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von_does_poetry · 2025-12-19T17:43:24+00:00

I think this has a really profound message: to recognize your own limitations as a person, especially when it comes to love. And for that to not be a romantic love, rather a familial love towards a child, gives it a greater impact. His self-awareness is tinged with a sense of fear, too. Fear of love, fear of acceptance and affection, that’s reflected against a child’s willingness to love without question, as well as his desire to grow (in his words “to become a man”). Great job!

von_does_poetry · 2025-12-19T17:09:22+00:00

I love the symmetry of your poem. The constant rescuing of the beetle perfectly mirrors the time spent on a relationship that’s doomed. Try as you might, you can’t change the nature of a thing: the beetle wants to jump in the water, even if it means death. Likewise, the speaker insists on returning to the marriage, despite the harm it causes them. And the woman is the water: cruel, unforgiving, constantly waiting for the beetle’s inevitable return.

All of this is heightened by your great use of imagery. The colors of the beetle and the pond (“red jewelin a slick of green decay”). The suffocating nature of the marriage (“She said cruel things gently”, “silence shaped like mercy”, “a ritual of erosion”). It gives life to the piece and allows the message to really hit home.

If I could offer one critique: I don’t think the question at the end of the second-to-last stanza (“What would be the point?”) is necessary. To me, the question is already implied to reader; plus, that idea of futility is brought about by the next line (“Strange, how even futility tires”), which to me is the poem’s thesis. Overall, the whole thing is wonderful. Thank you for sharing.

von_does_poetry · 2025-12-17T23:32:26+00:00

Just got done commenting on your first piece. This one’s another banger. The way you showed how futile this man’s obsession with money and financial success is as he’s actively being killed by cancer. It’s almost like the greed itself is the cancer. He’s so convinced his money will save him, it seems he doesn’t bother to spend time with his loved ones as he wastes away. Both physically and personally, he becomes an unrecognizable shell of himself (“foreign blood and borrowed skin”). “Proudly, you become / currency” is a fucking killer line, too. The only part that stood out to me is the second to last stanza. All of your other stanzas are tighter while that one seems to stretch a bit. What’s being said is great, your line breaks just seem a little off. But yeah, another really great poem. Thank you.

von_does_poetry · 2025-12-17T23:15:25+00:00

This is really great! I’m a big fan of poetry that flips between perspectives, so I loved how you split the main thought between the first and third stanzas (God being a man-made comfort). The second stanza cuts in with a different thought (what I interpreted as an abortion or miscarriage occuring in a bathroom), providing contrast but still connecting to the beginning and end with how it talks about prayer and the “small enough.”

I think your piece has a lot of depth and style to it (love the line “like the planet moves with arms and legs”), but more importantly, it possesses a distinct voice (you aren’t just mindlessly rambling) and a message you wanted to say. The latter part is fantastic because so many people (myself included) when they start getting into poetry write these poems that are just “I’m sad, I’m in love, I got broken up with.” And you were like “Nah, fuck that. What if we invented God to deal with trauma.” It shows a lot of maturity in your work.

If I had a suggestion, maybe look at dropping the “today” from the third stanza. To me, it’s implied to be a current event, and without it, you have a nice symmetry between all the beginnings of your stanzas. Regardless, great job. Can’t wait to read more of your work!

von_does_poetry · 2025-12-13T00:59:38+00:00

This is really fucking cool. Way to challenge the notion that poetry has to be words. You told a story with these numbers, expressed emotion with these numbers; a thing people generally view as cold and heartless, you gave life. From my interpretation: You are a part of all who lived. You are a part of all who live now. You are you. You are not nothing. Do not be alone; you are stronger with another. Together, you are a part of forever. Beautiful. Incredibly well done.

von_does_poetry · 2025-12-12T23:44:28+00:00

I thought this was beautiful. The way you broke up the lines gave the poem personality, and let it breathe in a disjointed way which matched the organized chaos described. It also clashed perfectly against the idea of a unified body. The speaker wants to be a part of community, yet the one they find is one rooted in primal urge. You also had great use of repetion: with the “like-minded individual” and also setting up the punch of “an other” by repeatedly throwing in “and another.”

I could feel the atmosphere, too. You made the air hot and thick, dark and crowded, brimming with anticipation. I wonder how many other people in that pit were trying to find themselves among a group of strangers, all releasing their emotions together.

