Hi everyone,
Thanks so much for all your feedback - I really appreciated your comments and
insight. I'll definitely be putting it to good use in the next draft. Thanks
again!
And thanks so much Andy for your detailed critique - fantastic. Your essay,
examples and wonderful choice of subject made me feel like I’ve kicked off the
year with a keeper poem (which is not the way I usually start!).
Sorry about doing the feedback like this but I’ve learned my lesson - leaving
it until the end means losing track of files and feeling like I’m drowning in
emails! Next week I’ll get my act together.
Tru - Such a beautiful and evocative poem! The stand out line for me was ‘makes
unmakes’ but I thought the whole poem had a wonderful sense of rhythm and
atmosphere. The title is perfect as the whole poem is incredibly rich and
immersive.
Kirsten - This gave me such a jolt of nostalgia! God, I loved Sizzler too. Your
use of imagery and the layering of it is so vivid and the way you weave the
present in with the sensory detail of the past is so confident and polished. It
doesn’t feel like a first draft at all. Brilliant.
Emilie - This is such a well crafted and surprising take on the theme - I loved
that you immersed me in another place and culture and managed to artfully deal
with politics without the poem feeling at all ‘preachy’. I loved the structure
too and felt like the prose poem-ish stanzas were perfectly suited to the
rhythm of the piece. And your description of amoebic dysentery is SO good
(which I unfortunately know from experience). Such a visceral poem! And great
title.
Jessi - Such a powerful poem. Your description of the room is brilliant. I
thought your lines about the tea-stained temple of linen and the stretched
scent of sweat and sex were incredibly evocative. As was 'no more hospital
nametag ‘round my wrist / Less mass tethering me to earth’ So so good.
Julie - I love this poem. Such a clever conjuring of childhood in language and
imagery. Great structure too. I really like the lines within lines - to me it
seemed to give the poem a run-on rhythm, like the speech of an excited child.
Stand-out lines were - 'chasing gnat clouds bare-skinned under near-naked
skies’ and the final line. So poignant and full of that sense of powerlessness
I remember so well from childhood.
Wahibe - Wow, what a stunner of a first line! I loved the way you evoke heat
and through visceral detail about skin - it’s incredibly powerful. Really like
the way you subtly evoke the past in so few words but manage to compress into
those few lines so much meaning and description. Such a skilful and thoughtful
poem. I found I was thinking about it long after reading.
Mary - Such wonderful compressed language and imagery in this poem. I
particularly loved the lines ‘unsandal/ try to sort out the argument/ my body
was having with my bathers’ - ‘unsandal’ is brilliant! And dad’s ‘peace of
sand’ made me smile too. Great choice of detail and the asides about what you
are thinking layer it up into a poem that has me feeling as if I’m there.
Maureen - This was incredibly powerful, Maureen. I think I prefer the second
draft but there are standout lines in both. Such a clever juxtaposition of the
two events and bringing it full circle with the closing lines. This is a poem
that stayed with me long after reading.
Ian - I think this is such a wonderful evocation of a fire call out - so rich
and dense with imagery and the conversational tone is perfect. And the
narrative really rockets along too with clever punctuation and rolling lines. I
loved it. Having been in the CFS over here in SA I think you’ve captured the
nerves and adrenaline brilliantly.
Thanks so much, everyone, for sharing your work - I feel like we’re really
going to inspire each other!
Cheers,
Rachael
On 14 Jan 2019, at 8:35 am, Andy Jackson <andyjackson71@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Emilie Collyer, Ian Gostelow, Jessica Cohen, Julie Birch, Kirsten Krauth,
Mary Stone, Maureen Sexton, Rachael Mead, Tru Dowling and Wahibe Moussa.
