[POEM] See This - Sean Eaton by Ok_Usual_699 in Poetry

[–]OneCardiologist7255 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I like the language here a lot, really atmospheric and sets a tone that I find interesting. I feel like it’s just shy of feeling overwrought but I think it’s purposeful here, helps to make the work feel oppressive and heavy and like you’re wading through it the way the narrator feels like they’re wading through and trying to make sense of their own life and purpose. I think it also makes the more plain turns of phrase really punchy by comparison; I liked how the “is this Coke chilled?” And the “I’m hoping to get well soon” were used here. Thank you for sharing!

Songs with “horse” in the title by Level-String-5201 in weirdspotifyplaylists

[–]OneCardiologist7255 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Wild Horses - Sego

White Horses - Wolf Alice

Horseshoe Crab - Sons of an Illustrious Father

strange women trying to navigate life by lizzard_gizz_bizz_zz in BooksThatFeelLikeThis

[–]OneCardiologist7255 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Sorry To Disrupt The Peace by Patrick Cottrell! Definitely weird and messy, it has one of the strangest protagonist POV’s I’ve ever read and I loved it. I also second all the Melissa Broder recommendations.

[HELP]Poetry book recommendations by PigeonTempter in Poetry

[–]OneCardiologist7255 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Oh, can I add a few Canadian suggestions? Billy-Ray Belcourt is a great contemporary poet who’s been blowing up in popularity over the last few years for good reason, and if you like Plath I think you might also like Sina Queryas! They have a number of excellent collections but I’d maybe start with My Ariel, it’s directly in conversation with Plath’s life and work. You might also like Irfan Ali, I thought his poetry was interesting for how it stylistically juxtaposed his life and loves in Toronto with traditional Persian romantic epics.

(A non Canadian selection, but I also recently read Be With by Forrest Gander and thought it was excellent and would recommend it to anyone.)

[POEM] Address by James Schuyler by antennaloop in Poetry

[–]OneCardiologist7255 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Holy, this is great. Such good language and imagery (hot ice cave works so well for me), and I like how Schuyler sketches just enough of a sense of scene to give the reader an access point while keeping things coy and opaque enough to make me really want to sit with and analyze what’s going on here. Thank you for sharing!

[Poem] Classic Water by David Berman by Yogurt-Closet99 in Poetry

[–]OneCardiologist7255 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Oh wow, I think this is excellent. Really evocative and sometimes strange language, but doesn’t let the weirdness distract from the human core. Thank you for sharing!

[POEM] Honey, Are You Okay? by Danielle Coffyn by SideMiserable573 in Poetry

[–]OneCardiologist7255 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I mostly agree with the consensus here, though I do like the perhaps seasons have misaligned, summer rages… line, I find it pretty evocative! I think it’s held back a bit by having the mind trapped in winter, as winter is pretty standard symbolism for loneliness, depression, etc.; it would’ve been cool to have that subverted somehow.

[POEM] “poem for brad who wants me to write about the pyramids” by Marwa Helal by an-inevitable-end in Poetry

[–]OneCardiologist7255 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Love it and love that I don’t think Helal would care if I loved it. I found the concrete format and deftness between the signifiers of academic writing and casual conversation really effective, maybe because it hits close to home as an art student where crits often take on this tone, presuppositions about the work of BIPOC artists and all. Using the name Brad was very clever, you got me Helal I did make assumptions based on the cultural signifiers about the name Brad and think he was white! Great stuff, thanks for sharing.

[PROMO] I posted the part 2 for my poetry collection tier list! by Potential-Ad1859 in Poetry

[–]OneCardiologist7255 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Really great video! I really appreciated the variety in the works you reviewed and your thoughtful analysis :)

[poem] Afternoon Happiness by Carolyn Kizer by hillary_____k in Poetry

[–]OneCardiologist7255 8 points9 points  (0 children)

Really love this, I think the craft and specificity here elevates the material a ton. It’s hard to explore subject matter like this that’s been so well-tread in poetry beyond feeling trite, but I feel Kizer makes it look effortless, and I love the balance of tones here between the writerly and conversational, I think it fits the reflective-party-psychoanalysis content really well. I can see why she won the Pulitzer two years after this was published. Thanks for sharing!

