ockhamdesign's profile

ockhamdesign avatar
AGE: 39
LOC: Denver, CO
GEN: Male
LAST LOGIN: June 14

Published early and realized that I couldn’t support myself on two copies.  I ended up choosing a different profession.

www.twitter.com/ockhamdesign

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Version 6
0 Reviews   0 Comments
1. william carlos williams poems drip images not pronouns 2. That stabbing means rape and the knife means whatever its poetic penal code for common objects The other sex abhors the knife as much as circumcision. Cut the poem vaguely like a shoplifting trip to 7-Eleven. Take whatever you want, but buy the creme-filled donots because what’s not a torus is a phallic symbol. 3. Mugging Kills Parent Single Mom’s Son Left Behind Knife Found Near Victim pasted headlines have no high queu...
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Version 1
1 Review   0 Comments
You stare at a syringe containing love. A frown brushes the lip corners of the woman across the lab table when you tell her that soon you will love her as she loves you. Other people have loved you before this. Controlling mother, estranged father, unmet grandparents and even distant cousins crowding a grainy baby photo, color smudged from twitchy fingers -- they love you. You consider that unquestionably odd considering none of them knew you or your infant dreams dividing and redividi...
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Poetry / Keeping Roses
Version 1
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The roses sit in their vase and stare at me like soft, mad children. I feed them and put them in the sun though I wonder why I didn't orphan them on your doorstep. Sometimes, I plot against them-- violent premeditations or the accidental broken limb or sheer neglect to watch their ribs show and stomachs bloat before collapse. But they have caused no pain even when they bite and tremble as I put them outside for the pack of winds howling at my doorstep. It is kinder this way to be torn ...
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Poetry / How It Begins
Version 2
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You’re in a club near closing and you can’t recall ever being this messed up. But then you’re dying of inoperable cancer so no one’s going to expect you to take this well. You haven’t slept in sixty-some hours but the ephedrine keeps you head clear. You want to remember the beginning this time. Starting here is like being born all over again--the harsh light, noises and images you can’t yet comprehend. You don’t understand where you are, but this will...
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Version 4
1 Review   2 Comments
1. williams poetry no pronouns 2. That stabbing means rape and the knife means you know it’s poetic penal code for common objects The other sex abhors the knife as much as circumcision. Cut the poem vaguely like a shoplifting trip to 7-Eleven. Take whatever you want, but buy the creme-filled donots because what’s not a torus is a phallic symbol. 3. Mugging Kills Parent Single Mom’s Son Left Behind Knife Found Near Victim pasted headlines have no high queue of words strung wi...
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Reviews
Poetry / In Love
I had two main issues with the poem. The first was that the poem was all "tell" and no "show". It's really a matter of the speaker and establishing trust. "Tell" poetry is all one big opinion told by the speaker. For example, "her meddling knows no bounds". Show me instead. What is an example of what she does that can be interpreted as meddling? The speaker of the poem says the being in love is beyond his control. Why should we believe him/her? The second issue is that there are many tools in...
The poem is still very rough. I can't tell if the poems is about how the speaker wants to recapture a past when her mother was still alive and somehow dyeing her hair will do that OR if it's about how that one moment where the speaker sees her mom in the hospital is now frozen in her memory and she doesn't want to be like her mother so she's dyeing her hair. Also, I don't think the ellipses work for the poem. I think a comma would do instead.
50.0% Review Quality (2 Votes)
I think this poem needs to be much, much shorter. I think you can get to your point in about half the lines. The poem has several parts: Establishing speaker (the wife), the husband's abuse, outside opinion from her mother, the effect on the children and how the speaker feels about her situation looking back on it. I think that each part can be addressed in one stanza each, maybe two at most.
Poetry / Mind, No Mind
Love as fight or flight is what I understand the poem to be. However, the poem needs to be tighter. First stanza, 2nd line - I think you should play with other verbs besides see. First stanza, 6th line - should it be we not we'll because the dancing is present tense and the killing and dying is future. 2nd stanza - I don't like line breaks after pronouns, they seem arbitrary for two reason. One, if you just take the lines out of context, the breaks don't add any meaning. Two the breaks add un...
My summation of the poem: Men haven't evolved from their knuckle dragging days because women are unfaithful. I don't like the first line. There's no impact. Suggestions would be: The lovers makers (verb) (something that ties alludes to the title or the last line of the poem). Everything else works. Shock value to the poem is about a 3 out 10. The poem is pretty tame compared to what gets published in the New York Quarterly.