“When We Witnessed” When we, those who had listened intently with bated breaths and open minds, forced him onto that long, dusty road, do you think he wished he could make it all stop and disappear? When we, those who had sat with him for hours, never once imagining we would betray him, mocked him, struck him, and watched him fall, do you think he wished he had, maybe, just maybe, never taken this up? When we, those who had become desperate for a miracle, kneeling and begging at his feet, kicked dirt and spat into his face and open wounds, do you think he wished to cry out for the same mercy he gave? When we, those who could have chosen not to listen, nailed that poor carpenter’s son onto the cross that we made him carry and left him there to die, do you think, with his final breaths, that wooden scent reminded him of home?

Even without your comment, it’s clear what this piece is a retelling of. In subject matter, it brings James Wright’s “Saint Judas” to mind; not my favorite of his, despite my affinity for both sonnets and formal verse, but the strangeness of “their javelins measured crowds” stands out where this piece reaches for received language like “bated breath” and “open mind.”

Does it make me feel any sort of way? I’m not Christian and yet Bach’s St. Matthew Passion is probably my favorite piece of baroque music.

So there’s a lot of competition.

I appreciate your feedback! I see what you mean after reading "Saint Judas" myself. My follow-up question is: how can I get rid of the received language instances while still keeping the essence of the poem? I want to keep the perspective of someone who initially supported the victim but eventually turned on them and is now realizing what a horrific betrayal they've ultimately participated in (in one way or another). Just as Wright's "Saint Judas" examines the beating and killing of someone from the perspective of the traitor, I want to recapture just how brutal this act of betrayal from thousands of people must have seemed to Jesus.

Despite the amount of competition, there has always been something so incredibly tragic about the story of Jesus' crucifixion to me that I felt compelled to try and capture that experience in the form of a poem (in this case, this is a free verse poem, I forgot to mention that). Another thing that made me want to write this was, one day, while doomscrolling, I came across a short that featured an illustration of the three crosses on the hill with overlaid text reading, "Do you think the wooden scent of the cross reminded him of home?" It stuck with me so much because I knew that Joseph (Mary's husband) was a carpenter and most definitely taught young Jesus carpentry. At the very least, Jesus was somewhat familiar with it, since he didn't start preaching until age 30. It broke my heart to think that, in his final moments, the scent of the wooden cross triggered childhood memories or other important memories. It was a thought that I hadn't had, but once I did, it make me incredibly sad. Sorry for the long message...

I took a Music History class in college, and we listened to a lot of baroque, but I'm not familiar with that one. I'll have to give that one a listen.

back on some silly goose behavior https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1093089307046182913/1542336689828008016/Screenshot_2026-08-26_at_5.54.29_PM.png?ex=6a90dc7a&is=6a8f8afa&hm=80b50fd0000b6f20c3737dce98e0275d797effa4ef53a42dca1612259a0e283f&

Hi. First time I ever compose my poem directly in English. So there is a lot uncertainty from my side

If you can, please take a look at my poem. Thanks a lot!

----- I try to learn English poetry from Bob Dylan It took me 5 mins to search for the album because I mistook route 61 for Route 66. I’ve listened to the album almost a hundred times, mostly to revisit “Like a Rolling Stone” only, which I once thought was from The Rolling Stones, but I recall Mick Jagger thanks to Maroon Five. Anyway, I like the harmonica section.

Hmm. If this is the poem, I do have a few words for it. It's relatively decent. Free-form. It doesn't raise any sort of emotion, but I think that's the point. If it does raise an emotion, it's definitely confusion. It feels absurd. It can always be improved upon. It sounds like someone's having a trip throughout America. Bob Dylan is an American poet. If my research's right.

Bob Dylan is a singer-songwriter who won a Nobel Prize for Literature 😉

Yep.

Yes, I'm from Viet Nam so the poem is a very fun trip for me to recount and transform how I met American Culture from elsewhere. Thank you for your feedback!

No worries. Glad I could help.

I also feel like sharing a poem. If any of you fellas have something to say about it, I will be glad to listen. https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1093089307046182913/1544716791278735390/The_roots_of_degeneracy.txt?ex=6a99851e&is=6a98339e&hm=6104a654b4b52b3f313363786ab88206e343a2fae314dfa1c960a722037aad5b&

Hey guys, so when I was studying for my uni entrance exam in Japan I had to memorize works from famous Japanese writers. I turned each author’s title of works into ‘stories’ so I could memorize better (it worked btw) That was years ago but I just excavated it from my notes app and thought hey, this could be a good experimental/hybrid poem. This is the raw version, aka what I made to study in 2022. Would love advice, comments, critique etc on how to turn this into something publishable. Or at least how to turn this into something worth calling a rough first draft lol. I am brainstorming too ofc but any sort of input would be appreciated. TIA 🐹 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1093089307046182913/1547171965515862086/IMG_7611.png?ex=6aa273ad&is=6aa1222d&hm=bacab45d6a7ffe7031feef7a05fede337d1e12cf3f086dba27fca8ec6aea387f& https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1093089307046182913/1547171966056792104/IMG_7612.png?ex=6aa273ad&is=6aa1222d&hm=2a8de277f290bc86fc9501c37a0a69c6510afec8a908213a4db02362e44905a7&

Wait, that’s actually a pretty cool way to study. I’d be down to read the raw version. The idea of turning a bunch of titles into one story sounds really interesting.

Thank you! This is the raw version! ^^

Ohh nice, I’ll check it out! I’m curious to see how the idea turned out, especially since it started as a study method lol. I can give you some thoughts on the flow and how it reads as a poem.

Thank youuu!!

Hey, I like this! It reminds me of an intriguing short/flash fiction collection I once read called Dictionary Stories, by Jez Burrows, where each story was built out of dictionary example sentences. -I'm curious about the single "we" (in Higuchi Ichiyo's stanza) in an otherwise third-person piece. -You may want to consider the consistency/inconsistency of past vs. present tense. Some random other brainstorming ideas came to mind, though I'm not sure whether they'd help or hurt: -If you're thinking of publishing it as a sectioned longer piece, like this: it might be interesting to have little connections/callbacks between sections (e.g. particular images or vocabulary returned to) -- which on the other hand might undermine the memorization/mnemonic concept (due to the content overlaps) and thus not be a good idea thematically. -What would happen if the starts and ends were mirrors or reverses of each other, or had some arc relationship? -What would happen if you brought your narrator persona into the piece as well as the author characters? -Or what would happen if all of these author characters were in one setting together while doing these individualized actions?

Wow this is amazing! Thank you Spark! Those ideas are awesome. I wanna try the third one!

Sorry if this is not the correct place to ask I have my first draft of my first poetry chapbook (24 pages) But I'm not sure where to ask for feedback. I can offer swap read. While my poems are a bit unorthodox, I believe I can support reading on architecture and sequencing. My chapbook has 5 published poems. If this message is not in the right place, I will delete it later. Thanks!

Happy to take a look, if you'd like to DM the manuscript?

Sneak peek to one poem from my chapbook of re: being referred to with my surname because I’m Chinese and my name is “Surname + Given Name” https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1093089307046182913/1553662323556618281/IMG_8754.png?ex=6ac5450b&is=6ac3f38b&hm=670d4ff42585663e010dfe542b445df32690c24ee74af5708f027d3c97687f00&

Oh wait we can send our poetry here for feedback? Hell yeah i’ll post one tomorrow, one which i’m hesitating to post

Let's goooo

New triptych out today with Good Life Review! Mobile format is terrible. https://thegoodlifereview.com/issue-twenty-five/triptych-with-love-story-and-fire-season-by-jordan-ranft/