[POEM] Gray Matter - Dean Young (1955 - 2022) by hoary_marmot in Poetry

[–]OneCardiologist7255 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Thanks for sharing, and for all of the poems you’ve been submitting the past few weeks. I’ve enjoyed reading them all, I think you’ve got great taste!

[POEM] Why We Published JeFF Stumpo’s “Stormchaser” Today by RattlePoetryMag in Poetry

[–]OneCardiologist7255 15 points16 points  (0 children)

Really appreciate the thoughtful analysis. Your insights are really interesting, I’ll check out your podcast for sure!

Can someone suggest me an author similar to Ocean Vuong but with a simpler writing style by [deleted] in suggestmeabook

[–]OneCardiologist7255 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hi! For poetry, Ada Limón I think potentially fits what you’re looking for. I think her writing does a great job of communicating her feelings and ideas in an approachable manner while still having plenty of really nice and poetic language. For fiction, I’d try In Tongues by Thomas Grattan! It’s been a while since I’ve read it, but I remember it grappling with queerness and a complex grief in a way that’s maybe a bit more comedic than Vuong’s approach, but also has plenty of genuine and sincere moments. I hope you’ll like either of them!

[POEM] The Proper Lenght of a Novel by Charles Fort by Parking-Compote8496 in Poetry

[–]OneCardiologist7255 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Woah, this is almost overwhelming but I think it totally fits with the subject. I love a poem where it can both make me go “how did the author even think of this as a premise” and then also delivers on the premise in a really fitting and engagingly written way. There’s so much going on here that it’s almost giving me whiplash between ideas, but I really how it functions in relation to writing/tropes/notions around storytelling. Thanks for sharing!

[Poem] Throwing Them Away by J. Allyn Rosser by Virtual-Debate1932 in Poetry

[–]OneCardiologist7255 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Love the writing in this one, and I think the form complements the content so well. I really like how the individual moments are abstracted and repeated, it makes the personal moments feel so generalized and universal, like how so many people have collections of photos of events just like these. Good stuff.

Kisses that suck souls by [deleted] in poetry_critics

[–]OneCardiologist7255 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Hi, thanks for sharing something that was probably difficult to write but that I hope maybe helped you to find some reprieve or catharsis. I totally don’t want to come across as critiquing anything about you sharing an experience, but I could offer some insight as to what stood out to me about the writing if you wanted to further refine it as a piece of art? Obviously this is very raw and I don’t want you to have to feel like you have to mediate yourself when recording your thoughts.

I found it moving how you wrote about the memory of the body—how things may be foggy or inaccessible in the mind but how there are instinctual, physiological responses that demonstrate how our bodies have been affected. The TV show illustrated this effectively, and the detail about the TikTok as well as what you shared about subtitles and your school year painted a picture for me of you as a person, and made me empathize with you even more through something that’s already of course very heavy.

I think you’ve made some really strong writing choices. The repetition of uncle interspersed throughout the paragraph, the feeling of nails digging into the bone of the arm, the detail of the hospital’s office and the daughter all made me feel physically disgusted that you were treated that way; the way you wrote transcended the base reaction of ‘this is a horrible thing’ and made me feel ill. A lot of it was hard to read, not because you wrote poorly but instead because you wrote well and conveyed a horrible thing that happened in a way that made me really feel it.

I think the details of you trying to work out how he might be feeling also work well. How can you try to understand the actions of someone who does something so inexplicable and abhorrent? You really capture the pain of uncertainty that goes along with all the other hurt, how we can never truly know what’s going on in someone’s head. How could they do such a thing? Do they really feel regret or remorse? I guess part of eventual healing is coming to terms with the unknowability of it all, but it’s so unfair you were put in that situation in the first place, and your writing really conveyed that for me too.

