What do you think was the motivation for writing this piece?
Who do you think are the author’s influences?

(Click the post title to read the submission.)

Alright Limocrats,
I don’t really do poetry anymore except for myself, but I decided to throw this one out there. It’s about a former student of mine whose parents sent him to a local institution because they were afraid that he worshiped the devil because he was a cutter. You can imagine he had some anger.
In real life I play with the formatting a bit more but everything seems to jump back to the left margin when I post. So, tell me what you think. I really would like to have your input.

I like the poem overall, but I think it could use a good edit. Cut to the chase so to speak. There are some good lines in there though, Miller Lite comforter, and nobody understands Beowulf, not Grendel, not 7th or 8th century Brittons or Danes, not Claire Danes. Nope. Nobody. And they’re lying if they say they do, so don’t sweat that one!

Thanks for the input, Deminizer. I agree that it could use a good edit. I’m a terrible poem editor. Actually I’m a terrible editor in general. Still working on the ability to murder my darlings. Would you believe that it started as an open letter-style prose poem? So, it has been cut down from the first draft. Now, what to slice next?

I think it’s good.  I thought it was terrifically negative.  Not that there’s anything wrong with that, per se.  It just makes one wonder what to do with it, as if someone gave you Munch’s “The Scream” for Christmas.  You wouldn’t hang it in your livingroom.  You wouldn’t hang it in the bathroom.  Certainly not your bedroom, at least if you have a wife and she’s half-normal.  As a matter of fact, unless you’re nuts, you wouldn’t hang it anywhere (unless you were planning to hang yourself). 

I was told a long time ago by a blues musician (who is now dead) not to   write negative lyrics.  Not sure what he meant.  He’s dead. 

To repeat, I think it’s good.  Seriously.  It’s just that negativity makes me think.

Dave, I’ve been trying to edit the following:  “writenegative” and it just won’t edit.  It may be my computer or something.  Carp and whine, carp and whine.

Thanks Julianyway,
It’s funny (or perhaps not funny at all) that almost everything I writecomes across as negative. I once showed someone a love poem I had written. The response was “Ugh, it’s so dark.” Perhaps I shouldn’t have read so many Stephen King books as a child. Perhaps kidney theft is not a good metaphor for love.
In the case of this poem I was trying to show sympathy for a person who was experiencing depression, had started cutting, and was rebelling against everything he had been raised to believe. Now that I look at it, I realize that (despite the fact that it’s already ungainly) it still lacks an answer. It falls short of the ultimate message I was going for: I understand what you’re going through and this crazy adolescent angst will not be the end of the world.
By the way, if someone gave me “The Scream” for Christmas, I’d hang it in Lloyd’s of London and use it to fund my villa on the Mediterranean.

What a neat bug!  Every use of the word “Write”, regardless of capitalzation, loses one of the spaces after the word “write” (if there are any) each time you save it!

Simple workaround: Use two spaces.  But then you have to put two spaces after every occurrence of “write” each time you edit.

Better workaround (and implemented too!) I fixed it.  Thanks Jules!