Honestly...I enjoyed the hell out of it.

Sincerely,
Jo-Jo

You know what, I'm also suffering from those long drawn out fiends we call poet's block. The term is out there somewhere I assure you.

'She descends from the heavens,
grimy train steps daintily trod
by sensible shoes.'

The body of this stanza gives me a very short instance. Automatically I have this impression of a goddess descending from her clouds in royalty, you've got this biblical interpretation of the archangels or Greek mythology going for Zeus or whatnot. Now in the second line I feel transported into the mind of the goddess. For some reason I picture her in bunny slippers trotting down stairs, the words grimy and train don't really appeal to me yet I understand their intention. You know how you intellectually understand something but you just don't quite buy into the idea?

Sensible shoes, sensible shoes. You know what? You're giving this goddess mortal characteristics, and when I read this stanza over again I became better acquainted with seeing this immortal as your everyday Joe. But I'll look a level deeper at your meaning, which probably is trying to imply that even the most beautiful among us carries the most ordinary thoughts, even the most beautiful of us can have thorns/be ugly, et cetera. It's kind of a theme that's never out of date, especially not in this audiovideo age, nay?

So anyway, 'she descends from the heaven's' reads much like 'In the beginning...' and then the next few lines are like 'whoops, missed a spot' like there's a chink in the fabric. Pretty simple, pretty plain idea that's been brought up before. But I always enjoy it when a writer presents an entity/idea on the table and takes it apart slowly or abruptly. Though, 'grimy train' seems like an afterthought.

'An argyle sweater and trendy glasses:
her distinct decorations of self.
A fair trade bag and half eaten sushi,
her ornaments are well crafted,
instinctively placed.'

Holy macaroni, this is all so foreign to me! Here you have this goddess, that now sounds completely mortal and taking a tour of Hong Kong but 'with' human characteristics! This is like those pictures of celebrities when they're casually walking the streets of their neighborhood when they're not starring in Tomb Raider, Mission Impossible, Disturbia, and all that.

This broken stanza deserves some criticism though. It looks kind of broken because you place a period after the word self and capitalize 'A'. I'm really picky like that and style and if it's not consistent I think the author intended it to be like that. This stanza, which I'll call now a stanza for its sake, reads like a list. I think you could perhaps split this in two and be more playful, since this seems like a tension breaker. I think this is the moment where everyone's jaw should drop, or people don't expect that their favorite celebrity or goddess can take interest in petty mortal things. So by playing around with her strolling to the mall 'a bit more' you could emphasize whatever you're trying to say. The effect is already done, I loved the way you threw in sushi and ornaments.

'Worn Dostoevsky in hand,
us mortals can merely murmur,
she can only be the stereotypical.'

haha, I just looked this guy up. I guess I can't comment what I don't know about.

'Yet, as she is a god,
my pen details her being
and the final result omits
the only important aspect:
her person.'

I can feel the sarcasm and spite entering into the fray as the play time in exposing this goddess for what she is becomes more apparent. This is the part of the poem where the author comes to debrief the whole concept of the poem, or explain her opinion full force I guess. I think there should be some grammatical tool or break after or before the word 'being' because my eyes went over it and onto the next, and I felt like that word needed more attention than the following lines. Well, read the stanza at a moderate pace and see for yourself if you skim over it to when it actually needs more attention.

Anyway, I wasn't really ready for the ending, ironically. I thought you already exposed her with sushi love and all that jazz in the second stanza, and now announcing that you forgot to expose her as a 'person' seems irrelevant, even careless because you’ve implied it several times. Don't get me wrong though, the ending is perfect for what you're 'building' at. I just would encourage you to keep this ending and smudge the way you expose this goddess person out to keep the ending fresh.

This isn't your best I know, and I'm sure once you revise this (if you ever bother to) you'll amaze me with your rich vocabularly and show me what someone with a triple major in literature can do. I'm sure of it.

Evolve baby, evolve.

Now I'm going to review your other piece. :)

- Julian

To me, this piece read really slowly and it was highly thoughtful. The first stanza intrigued me because you said she was coming from the heavens, yet she's grimy. It's a bit of a paradox to me.

Your vocabulary in this piece is rather stunning. I tend to enjoy writing (poetry and fiction alike) if there is good word choice that goes beyond the simplicity of casual English. Not only did you use a wide variety of words and phrases, but you used them expertly with your rhythm to create a unique and startling image.

Overall, you organized this piece well. It shows true uniqueness, thought, and creativity. I think one line that really shows this is the second line of the last stanza--"my pen details her being"--and the lines that follow. I can't put my finger on what exactly makes that line so significant, but I think it may be the fact that you seem to have written from a third-peron's perspective up until that point.

Very nice piece.

-stix-

"Yet, as she is a god,
my pen details her being
and the final result omits
the only important aspect:
her person."

This is the part that I loved the most about the poem; the last two lines specially. I also loved the line that goes: "her ornaments are well crafted,instinctively placed"
The way you've used...well, exclusively mundane words to write about a Goddess befits the satirical mood of the poem perfectly. The lack of meter is what stands out, gives your poem, well, character as it were.
All in all, a very well written piece.

I'm very interested by the fact that you call her a god instead of a goddess because it's not what I expected. I'm sure there is some reason behind it, what is it? I love this piece because the description of her is absolutely wonderful and the piece makes a great point about stereotyping. Good luck with trying to make it better, I actually have no suggestions in that department.

PS If you’re bored this weekend check out the Review Game’s Review Marathon (link in my profile)

I really love this! The second stanza made me smile, it's very witty. I think we all know someone like the person you wrote about, and this is a very very good way to put them to paper.