Well said, but I'm not sure if this is a slam poem or a criticism against slam poetry, or both? I think your main problem is focus. The piece starts out seeming to criticize slam poetry because it is performance based--"wonderful monologue"--but then moves into a consideration of fairness for race--"I'm trying to be balanced." Then you move into "I say we don't talk about it," when you haven't clearly established what 'it' is: race? quality of poetry? performance over craft? I love from "I sa...

I enjoyed the careful tone of the prose. The ending wasn't too predictable, though you foreshadow it a bit too much maybe. In reality, a woman would know what her lover feels and smells like, even if they only know it subconsciously, so I'm not sure it's 100% believable, but it still works. It's still a little too close to Penthouse letters for my taste. I enjoy erotica, and you've approached from an interesting angle with some obvious talent, but sometimes it's too formulaic. No surprises he...

Actually, this does a lot more in the poetic space than it would in prose. If you want to see long metered lines, look at C.K. Williams. Now, his line length annoys me. My favorite line here is "Sometime later you ate a sandwich." This pieces is full of seemingly random details that are held together by poetic tonality and intentionality. I really enjoy the last call ending. It somehow reminds me of Eliot's "Wasteland."

I enjoyed the story, but it's not for everyone. There is a lot of wordplay. Some of it works and some of it doesn't. Go through and read your wordplay out loud to check for musical quality and tongue ties. Remove the tongue ties. The narrator is believable, but nothing really develops from the story. I also don't believe that someone would give a perfect stranger ~30 hits. That's a whole lot of acid. Beyond that, blackouts are very uncommon during acid trips, so I think the story could be mor...

Does Your Toe Tag Reveal the State of Your Legs? Blood swept down the sidewalk and puddled in the cracks like melted hard candy in July. Ants marched in straight lines around matted, blond locks. The coroner brushed the dirt from her sundress after the snap shots were taken. The yellow tape read Crime Scene but Detective Greene found little evidence of a crime-- no eyewitnesses, no odd fingerprints, no foreign DNA under her nails. Beautiful women don’t fall from space, not since Barbara Ella....

This still feels like a thought than a poem. It feels uncomfortable how directly you break the fourth wall, as though you had a perspective that you are "letting us in on." That might not be the case, but the tone and implied 2nd person give it that feel. So, why is this a poem? (something my professor always asked me) Your theme, perception, needs to be demonstrated through a central conflict and series of images. All you've really done is talk about it. Look at your verbs and you'll notice ...

funny. Sort of an object poem, from what I could tell. I'm not sure what person 'wound your fingers round' though. I'm getting the image of eating snails, escargot. Spice this up with a few concrete details and some more honest humor and you've really got something.

The simplicity of this poem is attractive. I love love love the usage of place names, though i wish I could get a better sense of them through imagery. Also, your ending seems ambivalent. I wish it opened up more into the emotional world and gave me a sense of loss or distraction. Maybe some metaphor would help, or maybe it would just distract from the linear narrative.

The crux of writing a short poem is that you have to be even more exact with your words. "No world, only rain" has a nice sound to it, almost chiasmic. Remove the redundant "only" in line 2. You need a verb in your first stanza. Nothing has happened so far. I'm not sure why the narrator is numb. After giving sensual details like heat and scent, then how could the narrator not sense them? It's contradictory. "Only our spirits ache/for the feel of each other's touch." --again, you have a redund...