Critique of "A Very Short Story"

Ernest

Hemingway wrote

A very short story

About a love that never was.

The end.

Critique of "Jack Culberg, 79"

Dear Jack,

I'm going to need you to retire.
And don't forget: if an erection is sustained for more than four hours, please consult your physician.

Sincerely,
A college student who wants your job

P.S. All those years writing business memos worked out in your favor--way to keep it straightforward.

P.P.S. I'm looking for a summer internship please contact me by e-mail or phone, whichever you feel most comfortable with.

Critique of "Beer Bottle"

Like cats,
Sometimes beer bottles
land on all fours when they're
Tossed to, what should have been, their death.
But, no.

Critique of "Incarnations of Burned Children"

I find it disconcerting when people sing David Foster Wallace's praises. It makes me question their genuineness. As far as I'm concerned the DFW train is full of ticket-less squatters--supposed fans who base their "love" for DFW on one book, maybe even on the movie version of that other one book directed by that one dude from the Office, you know, the one who got married, no no not that one, the other one... Just google it.
I'm sorry, but the fact that you committed suicide, David--if I may call you David?--does not make me anymore likely to read your literature. The sadism within the book-reading community that attracts readers to authors who've killed themselves disturbs me.
Now that that's out of the way, I would like you to know that I thoroughly enjoyed reading your short story "Incarnations of Burned Children." It was pretty cool (pun intended).

Critique of "Guns for Teachers"

Warren J. Bowe's epistolary essay "Guns for Teachers" is an example of good ol' American sarcasm. By pretending to be in support of legislature that would provide teachers the right to bear arms in schools, he questions the rationality of idea. It is strange to me, however, that Modest Proposal type of writing falls into the category of "essay." While it is non-fictional if the reader understands the sarcasm, the words themselves are fictional, not reflecting the author's sense of truth. Bowe is presenting a persona who sees logic in the idea of the gun-toting teacher.

Critique of "Facing It"

Yusef Komunyakaa's poem "Facing It" makes me question the ethics of war memorials. Supposedly intended as somewhat, not to be belittling but, of a "thank you" to deceased veterans, from the speaker's reaction to the memorial, it doesn't seem to have a positive effect. What does it do for the veteran who's still alive to see it? The speaker, who is presumably a Vietnam veteran himself, seems consumed by the memory of the deaths of his comrades. The opening lines of the poem say, "My black face fades/hiding inside the black granite." I interpret that to mean these memories which have materialized in the form of the Memorial have evinced his identity--he can only see himself in the reflection of the dead men who fought alongside him. There is a sense of paranoia when the speaker sees what he perceives to be a woman "trying to erase names," as if this erasure would impact him negatively somehow. But in actuality, she is just brushing a boys hair.

Critique of Mark Richard's "Strays"

That woman, that man, them children--they a whole family of abominations. You know she waltzed in here today, not a single "thank you" for all I done while she was away where ever she had gone leaving her children with her trifling, gambling, God-forsaken brother-in-law. Them boys call him Uncle Trash, and I'll say there ain't a more fitting name for that man, no. He ain't nothing but po' white trash. Leaving them children in that house like that, letting them burn it down. Then she have the nerve to come into my store tryna buy cigarettes on credit--I say, "Miss Missy, your credit been exhausted long time 'go. It's 'bout time you and yours take your business elsewhere until you can pay us Cuts back for all we done gave you out of our pocket." These white folks 'round here think we ain't got no sense, think we 'on't know how to run our own business. Buying on credit all the time--I know they don't try them tricks at no white stores. If it was up to me, we wouldn't let nobody pay on credit--no colored folk, no Indian folk, and sure not no white folk. But Mr. Cuts, he think he wear the pants 'round here, and he just pity them po' li'l country white folk so. When I proudly told him what I said to that woman, he told Russell to hand deliver them cigarettes to her for free.