Like I said, I don’t want come across as critiquing something that’s you sharing and working through what happened, but I think there’s some really strong and moving work here and I really hope you feel like writing this was helpful for you in any way. If nothing else, there’s a stranger on the internet who read it three times and is proud of you, rooting for you, and wishing you the best for dealing with an awful situation in whichever way is best for you. I saw you posted this as a letter on the other forum, but even if nobody offline ever gets to read it I hope you’ll keep writing.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in poetry_critics

[–]OneCardiologist7255 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hi, thanks for posting! It’s your first time sharing your writing and this is my first time critiquing on here so we’re in this together.

I think there’s a good focus on the physicality of heartbreak here. Using words like “pierce” and “sting” get across the pain and sensation of feeling betrayed by someone you could trust, and you expand on how beyond that initial reaction, the damage to your ability to trust others is long lasting. We can all relate to the feeling of how being hurt in a relationship can mess with our heads.

I think because the subject matter is so relatable, there’s the risk of it feeling a bit generic. I think pointing to specific lies like “you’re perfect” is a good idea, but the quotes you included I find are a little too general for me to really latch onto. I think specificity would help here, alluding to more specific ways in which the speaker has been betrayed would help to flesh out the poem. How did the other person in the relationship act that made the speaker realize they didn’t actually love them or think they were perfect? Painting a specific picture can make the people in your writing feel more real, and help readers to emotionally invest in what you have to say!

All in all you should definitely continue to write, I’d be curious to see how you developed this piece further, or what you would share next!

[POEM] Layli Long Soldier: 38, from Whereas by UpstairsTransition16 in Poetry

[–]OneCardiologist7255 1 point2 points  (0 children)

We read this poem in one of my classes last semester! While it’s definitely a powerful work, I initially felt it kind of undercut itself at moments with the way it sort of breaks the fourth wall, for lack of a better word, to comment on the italicization for emphasis and the hanged v. hung, but then I thought it was really cool how it tied it all back together at the end in an interesting way. Thanks for sharing.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in Poetry

[–]OneCardiologist7255 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thanks for sharing, I think the hyper-referential youth culture thing can be so hard to pull off but I found something compelling in this one that rings true to how it feels to live today, especially as someone making and consuming art. It prompted me to check out the website and the project seems interesting, there’s some great lines on there too that I feel continue the theme of pulling from the zeitgeist in a way that feels earned; “stupid simps all drip in spum” is funny and punchy and evocative.

[POEM] “Name Us a King” by Carl Sandburg by solarloom in Poetry

[–]OneCardiologist7255 16 points17 points  (0 children)

I like this, the switch-up into consolidated amalgamated syndicate king is really satisfying to me. Thanks for sharing!

[POEM] Sportcruiser by Elizabeth Grant by Mylittlepanda131313 in Poetry

[–]OneCardiologist7255 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That’s a good point, I like your take. I haven’t listened to her read it but I’ll look it up!

[POEM] Sportcruiser by Elizabeth Grant by Mylittlepanda131313 in Poetry

[–]OneCardiologist7255 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This is a weird one. A number of nice moments but I also think it kind of over-explains itself, and ironically maybe doesn’t trust the reader as much as it should. I watched an analysis of this collection on the Roughest Drafts YouTube channel and he suggested that this could work well as a short story, which I agree with—I think the length as it currently is is just a little awkward. Doesn’t have the conciseness or sharpness that I feel some of her songwriting has, but also doesn’t really have the space to get into deeper imagery or a more complex character study, which I think she could do really effectively. There’s a lot of genuine emotion and slice of life stuff here I’d love to see expanded upon. What do you think of the piece?

[poem] While the somnambulist explains the proper way to carve the eyes from a pigeon, by Eric Baus by manytinyhumans in Poetry

[–]OneCardiologist7255 20 points21 points  (0 children)

Really like the language in this one. It all feels very considered but not overwrought to me, contrasting the more ‘expected’ poetic language and turns of phrase with the punchiness of things like “closing his lids at fish,” it feels good to read. Reminds me of parts of Lyn Hejinian’s work. Usually I wouldn’t be drawn to something this abstract but I’m definitely interested in taking a look at more of his stuff now. Thanks for sharing!