Thanks for the review. I took to heart everyone’s critique. I revamped it and it is now titled Three a.m. diner reflections(working title). Please, let me know if you feel it has improved.
Poetry / Three a.m. diner reflections
Fluorescent reflections at three a.m.
I sit among insomniac smokers
Each booth a section within space and time
Cocoons of difference and sameness
Outside darkness turning windows to mirrors
I stare
See myself
See them
Blending in the glass
A moment on each face
We are the same
Not now, but then
I was you.
Young Lolita at Table One
Hard beneath soft youth
Smiling flirtations and humorless laughs
Sad beneath
Those boys you love, don’t love you back
Cannot complete you, won’t even try
You’ll find yourself a hollow shell
Grabbing at any man to fill the void
I wore our too-tight sweater of desperation,
It doesn’t fit.
Naïve intellectuals at Table Two
University fed
Early twenties and the world revealed
Coffee and cigarettes
Deep philosophical debate
Suburban bitterness brought to city life
Above all your fellow late-night eaters
You judge them all
I wore your fifties-style glasses of pretension
They don’t fit.
Emo-feminist art majors at Table Three
“In” girls not out
Sorority doors close to you
Outcasts by rejection not choice
You’d abandon the social outskirts
If asked within the popular core
Struggling to be different, yet the same
Judging those held worthy of hallowed Greek halls
I wore your Patchouli scent of superiority
It doesn’t fit.
My gaze returns to my own image
No longer superimposed on the others
Me again
Yet as I judged you, I judge me
At some moment,
I sat at each table with you
As you
I tried you on
Wore your skin
It didn’t fit
Fit in
Fit me
Fit you
We are more than our stereotypes.
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metalmadcat reviewed Version 2 -
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Oh, indeed, such a reflection we have in here. You can not fit, when you can not fit you have learned there is not site for you. When there is not site is because you learn the world has taught us all to erase any site through news, television and such, and coffee , and yes stereotypes rise..-among so many other concequences- and we find no site when we see that there is no site in this world and it is not because we are full inside, on the contrary we are empty but the world -again teaching wrong- teach to ignore the emptyness which actually has the most amazing creativity inside, and real urge to life ,and maybe..maybe there is a site in that void. -That was my reflection based on Thomas Merton’s from one of his essays in the Raids on the Unspeakable” (I highly recommend you the essay “The time of the end is the time of no site”)
Is great , is great to see there is nothing great out there..I agree with you, is beautiful as horrible, or as I like to call it a paradisiacal hell. Not a hell, not a paradise but both ..in slow motion and twiste to the depth of humanity.
As you can you your poem make you think and that is what I like about it. Although it talks about something extremely superficial it goes further to the point to think such events end up being serious. Wether they really are serious or not you make them serious so you had a great impact for the reader, you are compellin—you have power.
And that is all I can say..
Dan Metalmadcat
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jae_ming_jue reviewed Version 2 -
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Hmmmm. I’m trying to figure out how you got to this point in Version 2 because Version 1 with all it’s problems is a much better poem. Version 1 seems familiar to me but alas I can’t compare my comments as I couldn’t find my review of ver 1.
I found only the following lines to have some strength:
I stare
See myself
See them
Blending in the glass
A moment on each face
We are the same
Not now, but then
I was you.
Unfortunately I think I like those lines because it’s my writing style which kinda makes my review suspect now. Hopefully I’ll be able to give some ideas worth your time to consider. I would have to agree with other reviewers that this poem is unnecessarily long and in so doing belittles your subject matter of you then compared to you now. The whole middle three stanzas could be consolidated into a concise, more potent, emotional conveyance. The use of table 1, 2, 3 is distracting. Just get to the scene, stick with your hindsight of this immature girl and people and move on. The whole back and forth of you and her and her and you comes across contrived as one reviewer put it instead of clever.
Done once, it’s interesting, done twice, it’s repetitive, done even more…you get the point. I’d like to see you resurrect the style of writing you had in Ver 1. It seemed to flow better to me even if some of my favorite reviewers didn’t like it much but it felt more personal to you.
