Poems to keep you awake at night - Roy Jerden's Blog

Well, we have the usual gang of suspects, but some new faces as well. The topic was a difficult one to write to without falling into cliches. I was concerned that a few poems might fall out of PS guidelines, so I re-read them. Apparently explicit language is out, but pedophilia is OK. Hateful expressions are out, but slicing people up, nailing them to the wall, and forcibly drowning/suffocating them are in (as long as you are polite about it, of course). I found it interesting that so many people jumped on this topic, but ignored the chance to write some lyrics to beautiful music in Craig's contest, started at the same time. The Dark Side of the Force definitely rules.

I'm not going to speak to every poem, but I did want to mention a few.
Carrie and Debbie's talent speaks for itself and does not require any comments, just a read. BTY, Debbie's is a Villanelle, too, a tough form in itself. I had no idea these two sweet ladies harbored such ideas. 

The most disturbing poem was Brick Cullum's for me. This is one I would like to truly forget, all joking aside, as it implies that pedophilia is an enjoyable experience for the victim. I was wondering if someone would take the topic (there were two actually) from the POV of the victim, but this one really bothered me.

I was going to exclude all the explicit slasher poems as I wanted to focus on the psychological side of fear, but Kurt Everdeen's poem was so creative and created such disturbing images that I decided to make an exception.

Becca's poem has already been discussed in a blog ad nauseum, so I just wanted to say that she took on a tough topic and did a good job, creating more than a cardboard character that we could just forget. However, she did imply a direct cause and effect relationship between pornography work and suicide, at least in this case. I don't think it's ever that simple, so I don't think any general conclusions should be made, although I'm neither a suicide nor porn expert.

On the HM poems, I wanted to recognize a couple of folks who took a humorous approach, Seosamh  and Jack Horne. I like it when folks turn the theme kind of upside down.

Jonathan Bellman's poem is not particularly scary, more foreboding than anything else, but it's such good poetry I wanted to recognize it anyway. Same for Blind Pathos, who has great meter also.

Last is Cyndi's poem ... or rather poem and exhortation. There is so much emotion expressed here that I felt it needed recognition. Plus, I'm a bit afraid of Cyndi....