Poetry / WILT (Analysis)

Gorgeous imagery.  Really creates a feeling of drought and dry crackledness.  The part about the preacher, is painful even.  I’d try to work more of that figurativeness into it.  Going from town social life to the elements.  You weave it so nicely, I want to read more.  Thankyou

Incredibly moving piece.  Rolls of the tongue, and makes me feel the desperation.  The repition of “it’s gotta rain soon” expresses the desire for change, and rebirth.  
                  Inside the salt-bleached
                  Siding of a rural church, the only moisture falling
                  Is the spittle flying from the preacher’s mouth
                  As his flicker-fire tongue licks us for our vices

Such a beautiful passage, I can close my eyes and imagine this church full of desperate, god fearing people.  

Thank you for this.

By me, that’s a full ten.  I love this poem, everything about it, the unconventional structure, the similies, the imagery, the word selection… did you mean “loosing” on purpose, or did you intend “losing”...?  It’s a stellar work, but you undoubtedly know this already.

These lines are great…

“Will never bud again and bare their orchid teeth;”

“Which barely bathes the dry-hump and Dry-heave disinterest”

But so many are. The whole thing is really exceptional.  I don’t ten lightly.  Maybe two others in the last three years.  This piece leaves me speechless … parched, actually.

Thank you.

I like this poem, and I think you know, you use many poetic constructs well. If this had come across my desk I would have published it. I would hope that beginning poets will read this and learn, it is a door into fine poetry. Your poem begs to be studied, and without a critique group or classroom I am unable to completely do that. And, some of my review may be off-base.

Narrator: not 100% on this, a combo of 1st person omnescient
Structure/Form: tight stanzas, Each line carries at least one iamge/idea, no since of word count or syllable count, or rhyme pattern. Again, may be wrong.
You may want to try ending lines with nouns and verbs alternating.

Theme/Intent: L5 “poppy fields,” multiple meaning of McCrae’s poem In Flander’s Field? Rememberance Day? European fathers who fought in war, farmers with sickles, putting us back in early 1900s. Progression of life, preacher representing heaven and hell, anger. Plant life, “dogwoods’ leaves curling,” (another great image). I could actually hear them curl. Life is drying up in midsummer, maybe a representation of mid-life?

Imagery/descrition: some very good lines are: L8, orchid teeth, L1,2 the bull destroying the scarecrow, preacher’s spittle, just a few. I think these words, “into the fields, Out of the fields” could be cut with no harm and they’d let killing and poppy stand on their own. They are probably one of the weakest lines because of no description.

Metaphor/Simile: none, personification of dandelion is nice, because it suggests escape and maybe also for rain.

If you mean rain for renewal that is good, but, hmmm! Tired way of approaching it.

Cadence/Rythmn

Satisfying ending: Yes, ends almost wrapping cyclical, water hose to dry husk, insect to animal, in the mid-wayflower to man

Nitpicker’s list:L8, “enough shit.” reads awkward, heavy-handed. You have wonderful description for every else, describe refined manure/soil.

Odd lines: “Call me Cain or call me Life.” The use of Cain is becoming cliche. I don’t understand the capit. of Life. Is this a reference to Abel or a newborn?

8thL from last: “I imagine I can …”

I gave you a 7 for publishable. I’d have accepted it but also suggest a few things. First, there is only single spaces after period, and yes it is to save paper, especially with large publications, and it looks neat. I’d ask to eliminate capitalization of first lines, this is archaic, ask yourself why you do it and what purpose does it serve. I’d also ask for a unique title. Something that catches the reader’s eye making them want to read this, because you got a hell of a poem here, but the title pales in comparison to many of the lines.

Sure it is a 8 overall. I think you know it is well constructed and revised many times over. See above. With revisions, if you I’d submit this all over. But you could do that now without.

Well enough, there is so much more, but I am tired. Blessings, GBryan
Pardon MY grammar.

Good enough to appear in the Atlantic or Harper’s. The imagery is spot on. I’ve never been a poet, so I don’t feel qualified to comment on some aspects, but I can say that I loved the church portion the best. For example, “licks us of our vices” is beautiful. “Sub-primed” porches is timely now, as it serves to set your piece in modern times, but it will also work in another sense of the phrase whenever the current crisis is long past.

This is lovely. I can’t wait to see it in print.

I must confess at the outset of this review that I am not generally a fan of free verse. But, in fairness, the definition of poetry must consist at least partly of  a density of expression not present in other literary forms. This piece is very dense (I.E.- high content to word ratio).

   Having grown up on the great plains, I can sympathize with the theme of drought. I am not understanding the reference to the bull not killing the scarecrow enough, but the imagery does set the context for the poem.

    Your four line distillation of the recurring condition of farmers being sent to war to return just as determined to be farmers is about as succinct an image as I have encountered in a poem.

   I don’t understand the reference to “dandilion wishes”, but the whimsy of the phrase is evocative anyway.

    I’m not sure if the reference to “sub-primed porches” is intended to set the chronological context as modern (I.E.- all of the porches [and the houses to which they are attached] are mortgaged to the hilt) or if this is a reference to  an incomplete paint job, but it works either way.          

   One the whole, this poem leaves a vivid impression of the visual and the psychology of drought on the prairies.