Table of Contents You may submit any of your writing to be critiqued by a panel of peer critics by emailing it to littleal87@aol.com with "To Critique" in the subject line. Critiques provided by a panel of peer editors: Even if you have previously done so, please send your DOB/gender/location to littleal87@aol.com because the file containing the birthdays was wiped clear. This helps to create a picture of the demographics of the club and your birthday will be featured in the newsletter! Thank you very much for participating.
The Write Stories
The Write Poetry
Critique of the Month
Learn From the Masters
The Write "Stuff"
THE WRITE STORIES
Band Practice is Over [Madra 7of9]
The white room does not seem white at first: the black speakers, black drums, black floor fans make the place dark. From the riffs the boy in blue strums on the red guitar streams an
ocean scent; they turn my bottle of water into coconut shell filled with pineapple juice, and dress me in a tropical sarong.
There are two mattresses in the corner. They wear
blueberry skirts wrapped around their hips and being to sway and dance with shells in their hands.
The couch, fat and lazy, watches us as he bakes in the sun, underneath the floor of fine, steaming sand, so hot you could bake lobsters, lobsters—
Lobster red guitar, lain seductively in the corner dressed in a silver string thong, beckons us with a winking sparkle.
The Beatles join us, as does a blushing Janis Joplin and a naked upper half of Marilyn Manson. Dr. Evil slinks in and sits underneath the umbrella; he won’t stop talking, his voice is rhythmic, but repetitive—the same three notes over and over…
I sip my drink in the face of the breeze, listening to the waves drum wet cement sand.
Suddenly they go on strike; their refusal to hit the ground causes Dr. Evil to stop talking. His lips are slightly parted, he has returned to poster man mode. The floor is
dirty carpet, not dirty sand, and my drink, I taste, only bursts with the flavor of what comes from the faucet.
THE WRITE POETRY
Revealed
[punkrockerkc333@comcast.net]
I feel his eyes upon me
Peering past my fears,
A soft way of searching
Beyond my silent tears.
Seeing in my soul
Looking at my heart,
He soothes me with his eyes
Although we’re far apart.
Caring of my sins
An essential part of me,
Loving with his eyes
Steals virginity.
Surroundings are erased.
Alone just us two,
With a feeling awfully strong
But scared to follow through.
His eyes deeply cut
The secrets I confide,
My love has been revealed
No longer do I hide.
mary petal and the orange keeper
i sit there
alone
and envision you approaching me and confessing how often I
enter your dreams late at night
with an imaginary hand i trace over you features
i memorize the curve of your jaw and the creases by your eyes
you have this way of looking at me
and i
i think you know you do it
but you curve the ends of your lips
and slightly grin
and your eyes
they stare straight through me
and you read my thoughts like a grown man would read a young girl's diary
one day when she leaves it on the dresser
open to her last entry
almost inviting him to read it
and he sees things that are so passionate and sexual
he can’t believe her mind dives to these depths
and just when he thinks he should stop reading he sees his
name in the clutter of erotic language
and at the same time that he is appalled
he feels himself becoming captivated by her presence
and slowly
as he reads on in private
reads the words of this adolescent
he pleases himself
and feeling slightly ashamed
you end our intimate moment
and turn your eyes to new scenery
and i am left
alone
sitting there
still passing my gaze over your soft fleshy parts
i feel used and operated
over worked
like an old record player
singing the familiar tune of nina simone for thirty some odd
years now
but i can’t lie
i don’t hate it
actually
i rather enjoy you handling my insides
drinking my pulp but you know
enough of that
i told myself i wouldn’t think like this anymore
i wouldn’t torture and tease myself anymore
unless of course
you were in the room
watching my frame twist and turn in anticipation
i just keep telling myself that some day i will know what you
feel like
some day i will know what you will feel like
some day i will know
some day
i will know
some day
~elove821@aol.com~
Ode to the Camel Toe
[chris@biemeck.com]
How ye must suffer!
Hence the years are far behind and today 20lbs add to thine girth
But the miracles of modern age, the wrench, the shoestring
Thee can manage to impale into a size 16, BUT LOOK HOW THOU HAST GROWN!!
As I gaze at a midriff of thine belly bulge
My! What a fatty apron thou hast.
Bless ye camel toe wenches!
What a pain thou must suffer when ye sits!
Hail to ye red streaks upon thy thighs; upon thy abdomen
An edematous affair of hanging overgrowth.
As ye sashay into thine privey I can only wonder of the struggle
thou hast when pulling up thy trousers in such a compromised area of space!
I admire thy will of illuminating such ignorant illusions of thinness.
So drink Miller beer till ye can handle no more tis eve
And do put in thy mind the love "Loverboy" still hath thou for thee.
(my experience at Harborfest, Racine WI, Camel toe biker mamas everywhere)
Definition of Camel toe: go to www.cameltoe.org to find out.
Enjoyed this poem? There's more.
www.flourpot123@yahoo.com
Emily Walker
1819 Erie Street
Racine WI 53402
CRITIQUE OF THE MONTH
Christopher The Red, 23
Therissa
Allison, high school senior
"1000 Miles to Freedom"
[Jonathankearxxx]
I lift my head from within this dream,
And my fists clench as I begin to scream.