As for the title, it’s to matter of fact. It seems like another line of stanza 1 which in of itself starts in a rather clipped observational style. It doesn’t really paint a picture smoothly as opposed to throwing adjectives about that seem poetic. Perhaps you need a break from this poem. Try reading some Beat poets like Baraka or some of Jim Carroll’s poems—-he’s a native of that time of night and having lived some of what you write (his Basketball Diaries come to mind).
trail_of_fiends reviewed Version 1 -
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This type of construction isn’t something I’m fond of. Suggesting would force me to go through by every stanza and basically remake everything. There was a time when I felt that the lines where hammering my head.
But it’s a matter of personal taste anyway.
So I focused only about the context. The first stanza sets off by condenming prosthetics/superficiality and apparently, empty teen love. But from that point forward you’re just being repetitive…at the end the only feeling I got from this was bitterness.
tia_logic reviewed Version 1 -
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On a content level, I don’t like this. I get where your going, but it seems so so stereotype-judgmental-soap box-y. I get that you’re comparing who you were to who they are, and look, I grew, so can you. However, you (the speaker) come off just as sad as all of those people you’re judging, in my opinion. Anyway, that’s how I saw that.
On a fundemental level, this lacks flow. Its hard to make a series of few-word observations flow, though. I don’t have any suggestions, aside from expanding, which I don’t think would help. So.
Your images are strong, just a little tell-y in places, which, as a description, I suppose is necessary. I dunno. Maybe this would work better as a series of vignettes? Called life at IHOP or something :) Joke.
Keep working and other supportive things.
Love, love.
peaceNluv reviewed Version 1 -
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I really enjoyed your poem. To me it’s long for a poem but it needed that body to get across that the character being talked about experienced and soon they would too. I like how you end it, moral-ish.
Andrea reviewed Version 1 -
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I really, really like the idea behind this, I wish I’d have thought of it. The last couple of lines of each stanza are clever and have quite an impact. I also like the use of short snappy lines.
rubyblue reviewed Version 1 -
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I dig stuff like this. It puts an artsy spin on the inane, an appreciation for the intricacies of homonids that many, (except us poets), tend to overlook.
It’s more a descrption than anything, slightly poetic, but not until the end.
It flows, it grooves, I enjoyed it.
I’d keep it the way it is. No more rewrites. Work like this does what it needs to do on the first try.
Good luck to you.
shortnsweet46 reviewed Version 1 -
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wow. A+. I am in highschool right now and I can see this every single day in the halls. Although, who am I to even say that I am no different? I cant argue that. Everyone struggling to be different, but failing to see that they are all the same…amazing. So true, too.
“If you find yourself a hollow shell
no soul beneath,
no chance then to fill the void.” This is so dangerous…when a person builds themselves up to be a certain way, eventually they will fall to the ground. And when they dont have their own self worth to fall back on, things can get ugly. I struggle to figure out who I am every day. Although I dont live my life for others, I still have a hard time accepting decisions I make and releasing any anxiety towards what others might think. Always justifying an action. Why cant it just be!? Anyways. Awesome. I love it.
November 02, 2006
Deleted User
Review of Version 1 -
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I like the idea of this piece and I especially liked this bit;
Simply craving the stare?
Is there no substance beneath?
No statement of identity?
Is it a broken little girl,
no idea who she is?
Stop seeking stares.
Sense of self can’t come from outside views
Attend to yourself.
Mend.
You’ll see.
I did.
Although I’m not sure the title worked for me at least but it did after reading your reviewer notes. Perhaps something like “Table one…, or some indication or proximatey to your observations would claify this enough that one wouldn’t need the reviewer notes to know where this is taking place, maybe? Or just an opening stanza describing the night, location or something….
I did enjoy all the rest though.
Salazar reviewed Version 1 -
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This poem reminds of the beats. Ginsburg, Bukowski…that sort of thing.
Strengths:
You have some nice imagery, “too much rouge, too tight sweater…”
Weaknesses:
The line structure needs to be more cohesive. One-word lines are hard to get away with.
I don’t like how all the stanzas end the same way. It makes me want to think that the poem is a form. But it isn’t.
You need to “show” more, rather than “tell”.
Example:
“Naive intellectuals.
University fed.
Early twenties,
the world revealed.
Above all fellow late-night eaters.”
This is nothing more but your commentary about a stranger’s life. Your assumption. How does this individual apply to you? How does this individual contradict with you? What is some imagery that you could use that would indirectly comment on what you see?
I hope that helps.
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