Critique of Carolyn Forche's "The Colonel"

Aside from the pistol on the couch and the the broken bottles on the outer walls that were intended to "scoop the kneecaps from a man's legs," the Colonel's family, with whom the speaker and her friend have dinner, is, to her expected readership, a typical, upper-middle class household with pets, a maid, and fluency in English. His daughter takes pride in her appearance, his son spends time with friends, and his wife is a good hostess.
The Colonel himself? Well he, like many do in their leisure, collects things--not rocks, coins, or army paraphernalia, but human ears. His collection of these ears is presented as being almost cannibalistic. After dinner, he carts them into the dining area in a grocery bag as if he was offering a store-bought cake for dessert. The speaker says that they looked like "dried peach halves." He places one in a water glass. In the midst of these estranged ears, the Colonel finishes off his glass of wine. The speaker is emphasizing his complete comfort with food in, what for most, would be a wholly unappetizing situation.
In his defense, though, the Colonel's one redeeming quality is that he stores his ear collection in a re-usable grocery sack in true environmentalist fashion, and for a third world country in the 70s, I'd say that that's rather remarkable, wouldn't you?  

Angry Black Woman Poem for the Month of November 2012

Shortenin' Bread,
Mama's li'l baby don't love no more.
Can't afford to get. White boy/girl wasted
Their parents' money on a college education that they don't need cause they was born knowing the [wh]ight people
So they gon' get that job whether they fail or
Passed out on the sidewalk in front of a bar being felt up by a middle-age man.
You can't even help cause the Don Imus who dispresepcts a straight haired "ho" sure as hell ain't giving you nappy headed ass' dignity
A second thought:
Across the street, the university police assume that a nigga on a campus ain't no better than a nigga no where else
With or without a bloody glove or a championship ring,
Never Never Land or a platinum record,
A prostitute or a dream,
A white wife or a narrative,
A gun or a ten-step plan,
An afro or consciousness.
They say, "be on the look out for a black male 5'4" to 6'4" darkishly light brown skin wearing black Converse."
--Kareem Al Dujabar?
And do they know that that describes every penis-laden human about whom I give two shits?
Brother daddy, brother brother, brother cousin, brother bruh, and brother lover
And that same white kid woho couldn't describe the suspect beyond the shared color of his skin and kicks
Think he's cool cause he listens to our music
Reciting Public Enemy verses
And I'm wondering if he knows what it means when Flav talks about the grafted.

Text Message Cinquain to My Landlady

The rent
Is due, but I
Won't have enough money
To pay it until next Friday.
Sorry.

Cinquain on Curious Customers

The ex-
Cess red nail
Polish makes it look like
All my cuticles are bleeding.
They aren't.

Pantoum on Lines by W.E.B. Di Bpos

"How does it feel to be a problem?"

Two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings

It is a peculiar sensation

Many a man, and city, and people have found in it an excuse for sulking

Two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings

The sobering realization of the meaning of Progress

Many a man, and city, and people have found in it excuse for sulking.

Progress I understand is necessarily ugly

The sobering realization of the meaning of Progress

Few know of these problems

Progress I understand is necessarily ugly

We are on ground made familiar by study, much discussion, and little philanthropic effort

Few know of these problems

It is a peculiar sensation.

We are on ground made familiar by study, much discussion, and no little philanthropic effort

How does it feel to be a problem?

Cinquain to the Hypocritical Environmentalist

As the
Smoke coated her
Lips, she said, "Eating meat
Is bad for the environment."
Thank you?

Cinquain to Dirty, Honking Men

To YOU,
Strange me honking
At me as I wait at
The street-car stop innocently:
Fuck you.

Part Three: A 23-Year Old Redhead Makes a Phone Call...

