This deviation has been labeled as containing themes not suitable for all deviants.
Log in to view

Deviation Actions

The-Infamous-MrGates's avatar
Published:
655 Views

Literature Text

This content is unavailable.
Have you ever had a dream, where you knew it was through your perspective, but you were a different version of your self?

That's what this was.

A dream where I wasn't born in the United States in 1990, but in a different time with a different career and family.

and my soul bleeding over paper and life.
Mature
© 2013 - 2024 The-Infamous-MrGates
Comments6
Join the community to add your comment. Already a deviant? Log In
FosteredLiterature's avatar
:star::star::star::star::star-half: Overall
:star::star::star::star::star-half: Vision
:star::star::star::star::star: Originality
:star::star::star::star::star-half: Technique
:star::star::star::star::star-empty: Impact

This critique will go by a stanza/paragraph format until the end three stanzas where I pretty much summarize them.

In the first stanza, be carful introducing God. God has a nasty habit of staying around for a lot longer than he should in a piece just because of a minute mentioning. It's one of those inescapable things that make people perhaps read around an intended point in the poem. Small note, did you mean "what (it) seems"?

In the second stanza, I definately recommend rewording the first line. "The song that remains and forever played" douns highly redundent, even when considering the following lines. I love the second image in that stanza with the mother goddess and the child. Perhaps consider making it her child for some intimacy in that section instead of just "the child."

"Mother and father copulating with the door open" is a very eye catching line, and once you go that far, you have to keep up with it or else it will keep the reader's attention longer than it need to. I'm writing this as I read though so we'll see how that turns out. "Off-white" typewriter paper" seems a bit straight forward and obvious, but I understand the need for detail.

Who is telling these stories? While I'm assuming it's the boy previously mentioned, there's no syntactical evidence for such.

The first part of this stanza is way to word heavy for my ear's liking. Phrases like "ravising supple choirs" and "witty fops and serving props" make these lines extremely heavy on sound and diction, whereas your previous stanzas have been devoid of this. If you wanted to keep the rich sound that's going on there, I would certainly find a way to better isolate it so that the reader has some trigger to recognize that a bunch of noise is about to happen. Also, is someone groping the ballerinas, or are they groping? "Groping masked ballerinas with (an) urge so bold" signals mentally that someone's groping them with an urge, and there's no text that tells us who's groping them. Otherwise I love the second half of this stanza. The line part "soak, bathe and bask" is really pleasing to the ear. (I would suggest using the oxford comma, but that's a pet peeve of mine.)

There you go. That's the grit we needed from the earlier statement. While this stanza is also heavy in diction and sound, we are made aware that it is not the narrator speaking to us, to it makes it much more predictable and comforting. This is a good thing.

Earlier we heard boy, now we hear man. Intentional? Also, "damnation drippings" sounds a bit too vague. The images are a little seperate and it's hard to picture what "damnation drippings" are both literally and figuratively. Sounds nice though.

The fumes of gas line is out of place. What kind of gas? It lingers? What from? A lot of questions brought up that just aren't answered.

Ok, God's back, and with him he's bringing tone change I see. Also pacing is changed considerably.

I'm having trouble accepting your ending as it stands. The very quick and harsh switch of topic and tone is completely throwing me off as a reader. I feel like it's one of those TV tropes where we learn that the whole thing has just been a dream and has no purpose whatsoever. There needs to be a deeper anchor within the middle section if you want to keep this idea of God's creation and human's nature. I do, however, like the very end lines. The concept of perfect human comparitive to God is strong and works well with the end's intended goal.

Overall, I really enjoy this piece, but I would play with a few things here and there. I really think this poem needs punctuation, it might help clear up some of the syntactical things I mentioned earlier. I'm giving you 4 1/2 stars for your vision, because there are some wonderful images and ideas behind this piece, but I feel like they're not quite to their fullest potential. Five on originality, because while your ending has certainly been done before, the way you tie in this rich story in the middle is definitely a feeling of something new. Technique is getting a 4 1/2 because of some of the syntactical issues. Finally, four starts on impact. The ending definitely left me with a sour taste in my mouth. I believe that if you find a stronger way to incorporate your themes and overall message of the piece into the bulk of it, you'll be set.

Thank you for the opportunity to read and workshop!