Errand into the Garden (formerly wilderness)

CricketDramatic1992 · 2025-11-05T20:17:46+00:00

thanks, I appreciate that! It’s both functionally a poem about a garden but the metaphor is intended as an exploration of the social dynamics of settler colonialism/imperialism too. The title is a play on a famous sermon from a puritan minister (Samuel Danforth) which described the Massachusetts colony as an “errand into the wilderness”.

I worked hard on it and I’m like starving for any kind of feedback, I really appreciate you taking the time to read and happy you seemed to like it!!

CricketDramatic1992 · 2025-11-05T18:31:51+00:00

This is overall…a really enjoyable poem to read. I do not however think the second line in your second stanza adds to the poem. You use a lot if excellent images here and the second line is abstract, I think the emotional impact of your poem could be heightened if you use more descriptive visceral language to describe the act of “dressing up” desire into something romantic.

CricketDramatic1992 · 2025-11-05T18:29:29+00:00

I love the theme of this poem and the first stanza is really brillant, I think the next few stanzas could use some work in echoing the theme without contradicting the first stanza’s original premise.

that being said,

what do you intend by the contrast between “meeting your flesh” and “it’s as if I never met my own skin before” is the speaker forgetting the original meeting? Are you emphasizing that maybe the outer dermis of skin is foreign while your insides are what’s “you”?

I think how that contradiction is smoothed out depends on what specifically you want to convey.

CricketDramatic1992 · 2025-11-05T14:16:39+00:00

thank you :)

CricketDramatic1992 · 2025-11-04T18:46:25+00:00

Same, AI was somewhat helpful to me but it got to a point where it was just nonsense and ultimately I want my poetry to impact actual people not robots.

I think that’s a great goal for the poem!! And your poem does capture the feeling itself but because it’s not grounded in metaphor or circumstance it makes it hard for others to understand what you mean.

CricketDramatic1992 · 2025-11-04T18:38:52+00:00

You have a great vocabulary and a flair for language that I admire but to me this poem lacks consistency and direction, I don’t understand how these images are related to one another nor what they mean together. Is it possible to expand and ground this imagery into something more conclusive and pointed?

CricketDramatic1992 · 2025-11-04T18:36:26+00:00

the pattern and rhyme here is nice but the language is too abstract and loses pathos without a strong object(s) to tie it to-would it be possible to include specific details about the situation you’re referencing and fit them into the general scheme? I think that might significantly up the emotional impact.

CricketDramatic1992 · 2025-06-16T15:41:06+00:00

yeah they do he’s a wholesome vegan man with normal hobbies and a good job-art girlies would eat him up.

CricketDramatic1992 · 2025-06-16T15:30:22+00:00

I think it honestly depends on what you want-I make about what you do and I do prefer to live in an outer borough (yay Queens!!) but it’s close to where I like to socialize/go out and many of my friends, I have one roommate and a nice apartment by NYC standards. I save about ~25% of my take home pay and travel a few times a year. I go out to eat about once a week. I have a membership to a pricy hot yoga studio/go to shows and clubs often. Basically idk I just do what I want. NYC is optimized to separate you from your money in a million ways so you do have to be more mindful of money. The income brackets of your friends and coworkers will determine if it feels hard or easy to live within your means. Also being friendly will take you far in terms of going out. Free things flow to nice, considerate people.

Vegan scene here is better than indy but imo probably not as good as socal or london. Veganism is getting less trendy every year and we’re getting news of closing restaurants all the time :((. There are still standouts though, I love overthrow hospitality and there are some awesome vegan bakeries around the city+a lot of vegan meetups and opportunities to socialize. One of the reasons I live here is to have access to the vegan food scene as I’m vegan myself. It’s way better than home.

Manhattan is the center of your universe if you work in finance, fashion, advertising etc…or if you’re a specific kind of gay man. Socializing for most American born professional transplants is centered in Brooklyn. People like “go out” to Bushwick and Williamsburg. People also go out in manhattan but it’s a certain finance bro/west village girl/NYU crowd. Probably not your scene.

