...okay, you have a very different way of reading poetry than I do, or perhaps this is your fallback compliment, or possibly this is a poem that needs to be performed for full effect, but 'lovely' is not precisely the word I would use. Nor that Mitch would use (he read your comment over my shoulder last night). I think this poem is hysterical. I perform it to be deeply amusing, so much so that my voice shakes with laughing and that's an essential part of the poem. This was one of my senior-thesis pieces, so I did a lot of thinking about it.
I also don't write to be just complimented--I do appreciate it, but I'm much more interested in hearing clear, opinionated thoughts on what I write. You comment often enough, with similar enough phrases, that I figured I would get around to telling you that.
You seriously don't recall that I use "lovely" as a default word? Maybe you have no reason to, and I doubt Kendra bothered to tell you.
If you really want critique/criticism, fine. I find few people do, so I just inform them I liked it.
I can see a proper performance of this being amusing, even side-splittingly funny if the comedian was solid enough, although I don't think it is nearly long enough or has enough build to actually get to side-splitting without a crowd that's already in joke mode.
I actually read it as quite dark, but then I find that funny. It had more of a "Skullcrusher Mountain" feel to me, where it is a very dark piece rendered amusing by its protagonists' inability to comprehend the other point of view. I think it could be performed straight and come off quite sinister and effective.
People who don't want critique or criticism are not proper writers.
I find that this piece is more effective in situ; as a stand-alone it may need work I'm not at the moment prepared to do. It's located directly after some seriously tough poetry, acting as a transition piece from the flat brutality of what comes before, through black humor into a place where things are moving towards okay. It's in the middle of several water-soaked poems, although that's a happy accident (things like that, unconscious groupings, are why I consider myself a proper poet). It's meant to be dark; it's meant to be performed with laughter. It's not meant to be side-splitting; nothing I write is.
I suppose it can be read straight; it loses a little bit of its cachet, but at that point it's in the hands of the reader.
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I also don't write to be just complimented--I do appreciate it, but I'm much more interested in hearing clear, opinionated thoughts on what I write. You comment often enough, with similar enough phrases, that I figured I would get around to telling you that.
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If you really want critique/criticism, fine. I find few people do, so I just inform them I liked it.
I can see a proper performance of this being amusing, even side-splittingly funny if the comedian was solid enough, although I don't think it is nearly long enough or has enough build to actually get to side-splitting without a crowd that's already in joke mode.
I actually read it as quite dark, but then I find that funny. It had more of a "Skullcrusher Mountain" feel to me, where it is a very dark piece rendered amusing by its protagonists' inability to comprehend the other point of view. I think it could be performed straight and come off quite sinister and effective.
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I find that this piece is more effective in situ; as a stand-alone it may need work I'm not at the moment prepared to do. It's located directly after some seriously tough poetry, acting as a transition piece from the flat brutality of what comes before, through black humor into a place where things are moving towards okay. It's in the middle of several water-soaked poems, although that's a happy accident (things like that, unconscious groupings, are why I consider myself a proper poet). It's meant to be dark; it's meant to be performed with laughter. It's not meant to be side-splitting; nothing I write is.
I suppose it can be read straight; it loses a little bit of its cachet, but at that point it's in the hands of the reader.
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