Aliza's review of Jaime's short story/poem, Joann's poem, and Jim's short story

Aliza's review of Jaime's short story/poem, Joann's poem, and Jim's short story

Jaime: Ambivalence

In Jamie’s story “Ambivalence” a young female describes her ambivalence to the world, her peers, and herself in the context of her current life, attending community college and interacting with her family. The story closes as the main character makes tells of her plans to run away—an “finite” action that diverges from her indecisive and apathetic behavior and attitude described in the body of the text. This story is really promising. The character’s sardonic wit is excellently and authentically written. I love the section in which she describes her family ---“and by doing laundry I mean trolling facebook…” “My step-dad, Joe, actually isn't that bad; he and I are maintaining our over five-year silence.”—and actually made me laugh out loud. Her family life is actually pretty sad, but the main character doesn’t present it in a self-pitying or trying to be poignant sort of way. Her no bullshit approach to the world makes her semi-unlikable character actually pretty endearing. I think in terms of revision, Jaime might want to go back and fine tune some sections, like the second paragraph, where I think the overall message is good but the sentence structure is a bit awkward. This is an awesome start and I’m excited to see how the character plays out.—does she follow through with running away? If so where does she go? If not does she find a way to awaken herself to the world/ever overcome her ambivalence? All and all great stuff!

Jaime: “Productive Member of Society”

Initially I thought that the narrator of this poem had been involuntarily committed, and maybe that’s the case, but after reading it again I think it may be broader/less concrete than that. I guess to me this poem is about an individual’s inability to reconcile herself with her society and the expectations that it has imposed upon her (or him…but I’m assuming it’s a her). I love line’s 6-9, particularly “But they won, I'm fixed.That's what they told me.I'm better.Because that's what they told me. The narrator is clearly lieing through her teeth or lieing to herself and either way it’s erie in a very effetive way. I think for revision I’d focus on lines 2-4, which seem a bit less crisp than the rest of the poem. Also, I think you should expand on the “looking glass” reference because right now it seems a little unclear. Is the narrator the oyster, who in blindly following the walrus and the carpenter (i.e. conforming- being “shoved into my mold”) has been victimized (i.e. deadened to the world) even an even greater extent. Or are those lines simply implying the narrators opinion that living happily, but in a delusion is better than living miserably in a reality?