Poetry Forum

The interference is minimal
and I feel excessively good.

In the East End
In between Bethnal Green
and Liverpool Street, he says,
"You wanna leaflet sister?"
Shoving it in my face.
Expressionless countenance
Look of tight-lipped alarm
Evangelical shoots from the elbow.

I say no politely and stop off
for Christmas baubles hardly noticing
that I feel fine. Alive like glittering
silver seas pouring over parched mouths
ages old

The final stanza is fantastic. I love the picture of the baubles washing over parched mouths, great enalogy of the moral banckrupsy of a commercial Christmas.

I dont think I've critted you before so firstly welcome and secondly here goes..

I like poems that are firmly of a place so for me the poem gets going at In the East End. I would be tempted to start there.

Maybe also drop the tell-y bits, let the reader work some of it out. Doing that you would be left with

In the East End
In between Bethnal Green
and Liverpool Street, he says,
"You wanna leaflet sister?"

I say no politely and stop off
for Christmas baubles hardly noticing
that I feel fine
like glittering silver seas pouring
over parched mouths ages old.

Something like that.

cheers

elph

Hi brahms,
I liked the idea of this, nice title, and I see what effect you’re driving at. Or I think I do. In the event, though, the piece is to me an odd mixture of the mundane and the gnomic. From L1 to L12, you tell the story with almost total literalism, then - suddenly, no warning – deliver a poetic-sounding but impenetrable (to me – probably I’ve missed some obvious reference) climax.

For me, it would help if you either (a) made S1 and S2 more poetically interesting, or (b) made the denoument more accessible. How about both?
All the best
peter

The criticisms by Peter are far from gentle; they are pompous.

This piece was published a couple of years ago in another country; i won a big dish for it which i dumped on the way to the airport. WKR

I can only add that I liked the piece and Elphin's suggestions. Smiles.

Apologies WKR. I'm just an amateur, I'm afraid. Didn't mean to be offensive. It's clearly a very good poem indeed.