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5/15/2017 4:20:17 PM Carissa Marie Posts: 24	I can taste Words you haven't yet spoken, Violent betrayals preordained To ooze over my blistered throat. Broken promises, Pinkies entwined While future fingers fade. I can taste Jokes you haven't yet told, Our precious snapshots Aired out for your friends. Cackling hyenas, Jackals tearing moments She and I both revered. Her poetry makes you laugh now; I can only imagine How mine will. I can taste A relationship you haven't yet ended, The final echoes of sanity, "Where's the old you," Bated breaths being eaten alive- Sucked into the maw Of all the darkness I can taste. ((This is a new one that I just wrote and it's largely unedited, so I just wanted to get some feedback so I can edit for clarification on the version I posted. Thanks!))
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9/7/2017 5:17:30 PM Jack Webster Posts: 255	the poem is very focused, very direct. the mood is in sharp focus. it's not clear to me how the poem is intended to add to the reader's human experience. the language is very successful in creating a palpable poetic space and using both concrete language and figurative language to convey the sensations of the emotion - the part about oozing in the throat is extremely strong and visceral. It is well executed. While it is successful writing in that sense, i don't get the sense that the audience was considered when the poem was written. A poem is an invitation for the reader to enter the space of the poem and to experience it, not as the author experiences it, but as the object that the poem acts upon. The space of the poem is somewhat unpleasent to experience - while the oozing throat is very effective writing, and brilliantly intuited as being a precise description to convey the feeling, it is not necessarily a sensation I as the reader want to experience. If the poem added to my human experience somehow, then it would have some merit to indulge that experience, but I don't understand what reason there is to want to share that experience with the poem. I'm just left with an oozing throat. Hopefully an oozing throat is not the only thing the poem wishes to give the reader? Poems written in second person are tricky i think. At first i thought you were addressing the reader, then i felt like i was reading a poem intended for the subject of the poem. As a reader i started to feel like a third wheel. your voice is wonderfully strong, and i think you have a talent for visceral language and instantly translating emotion into sensation and images. I enjoyed this aspect of your writing very much as an observer of the poem, rather than the person occupying the space of the poem (i hope that makes sense) I hope my feedback is helpful somehow. your writing is very strong.
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9/7/2017 5:21:11 PM Jack Webster Posts: 255	oops! DIRECT ADDRESS*, not second person (though they both are awkward for poems i think)
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