Lit poems 2020++

Each post of "Lit poems 2020++" (except this intro) should be a connected one-piece affair. The default is that a post should be a review of exactly one poem published in the Literotica Archive on 2000-01-01 or later. Exceptionally, it would be very nice to have a connected essay that compares two or more poems that create in effect something of a topical anthology.

Word "review" stands here for something substantial, not casual.

The existing recommendation thread is quite a bit lighter, and its posts introduce, as a rule, several disconnected poems on each occasion, each poem being indicated independently of each other. Thus, the recommendation thread and this one complement each other harmoniously.

In contrast to the recommendation thread, the order of the poems reviewed here will be chronologically chaotic.

PS. Just as in the case of "30 in 30", please, if you have some formal points, make them in a thread different from this one -- if necessary, one can create a general common companion thread for several "direct" threads, one may call it "Varia". Give poetry a chance to flow without formal disturbances.

"wrapped in an oak barrel" by anwmalos (a review)

Let me copy my comment to


by anwmalos which I have posted under the archives' copy of the poem... -- oh, no! I didn't save my comment, and it's gone (clicking on "go back" several times didn't help). I have to start from scratch.

It's not common these days that we have a true poem, there are only a very few of them around. What caught my eye was that the poem scans well hence it was a pleasure to read it. I don't quite understand this poem, possibly due to my limitations. I'll do what I can.

It seems to me that the narrator (lyrical subject) is a sophisticated American visiting Europe. ("Sophisticated American" sounds like an oxymoron but -- c'mon -- it's not).

The poem is lively while it has a bit of a complaining mood, especially near the end.

This was more or less the comment which I meant to post under the poem. Let me pass to the technical aspects of the text.

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I wonder if the following sentence (L1 and L2) written in a prevailing Western style:


is not excessively sophisticated. I am critical about the Western style rather than about the author. Then, "its an exiting adventure is talk -- the fact that this is a narrator voice cannot be an excuse. (BTW, there is a typo -- I think, it should be "exciting"; I think that there are more typos). I could mention more in the same vein but you've already got a general idea. In particular, the last two lines spell a heavy opinion.

The line next to the last features non-standard word "uni, it's derivative of "union" or "united" or "unification" ... I am rather sure that it stands for something like "homogenous". Thus this work? Perhaps.

In many poems that complain, and in the given case too, it's hard to say what the complaint is about, what's the big deal? Here too -- I don't know.

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Althesame, despite my misgivings, "wrapped ..." is a nice poem, a lot of imagery, fun to read, even the title is attractive and meaningful.

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PS. My comment which supposedly somehow got lost, did show up with a delay. They view the eventual comments and they accept them or not. Thus, due to my lack of info, I posted under "wrapped..." another comment. I didn't know (or perhaps didn't pay attention) to this (relatively?) new Literotica procedure. One way or another, I am not going to post any comments in the Literotica archive anymore.

"1.12.20" by cornerstop (a review)

A nice-moody (to me) relatively short poem:


by cornerstop whose first archived poem was posted on 2019-10-21, followed by several in December, and then five this January of the 2020 year.

Is the above poem's title truly a title or just a date? Hard to tell. There might be a meaning (in the author's mind?) to sequence 1 12 20 -- perhaps not. In the latter case, I would prefer 2020-01-12. Today, it's clear that the date is about January but with the time passing the readers might get confused: was the poem written in January or December? Is it important? To me, it is.

The lines of the poem are not broken hence the poem seems shorter than otherwise but it is still short.

The first sentences have an unmistakable rhythm. It feels good to note it when the rhythm is not given to you on the broken line plate. Very nice. The rhythm gets broken starting with the next sentence. I was quietly disappointed. Now that I have a critic hat on my head it's tricky to make editing suggestions but I still wonder what would be wrong with an otherwise minor modification:


As an extra bonus, I feel that it would make the image more focused and "real". (Remember, four times out of five, the singular is stronger than plural).

As I said earlier the whole poem is moody which I like except that the mood was broken at the end, in the last 2-3 sentences. That was the author's choice but this reader feels sorry for it and a bit disappointed.

Thus, now is the time to look at the meaning of the poem. I have to do it only because I am a self-appointed critic. As a reader, I wouldn't bother with the meaning in this case -- more often than not the meaning is not too important.

The critical is the 5th sentence:


The crucial word is "away (from someone). The poem is about being away from someone. Yes, this is romantic in a sad and somewhat depressing way. A moment later you get aware of the word inches. The nostalgic mood is still there against the logic because poetry is the art of words -- every word of a poem counts (for the better or worse) even on its own, the impression does not get canceled. Nevertheless, we get -- at the same time -- new feelings. Two things happen at the same time -- the romantic sadness and then negativity -- we get the phase transition like ice and water or even better ice and vapor (gas). Away but inches. And indeed, in addition to the sad mood, we get new accents, that of anger and similar. The ending, which breaks the sad mood, is consistent with these later accents. Actually, lengthwise, the part following the crucial sentence quoted above is more(!) than half of the text but the first moody state still dominates (that's how I feel -- other readers may feel different).

The second part of the poem features also some sense of humor the source of which is the narrator rather than situational. Or it feels like a general protest about and against the world.

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The poem by SwirlingGrl (revied in the other thread) described a difficult personal situation and only in this sense it was negative. However, to me, somehow that poem didn't feel negative at all. The poem was free from any bad personal feelings, the poem was clean, despite the complex circumstances. Because of this, it was poetically superior to 1.12.20 -- the former was more profound than the latter. Otherwise, the two poems are both nice and not to be compared.

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Altogether, I was very glad to read 1.12.20 . Why is it so hard (just for me?) to find poems that one likes? Well, ...