By the next morning, four non-English speakers, nine blue collar workers, two marines, and six Jefferson Parish residents had responded to Amanda's craigslist post. Her iPhone notified her of the the hour and the 25 new emails in her inbox, which she read from bed--immediately deleting the 21 that didn't fit her specifications. Only four potentials remained in the running to become Amanda's next top beefcake:

• Brian--A blonde 26 year old from Kentucky, Tulane MBA student, shirtless picture at the beach, nice body, maybe a little too eager
• Guy--in his third year at Tulane Law, cute but not particularly photogenic, curly brown hair
• David--a New York transplant, a journalist, Colombia grad, no picture (?) , wants a phone call  
• A.H.--didn't include his name (?) or a picture (?) , from New Orleans, an engineer, former frat boy, seems normal

She planned to respond to Brian, Guy, and A.H. when she got to the cafe. She'd call David on her way to maximize time. By the time she got out of lab she'd definitely have at least one date scheduled. The pragmatic approach to internet dating.
Amanda got out of bed and walked to the bathroom. She sat on the toilet and looked between her legs at the brown ring that had settled at the top of the sitting water. She did her business. She considered taking a shower, but ultimately decided that she needed as much time as possible to carve the perfect response to the emails. She threw on a wrinkled cream blouse that had once been white but would probably end up being the color visible only under her arm pits.

To Nig, It Is: Election Follow-Up

When he was born, they told us he wouldn't live past age four. He had a disease for which there was no precedent in the United States. The doctors did everything they could to help, but after dozens and dozens of conference calls with their German and Scandinavian colleagues, the doctors said that the future looked bleak for our baby. They hadn't had any experience with the disease there either. Finally a South African doctor contacted us, who we thank whole-heartedly on a daily basis. Things have become more hopeful. Although he's still got the disease, they say he'll live to at least see age eight. Today's the first day of his fifth year of life--a day we never thought we'd get to see. I would like to wish a very happy birthday to our four year old Post-Racial America!

Critique of Yusef Komunyakaa's "Nude Interrogation"

The speaker in Yusef Komunyakaa's prose poem "Nude Interrogation" successfully creates a setting without explicitly telling readers that the action is set in the "interrogator's" bedroom following the speaker's return from Vietnam where he served as a U.S. soldier. He uses imagery to explain the context--Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix posters, a record player, her multi-colored miniskirt, and burning incense. In the introductory paragraphs to the chapter, Burroway writes, "[Any writer] will tell you that creating the sensuous particularity of a place and period is crucial to writing" (Burroway 133). Komunyakaa creates the particularity of the United States young adult culture during and immediately following the Vietnam War.  

Critique of Ted Kooser's "Tattoo"

The speaker in Ted Kooser's poem Tattoo creates a narrative for an tattoo-ed old man who he observes at a yard sale. In just 15 lines, the speaker describes this old man as being permanently marked by the bad decisions of his youth because of his tattoos, and it seems that for the speaker this is especially sad because the old man looks like he must've been "someone you had to reckon with,/strong as a stallion" in his younger years. The poem ends with the line "his heart gone soft and blue with stories," which I interpreted to be a parallel between the faded soft blue ink of his tattoos, the taming of the 'stallion's' heart with age, and the decreasing efficiency of his physical body. 

Kooser's speaker characterizes the old man for the reader through a combination of the character-as-desire and character-as-image methods. The speaker describes the tattoo and the old man's physical appearance--including how he flaunts the tattoo with "his tight black T-shirt rolled up to show us who he was." In doing so,  we get the sense that the old man's driving desire is to be young again.

Critique of Alice Walker's "Beauty: When the Other Dancer is the Self"

In her personal essay "Beauty: When the Other Dancer is the Self," Alice Walker recounts the childhood accident that blinded her left eye and left a permanent scar, and she explains how that scar affected her academically, socially, professionally, and as a mother. This essay is properly placed in the Voice chapter of Burroway's book because Walker creates a clear persona through her diction and style of writing. Walker looks in retrospect at how the scar, in many ways, shaped her life--acknowledging the negative effects regretfully, but noting how her toddler daughter's innocent remarks about her eye changed her perception of what she perceived to be nothing more than an ugly reminder of an ugly incident.