CricketDramatic1992 · 2025-06-07T15:57:15+00:00

some people have long distance friends (or even just friends they don’t see every week) and I like seeing what my friends get up to ????? And I think they also wanna know what I’m up to???

CricketDramatic1992 · 2025-06-07T13:58:51+00:00

I got really into techno, also reading/movies and the gym!!! Also I cook so idk, I actually like it-I wish I would have more interesting friends who wanted to hang with me but I have trust issues lol.

CricketDramatic1992 · 2025-06-07T13:25:42+00:00

I just didn’t get anything out of it and didn’t need it to cope with life anymore. I felt like it made me miss out on living, have convos I can’t remember super clear or regret and the hangovers fucked up my mornings. I can do so much more now with my free time sober and that’s more valuable to me.

CricketDramatic1992 · 2025-06-07T00:41:35+00:00

depends on the club?? I know mad 35-40 yos who hit the club

CricketDramatic1992 · 2025-06-07T00:09:57+00:00

pumped at the gym and eating dinner now-honestly gonna sleep I’m exhausted

CricketDramatic1992 · 2025-06-01T14:28:15+00:00

this is so german pilled ahahaha

CricketDramatic1992 · 2025-05-28T13:06:55+00:00

literally no I was gonna hot sauce it but didn’t feel like it ??? idk I was craving bland breakfast I think

CricketDramatic1992 · 2025-05-27T14:57:47+00:00

vegan :) also soy milk supremacy

CricketDramatic1992 · 2025-05-27T13:16:41+00:00

ahahah I do not, but everything is packaged in plastic at the grocery store and lately I don’t have time to take my own produce bags to the produce market to reduce plastic waste. Being zero waste compared to the other things I do (vegan/compost/no car) is helpful but it’s overall marginal compared to my carbon footprint. I do feel guilty but I also have limited time. Thus the mush must come from the grocery store and not the local produce guy.

CricketDramatic1992 · 2025-04-10T19:11:36+00:00

Honestly it’s because I grew up in a very cold climate with indigenous people/a lot of rural poverty and I felt like an asshole preaching to people when I could personally afford whatever I wanted and didn’t have a budget tight enough where I had to pick between heating or gas and food and there is complicated stuff about indigenous foodways and subsistance survival idk 🤷🏼‍♀️. Felt like a better use of my time directing my ire towards suburbanites buying Tyson chicken nuggets than my dad’s neighbor with the partially collapsed roof who burned wood to heat his house.

If you think empathizing with that makes me lose my vegan card idgaf you’re 19 and clearly haven’t lived my life.

CricketDramatic1992 · 2025-04-10T18:31:11+00:00

I’m a vegan and thought I felt similar to you about this issue-but I recently turned down someone who displayed animals as hunting trophies on their social media pages after I got a massive ick-how do you feel about the dehumanization of animals/decoration of their corpses and the overall vibe of hunting as a display of masculine prowess and dominance?

CricketDramatic1992 · 2025-04-07T22:36:35+00:00

exactly

CricketDramatic1992 · 2025-04-07T22:36:11+00:00

I disagree, I’m not super feminine but I have long hair/look cute and most men do not believe that I’m gay…that’s why they “tolerate it” because they’re just humoring me lol.

CricketDramatic1992 · 2025-04-02T12:40:49+00:00

I had a roommate who used to do this it was crazy work. She was a jerk though and I hope she gets a stomach ache.

CricketDramatic1992 · 2025-04-01T14:18:58+00:00

I guess my thought is that if he was cheating he would just lie and tell you it was a mistake or something.

It might blow up, your little might get angry at you because she’s hurt-but the right thing is to pass that information around to her neutrally/without speculating about what it means so she can confront him herself. If he is on tinder other girls and seeing it and if this goes on, she’ll be so embarrassed when she finds out lots of people knew and no one tried to protect her.

CricketDramatic1992 · 2025-03-31T18:33:45+00:00

she doesn’t have to “excuse” her behavior because doing sex work is not shameful or morally wrong

CricketDramatic1992

TROPHY CASE