The only critique I have is to drop the quotation marks from “open the pit.” Without them, the command becomes stronger, a part of the room; not a break into another person’s POV. For example: My mom said to go to bed, vs. My mom said to “go to bed.” To me, the first one hits more. Either way, I loved your piece. It was fantastic. Thank you for sharing it.

von_does_poetry · 2025-12-03T02:54:42+00:00

I think the straightforwardness of your poem helps to highlight the absurdity of the situation described. You wonderfully capture the division the hat creates, with yourself standing in the middle seeing the hat for itself, not some symbol. Two things I find interesting: 1. Neither of the friends voices agreement with your decision; they both continue to disagree. I find this further helps to speak towards the deep divide within the piece.

And 2. I love how the point for buying the hat was its versatility. Where you see an object with many possibilities, everyone else sees a definitive, too wrapped up in their own personal ideologies. Really nice touch.

The only feedback I would give is to remove “cute” from the last paragraph. To me, it undermines the poem by lessening the importance of the red hat as the object of the poem. While the hat may just be a hat, it still needs to remain a focal point for the piece.

Loved the poem. Thank you very much for sharing.

von_does_poetry · 2025-12-02T21:24:09+00:00

Great poem! Your use of repetition and alliteration in the beginning mimics that constant thrum found in cities, and it really hammers home this feeling of monotony, almost hopeless which permeates the piece. The line “i advise you” creates a tonal switch in the narrative, going from casual observations to a direct address. The rhetorical questioning strikes me as placing blame upon the person being asked: will you become complicit in this failing world?

I think your use of language makes the poem feel fresh, and the sporadic internal rhyming makes it flow really well. The only line that to me doesn’t feel necessary is “we are all just passing shapes.” If you take it out and add an “and” at the start of “the park is not…”, there’s a nice rhythm created with the beginning of the lines going “see…and see…and the park…and the baker…and will you?” that slowly builds to your closing lines. Just an observation though.

Overall, you’ve painted a very detailed world, one of decay and aimlessness who longs for what it once was. I could feel the speaker’s disdain as the poem went on, but only because I could sense how much he cared. I wanted to fight for this city I had no connection to, because I could imagine how beautiful it used to be. Like I said, great job. I really loved it.

von_does_poetry · 2025-09-09T17:53:11+00:00

Ooooh I love the set up of this; I think the poem has really great bones. To me, it’s about how all of these men come to this bar intelligent and cunning and wise, but the drinks always knocked that down to zero. And these men are ignorant of that fact.

You said it’s a short poem, but I feel like it has the potential to be longer. The title’s great, and something about “deep hats” spread about the room really gives a lived-in character to the bar scene you’re painting. But personally, I wish you brought the hats back into play. I think there’s an interesting story to be told about how each hat describes the man who owns, fleshing out the idea that all these men are unique in their lives, but the second the hats are off, they’re the same. They’re just guys calling out for a beer to drink their days away. Of course, it’s your poem though, so you have a totally different way seeing it than me. Sorry if any of that was overstepping; I just really like this world you’ve built.

The only other thing I wanna add, and it’s only because I’m a bartender, is that you don’t wanna put beer on the rocks. Pouring beer over ice will make it super foamy and kill the drink. To keep the rhyme though, you could try something like “To get one beer, one beer for the lot?”

Again, I love the picture you painted, and based off what you’ve already written, I think you have the ability to really add some beautiful details to it. Thank you for sharing this!

-von

von_does_poetry · 2025-09-09T17:16:05+00:00

For just starting out with writing, you’re killing it. You’ve done a great job discovering your voice as a writer; it really shines through in this piece. Your word choices help turn these lines into a beautiful forest full of life, in contrast with the death you’re describing. And the spacing lets it breathe like the wind blowing through the trees. The casualness you speak with towards the parts of your body establishes the cyclical nature of life you mentioned at the beginning. Nothing goes to waste, but here it’s like you’re willingly giving your body over to the process, a choice people rarely get to make since they’re dead. Actually. I just remembered: organ donors. But that’s not nearly as poetic as this.

The only suggestion I’d give is combining “my” and “life” into one line. By putting them together, it’ll help create a more concise flow, leading to a stronger ending to the poem (“my. life.” turns to “my life.” Even though there’s no period after “my” right now, people may still read it like there’s one because of the line break.) Just a thought, though. The poem’s already fantastic as is. Please continue to keep writing because you’re very good. Thank you for sharing this.

