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4/14/2020 4:11:41 AM Ojingiri Hannah Posts: 1	Hello Heart! Be dead and gone Gone to places where no one will ever find you You amongst all nation cause chaos and laughter Laughter that doesn't last a lifetime Hello Heart! If dreams come through I would leave your space empty Or Filled with bees For they fill my body with rhythm and sparks Like bubbles on skin Hello Heart! Quit your deceptive act You don't rule my body The head does For I will die for it ten times than a throbbing heart
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4/21/2020 10:22:57 PM Jack Webster Posts: 255	Poems like these are often cathartic for the writer, and therein the majority of the value lies. In terms of poetry that has some value for the earnest reader, there isnt too much to offer. Or, perhaps put more gently, it is not clear who your intended audience is. The first two lines are jolting. Although, I imagine this was intentional, so in terms of craft, one can say well done. Put bluntly, there is nothing about the persona in the poem that makes me want to lean in to what the poem has to say. In terms of being cathartic for the author, this point is not relevant. This particular point is only relevant is the author wishes the persona to have a fundamental charisma that has some small degree of intimacy with the reader. The poem captures the frustration, anger, vehemence, bitterness, well, but why make a vessel to immortalize these spirits? What is the value of giving them a body to linger on in, the value of sending them out into the world? Personally, I dont want my heart (what little left there is) to be dead and gone. Why would i find pleasure as a reader drinking from a vessel filled with a liquor so strongly distilled to bid the heart be dead and gone? Even poets the likes of Poe, Sexton, Dickinson, the perduringly dark Plath, or even the wild Ai, have never bid the heart be dead and gone. They may sing its angst, let its darkness ooze out, but they’ve never bid it die. As a joe schmo, I get it; as a poet and a reader looking for a little light, I find it repelling. Again, if the poems just for your benefit, none of the above has any ground to stand on. Good luck
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