My eyes start to stream (this may or may not be an intentional rhyme, but it's clunky either way.)with raged tears, ("raged" as an adjective?)
As all I can remember are vicious fears. (vicious fears? Can fears really be vicious? Re-think)
My muscles flinch and my skin crawls,
As my mind knows I'm still inside these walls.
My spirit is exiled from my corpse tonight,
And evil is left alone to use all of its might.
(tacky) (I like the phrase about your spirit exiled from your corpse, but why do I like it? I like it because it's original and something a person doesn't typically hear. On the same note, I'm not as crazy about the sentence after it because it sounds forced and trite.)
I try to fight it but it refuses to leave me, (Fight what?)
However hard I try I cannot be free.
Time is my only ally to escape to hell: (Why would you escape TO hell? Wouldn't you escape FROM hell? Is the present worse than hell would be?)
To a hidden torment where I will dwell.
When the lie ((?)) leaves to seek more of my kind, ("Lie leaves"? What lie? How does it leave? What are you talking about?) ((What do you mean by "lie leaves"?))
My soul returns to lay rest to my mind. ((The wording here is choppy.))
I wake in a trance to see all is calm and fair,
Yet I have really awoken to my nightmare.
Two words. Don't... rhyme. You've all the classic signs of someone trying to fit their poem to the rhyme, instead of the other way around. (...Evil is left alone to "use all of its might"?) This poem could be better if a. it wasn't so melodramatic-- maybe put more images in, less "I am in hell, endless torment"-- b. DID NOT RHYME, and c. cut out words like "dwell", "all of its might", "soul", "mind"... all the emotional buzzwords.
Sorry to be harsh. Just be careful about rhyming.
I like the idea of this. Some of the wording is choppy though. It doesn’t flow. Mostly in the last stanza.
I'm sorry, but this poem was too gimmicky to seem worth taking seriously. From the rhyming to the tick-tock rhythym to the quasi-macbre language, I was never able to really invest myself into the poem.
Unanswered questions: why are you going to hell? What are you fighting? I like the idea that you have a nightmare but your life is your real nightmare, blah blah, but if all is "calm and fair," where's the nightmarish part? What's so terrible? It's one thing to be vague in a poem because your imagery can be interpreted in different ways. This poem, on the other hand, reminds me of people who have conversations about personal issues at a dinner table with guests, but don't refer to anyone by name and refuse to share the story with everyone even though all the guests have been listening to most of it anyway. They know just enough to want to understand, but just little enough that they can't without some assistance. Don't say, "I have a secret!" and then insist that you cannot share it. You're saying things without justification or explanation. Let us in the loop. I agree with the comment about rhyming, too. Let your writing mature--think less about rhyming and more about imagery and getting across your message.
LEARN FROM THE MASTERS
One of the great classic writers led a life almost as dramatic as his liteterature:
"On May 29, 1884, Oscar Wilde married Constance Lloyd. Constance was four years younger than Oscar and the daughter of a prominent barrister who died when she was sixteen. She was well-read, spoke several European languages and had an outspoken, independent mind... The next six years were to become the most creative period of his life. He published two collections of childrens stories, The Happy Prince And Other Tales (1888), and The House Of Pomegranates (1892). His first and only novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray, was published in an American magazine in 1890 to a storm of critical protest. He expanded the story and had it published in book form the following year. Its implied homoerotic theme was was considered very immoral by the Victorians and played a considerable part in his later legal trials. Oscar's first play, Lady Windermere's Fan, opened in February 1892. Its financial and critical success prompted him to continue to write for the theater. His subsequent plays included A Woman Of No Importance (1893), An Ideal Husband (1895), and The Importance Of Being Earnest (1895) were all highly acclaimed and firmly established Oscar a playwright.
In the summer of 1891, Oscar met Lord Alfred 'Bosie' Douglas, the third son of the Marquis of Queensberry. Bosie was
well acquainted with Oscar's novel Dorian Gray and was an undergraduate at Oxford. They soon became lovers and
were inseparable until Wilde's arrest four years later. In April 1895, Oscar sued Bosie's father for libel as the Marquis
had accused him of homosexuality. Oscar withdrew his case but was himself arrested and convicted of gross
indecency and sentenced to two years hard labor...
Upon his release, Oscar wrote The Ballad of Reading Gaol, a response to the agony he experienced in prison. It was
published shortly before Constance's death in 1898. He and Bosie reunited briefly, but Oscar mostly spent the last
three years of his life wandering Europe, staying with friends and living in cheap hotels. Sadly, he was unable to
rekindle his creative fires. When a recurrent ear infection became serious several years later, meningitis set in, and
Oscar Wilde died on November 30, 1900."
--http://www.cmgww.com/historic/wilde/
To learn more about Oscar Wilde:
http://www.cmgww.com/historic/wilde/
http://www.planetmonk.com/wilde/
http://www.victorianweb.org/decadence/wilde/wildeov.html
http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/wilde/wilde.htm
SPECIAL BIRTHDAY ANNOUNCEMENTS
March 30th, 1987 elisabeth@raptureteenwriter.com
Happy Birthday!