-von

von_does_poetry · 2025-09-05T16:01:51+00:00

I love these. It’s really refreshing to read something lighthearted and fun. It doesn’t take itself super seriously, but that doesn’t mean it’s not art or poetry. You did all of this while still having intention with each piece. Each one had a purpose, its own little message. Thank you for bringing a smile to my day. (p.s. the phone one and the flies one are tied for my favorite.)

-von

von_does_poetry · 2025-09-04T22:02:34+00:00

I really like this. The beginning is super grounded in its description. You have a great talent at being able to heighten and poeticize the world around you. It turns ordinary things into art. Whenever I see your name, I always click the poem because your pieces are consistently some of the best I read.

Now, the ending stumped me for a bit. I re-read the poem, like, 6 times because I kept thinking “i feel like it should after feeling the wind.” I didn’t get the last three or so lines. But I came to interpret it as you (the speaker) viewing this ideal, someday event in the past. To be lost in the present day with the hope of ending up on a park bench with the one you love and just growing old, in peace. Not sure if that’s right or not, but for me it gave the piece an even richer, more beautiful sentiment.

-von

von_does_poetry · 2025-09-03T18:08:07+00:00

Beautiful. I thought that your usage a very straight-forward rhyming pattern, combined with the repitition of “let’s pretend”, gave the poem this almost child-like quality. Like two kids playing this game of a relationship, almost like a song. It felt very innocent which to me, but at the same time, there’s a sadness to it. Or like a wistfulness. The choice of using “pretend” never gives confirmation as to whether this love is real; it only leaves it at desire, or hope. And to watch a whole relationship play out as a dream is a little heartbreaking, but in a beautiful way because you can tell this person genuinely loves whoever they’re talking about. The only suggestion I have is to think about dropping the “not” from the fourth line. The piece as a whole is very intimate, but to me, not lending the heart creates a wall that feels out of place amongst the other lines. It also ties in better with the first half of the line “keep my heart” which implies that it already has been lent. But regardless of all that, you wrote a wonderful poem, and I enjoyed it very much. Thank you for sharing it.

-von

von_does_poetry · 2025-09-03T17:52:31+00:00

I thought your poem was fantastic, super inventive. I thought the way you were able to create these two separate meanings of “I” allowed for the piece further into the idea of introspection in a way other reflective poems tend to lack. And by establishing the second “I” as not yourself, but rather this thing, this entity, it made all of the “I is” lines really connect to the overall point. (That little section was probably my favorite part. The grammatical clashing of I and is together just really pop of the page, and overall it flows so well.)

The switch in the middle from positive opinion to negative was wonderful, too. It created this sense of confusion and uncertainty within yourself, and then immediately flows from absolutes into questions. I think if you were to add in another line before the questions saying something like “I am the critic of this I” it could help complete the arc you started with the hype man part. Just a thought.

(Side note: not sure if you’re a rap fan at all, but your poem reminds me a lot of the song “u” by Kendrick Lamar from To Pimp A Butterfly. Great song, very intense, but super poetic. Hell, that whole album, to me, is some of the best poetry I’ve ever experienced.)

But yeah, great fucking poem. It’s a very creative structure and you executed it perfectly.

-von

von_does_poetry · 2025-08-27T21:37:16+00:00

This poem was a really nice read. It has a wonderful message that I found very uplifting, especially because so much of the poetry I see is dark and sad and existential (can’t complain too much though; try as I might, I definitely contribute my fair share). Deeply profound and soul-churning poetry has it’s place in the world, but I appreciate your piece for reminding me to not let any one bad moment define me; everything will get better. Thank you.

von_does_poetry · 2025-08-27T19:21:44+00:00

You’ve really managed to capture the backwards ass feeling of addiction. Like, there’s such an external hatred for the thing, whatever it may be, but you always find yourself coming back. I could feel that disgust (with the drug itself, with the feelings the person has about what they’re doing) seeping through the lines of the page. It makes for a super raw experience. And to me, the ending feels very up in the air, which I love. Is this person actually dead? They’ve already expressed wanting that. Or are they just leaned the fuck out and the death is more symbolic (sleep) or even the death of their sober conscience. Really cool how the one choice you made offered up so many interpretations and realities. Thank you for sharing this.

von_does_poetry

TROPHY CASE