Young Writers Society

I wrote this while my English teacher rambled on about some poetry. It was interesting, but, like, it was still dull. It's sort of inspired by Tom Wayman and Pat Lane (the poets whose poetry was being read in class) and some references to some of their poems are included. It's rather short.

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In class, there's nothing interesting;
my eyelids open and close like the shutters of a retro Polaroid camera,
black and white flashes, blurred as a stretched VHS.
Hating Jews now and some Arabs and Asians as well,
that lead to silly short stories of run-over bears
and kittens killed by Lane's car exhaust.

Hi Lavvie!

Okay, so first of all, I am not familiar with Wayman and Lane, so maybe I am missing something crucial here. Still, after reading through this poem several times, I have to wonder... what is actually happening? If I were to summarize this poem, it would be that the narrator is bored in the classroom and is watching TV of documentaries of such which become more and more fantastic and blurred as time progresses, which gives the illusion of sleep.

Still, the fantastic images make you wonder... what is going on? Why is it important that hating Jews are in here? I mean, it gives the poem an odd feeling, which is slightly interesting... I mean, the message of Anti-Semitism is so passing it makes it feel like it's ho-hum and totally typical. Hating Jews? Yeah, it happens. Oh, now we get to hate Arabs and Asians? Okay, cool. I mean, that's the kind of feeling you get from it... as if it's not really important.

Then you have silly short stories of roadkill... it just seems so weird that you would go from hatred of certain peoples to these short stories. It really gives it this dreamlike quality to it because it's so random.

But -- and this is what is wrecking your poem -- there's no real connection. You have this dreamlike bit. Now, what does it all mean? You have to wrap it up. Leaving it open-ended like that, in its current condition, just makes it pure randomness. The images don't connect at all... maybe they're not supposed to. But, what is important about this poem? Is it the fact hat there is nothing interesting?

So, you really need to finish it. Right now, it looks very incomplete.