Poetry / How to survive a Bottle-nosed Dolphin attack and other major acts of God.

dear writer,

i loved how smacked a dagooly and drove around smecking. up and down, great. also when you say car pida locust i think it could be improved by saying car pidest localumba.

what really effected me was the gaggled smock trop diggle bomb. it reminded me of trip tailer swapping with southwestern runson sacks.

i hate to nit pick, but when you said november i really thought october would have worked better. maybe its me. i ate a blackbriar earlier and its caught in my seagrass.

babbled crud, what really drug my license through the pinestraw was malboro reds fantasia. camel budweiser myself. bushwacker though, and props to yoda chin grow!

all in all i simply plovered the last few egrets. a little dark? is that like a little dead? sweem. you’ve got spickle, spackle. keep inking oil. and thanks for fucking up my inchoate melobaby.

swale.

Mia,
  I came upon this piece while looking for random strangers that had interesting pieces (as opposed to a hundred 6 word entries that continue to invade my urbis).
  The tone of this poem works well for me. It’s as the speaker is trying to relate how quickly ones tastes change with the seasons and relationships The idea reminds me of a Regina Spektor song—That Time. You should check it out.
  In the first stanza, first line, the speaker says “dreaming of things”. One option you have here is to insert an idiosyncratic dream. What is the thing? Being the first line, this would also further grab the attention of the reader.
   The way you use different brands of cigs for emotions is well thought out and executed. Also, some of the imagery you produce is well done—”...wrapping presents in tin foil and last year’s baking paper.”

  Keep writing. Stay Cool,

  D.R.

I’m still pondering on how the title relates to your life experience that you portray in your poem, it seems a little esoteric. Don’t get me wrong…that’s not a bad thing. I’m still making the link in my head is all.

I love the way that your poem has ebb and flow in the way that you’ve structured the format, like gentle waves on a lake or sea.
The continued cigarette reference is also a refreshing aspect worth mentioning. I like the way you relate how you felt to the specific cigarette. It gives me  clearer understanding of what you were feeling (I don’t smoke but i do know which are stronger or milder)
I also like the way that you have gradually exlpained how things became “more burdened” for you in a way i guess… you blow the cigarette harder and harder progressively.

I love that your poem is structured, but with an element of freedom in it.

Just one or two things;
I don’t think every poem should be a literal clear-as-day account of what’s happening, but i do feel that a bit more of an idea of what’s happening would be beneficial for your poem. either within the poem itself or in your notes.
Your poem inspires curiosity so it would be great to find out :)
Also, the line,” I spent last October listening to only Ani Difranco. ”
I think the sentence might be better structured by saying, ”... listening only to Ani…”

Hope this helps!

I liked how each stanza had a rise and fall effect, where it builds and then you would finish with something about how that lost love detracts from these different things in your life. I don’t have any real huge critiques, only little suggestions that you could could consider. You could possibly change each month (since you have four) into a season that corresponds with the months you currently have; but the month names do sound pretty compared to the names of the seasons.

Also, i love the title but thought you could consider making it “how I survived” instead of “how to survive”, thought it could make it more personal.

“listening only to Ani Difranco” instead of “listening to only Ani Difranco”... maybe?

Also i think in the last stanza you could do better with the cigarette line “blowing cigarettes out like never before” i think that you could come up with something better, it seemed weak to me when compared with the other cigarette lines you had. Possibly you could put the cigarette out or something? Like “putting the cigarettes out on my tongue” or something; i think a little change like that could help give your poem more of a sense of an ending.

i enjoy reading your work

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August 11, 2008

by miamonster

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thank you very much for your review :)

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You won me by the title. I really liked this. It reminds me of a Regina Spektor song, “That Time,” in which she compares different phases of her life to the cigarettes she smoked. Overall it was touching, nostalgic, and easy to relate to. If possible, it would have been even more interesting if you had written about every month in the year. Anyway, good work and keep it up!