Elizabeth Rose Murray

Posts Tagged ‘poetry critique’

Magnitude
II
In a lesson on trying to make the abstract more concrete,
one of my students, a Guyanese boy, late teens,
shares a draft in which he’s counting
the breaths of his sleeping girlfriend.
He’s met her father, shook his hand –
weeks later, the girl explains
that her Akan blood arrows back up to royalty,
that the boy is the son of [...]

Magnitude*
I
There are a million grains in a 20 kilogram sack of rice.
Give or take. It’s a hard enough number to imagine,
the kind that slips through the mind’s fingers, like digging
your hands in that same sack, trying to feel
for individuals; the kind of counting that surpasses
fingers, bigger than the mind’s computational eye,
like the full, unending [...]

In Touch*

That ocean divides. Yet the yeasts on my toes
have stowed away on yours – at the heel
 

of a day crammed with doings, shoe-snug,
they waft up to you our distinctive tang.
 

There’s a suspicion in the breath I catch
single-handed, just after brushing my teeth,
 

of that must my tongue first muscled in on
when [...]

The latest edition to my critique site is the poem “Sisters” by northern poet Pauline Plummer. A sad yet comic look at the life of modern women, Sisters has  Sapphic overtones and  is laced with dark wit.  Go see for yourself!

The second part of Magnitude scales the same important themes from a global perspective to the situation/experience of one person. The second part increases the impact and the message. Read the review Part II to get to grips with some fantastic and important current day poetry.

My review of the first part of Magnitude by Jacob Sam-La Rose, commissioned by the Arts Council, England, can be read here. A fascinating insight into the struggle to understand the vast scale of the slave trade and forced migration of African people, it´s well worth a read. Interested and want to hear Jacob [...]

Despite a busy schedule, Mario Petrucci was kind enough to comment on my review of his poem “In Touch”. Mario is a man I admire; he writes with unlimited enthusiasm, wit and sensitivity. You can read my critique and what Mario wrote about my critique here.

To enhance my resolution to read more poetry, I have created the Elizabeth Rose: poetry critique blog. To kick start this, Mario Petrucci´s In Touch has been the focus of my attentions; a modern day rhetoric on the ancient concept of eros using foot fungus as a focus. Intrigued? Then read it.