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last night i went to that salon with ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
glaucon. most of the time it was too crowded and busy with laughing and ass sniffing and karaoke to be a "real" salon, but toward the end it thinned down to 10 or so people, and several of us read things. i read a sharon olds poem about a girl who survived a horrific crime that left her best friend dead--they were 12; the poem is based on an actual crime that happened in essex junction, vt (i used to work very near where it happened). it was a little out of place among the other pieces read. everyone else (except glaucon, who read a robert lowell poem and one of his own) read more upbeat, inspirational stuff. i find this particular poem inspirational, but it goes through heavy terrain on its way there. i also wonder if it commits the poetic sin of too much-ness. it's definitely on the edge of that, in my opinion, but i think it somehow narrowly misses being excessively melodramatic. it's interesting, though, because a couple of poems i heard at the slam the other night did veer into excessive melodrama, and they made me cringe and even laugh because they were too nakedly traumatic or tragic, and i'm not sure i could articulate where those poems went wrong and this one doesn't. i guess i could if i put my mind to it, but my prospectus needs that part of my brain more urgently. triage. dig?
( here, you be the judge (poem behind cut) )
glaucon. most of the time it was too crowded and busy with laughing and ass sniffing and karaoke to be a "real" salon, but toward the end it thinned down to 10 or so people, and several of us read things. i read a sharon olds poem about a girl who survived a horrific crime that left her best friend dead--they were 12; the poem is based on an actual crime that happened in essex junction, vt (i used to work very near where it happened). it was a little out of place among the other pieces read. everyone else (except glaucon, who read a robert lowell poem and one of his own) read more upbeat, inspirational stuff. i find this particular poem inspirational, but it goes through heavy terrain on its way there. i also wonder if it commits the poetic sin of too much-ness. it's definitely on the edge of that, in my opinion, but i think it somehow narrowly misses being excessively melodramatic. it's interesting, though, because a couple of poems i heard at the slam the other night did veer into excessive melodrama, and they made me cringe and even laugh because they were too nakedly traumatic or tragic, and i'm not sure i could articulate where those poems went wrong and this one doesn't. i guess i could if i put my mind to it, but my prospectus needs that part of my brain more urgently. triage. dig?( here, you be the judge (poem behind cut) )
