Thanks for sharing your piece! I enjoyed it a lot. Your style is very poetic -- not in terms of its structure or metre, necessarily, but the way your diction and argumentative structure encourage...
Thanks for sharing your piece! I enjoyed it a lot. Your style is very poetic -- not in terms of its structure or metre, necessarily, but the way your diction and argumentative structure encourage close reading. It's an interesting choice for the point you're making, I think, because fundamentally what we have here is a reflection on the socio-philosophy (sorry) behind a mild interpersonal disagreement, right? But the style obscures the details of that disagreement, of the people involved in it, so instead of my instinctive "who's in the right in this situation?" response that I usually get in these types of pieces, I'm thinking more about the questions you're actually raising, the "is this worth complaining about" versus the "is this worth thinking about," the "do you owe the world self-reflection and vulnerability?" The "Is this situation truly unimportant, or is it only unimportant to me?" all framed in a sort of broad, context-agnostic way in my head. That's what I got out of it anyway, and I appreciate the opportunity to engage with those questions on a Saturday morning.
If you don't mind some mild criticism, I do wonder if some of the prose is a bit purple, to the point of being inaccessible?
So, like, you open with this line:
to hear that my dear friend essentially disarmed and castrated himself of power, was slightly disheartening. not in the ways that i actually lose respect or sleep or any type of residualality for him
Which is kind of great, actually? It's got a kind of in-media-res thing going on, you establish your very evocative "castration" motif that kind of becomes a thing throughout. But on the other hand, it came across as pretty confusing and almost made me click off the piece. Especially your use of "residualality" [sic] which is an obscure term that you're pretty much just skimming through, it's a kind of overwhelming way to begin, with barely so much as a period (one between dependent clauses!) to offer a breath. That's fine if it's your intention, but personally I might open the piece with some slightly more focused thoughts and some slightly more concrete prose, just to better ease the reader into your unique style.
In a similar vein, though, I really like how the piece ends. Like how a sonnet ends with a simple rhyming couplet, the text gets pretty punchy and specific towards the end, which helps to leave a strong impression. The detail "$76," the aphorism "grow some balls" (contrasted with the castration motif). The shorter clauses, building towards that point with a heavy dose of second-person exhortations. All contribute to an air of finality, an effective call to action where the action involved is mostly subtle, granular, even introspective.
All in all, I found this piece really neat, and it left me wanting to read more of your writing, some issues with clarity notwithstanding. Thank you again for sharing it! ☺️
I have no idea what this is about. Can you provide some context?
Thanks for sharing your piece! I enjoyed it a lot. Your style is very poetic -- not in terms of its structure or metre, necessarily, but the way your diction and argumentative structure encourage close reading. It's an interesting choice for the point you're making, I think, because fundamentally what we have here is a reflection on the socio-philosophy (sorry) behind a mild interpersonal disagreement, right? But the style obscures the details of that disagreement, of the people involved in it, so instead of my instinctive "who's in the right in this situation?" response that I usually get in these types of pieces, I'm thinking more about the questions you're actually raising, the "is this worth complaining about" versus the "is this worth thinking about," the "do you owe the world self-reflection and vulnerability?" The "Is this situation truly unimportant, or is it only unimportant to me?" all framed in a sort of broad, context-agnostic way in my head. That's what I got out of it anyway, and I appreciate the opportunity to engage with those questions on a Saturday morning.
If you don't mind some mild criticism, I do wonder if some of the prose is a bit purple, to the point of being inaccessible?
So, like, you open with this line:
Which is kind of great, actually? It's got a kind of in-media-res thing going on, you establish your very evocative "castration" motif that kind of becomes a thing throughout. But on the other hand, it came across as pretty confusing and almost made me click off the piece. Especially your use of "residualality" [sic] which is an obscure term that you're pretty much just skimming through, it's a kind of overwhelming way to begin, with barely so much as a period (one between dependent clauses!) to offer a breath. That's fine if it's your intention, but personally I might open the piece with some slightly more focused thoughts and some slightly more concrete prose, just to better ease the reader into your unique style.
In a similar vein, though, I really like how the piece ends. Like how a sonnet ends with a simple rhyming couplet, the text gets pretty punchy and specific towards the end, which helps to leave a strong impression. The detail "$76," the aphorism "grow some balls" (contrasted with the castration motif). The shorter clauses, building towards that point with a heavy dose of second-person exhortations. All contribute to an air of finality, an effective call to action where the action involved is mostly subtle, granular, even introspective.
All in all, I found this piece really neat, and it left me wanting to read more of your writing, some issues with clarity notwithstanding. Thank you again for sharing it! ☺️