well. For instance, your first stanza might look like this: No one ever told me what rain feels like when it hits your face, or how it tastes. Whereas the second stanza might appear as follows: Now I know why, because it is impossible to use human words to describe it.
One last thing is to take another look at your line "So no one would know, that you're crying." Your two verbs (would and are) don't agree in tense. Try fiddling with that.
You have a great poem here and have laid the foundations to really polish it and fill it with meaning. Decide what it is you want to convey about the rain and tears, then work back through poem to create that feeling in each stanza.

Good luck,

Kurt