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Printed from https://writing.com/main/profile/reviews/matt674885
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21 Public Reviews Given
21 Total Reviews Given
Public Reviews
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Review by Matt Bohart Author IconMail Icon
Rated: 18+ | (3.5)
The people He says will "go to hell" will be fine because there is no Christian hell. Yes.

However, what of the others you mentioned who are now living through, as it were, "hell on earth?" I'm not sure they'll be so "fine," but the/your poem seems to have "forgotten" them in order, it seems, to arrive at a happy, victorious conclusion--i.e., the classic "happy ending."

This seems to serve the purpose of "coming out on top," when in fact the poem's narrator does no such thing: All those other folk are still all screwed-and-screwed-up, etc. There is, in truth, no positive conclusion--despite the narrator's wholly apparent need to find one.

PS: Sorry if you received this already. Tech issues.
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Review of Something Real  Open in new Window.
Review by Matt Bohart Author IconMail Icon
Rated: E | (3.5)
What 'repetition?' Not to poke. (I have an answer to that question of mine, but I want my understanding either corrected or verified by you. Thank you. I'm hesitant to speak before I "know," and I must be running so I must defer the answer to you.)

PS: I liked it. "Stabbed me in the gut." (Forgive my quote marks; another more-than-parenthetical problem, perhaps.)
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Review of Peacenik Prose  Open in new Window.
Review by Matt Bohart Author IconMail Icon
Rated: 13+ | (3.5)

Hello! Nice piece of writing or work, for lack of a better term. When I first laid eyes upon the text itself I presumed, mistakenly I now believe, that it was purely a poem due to its stanzad (sic) appearance. I perhaps made the mistake, therefore, of trying to find poetry in the writing—and I didn’t see much (sorry) so I was a bit annoyed. I noticed, however, even then, that the work was interesting on an entirely different level, and that was as a work of philosophical and perhaps political speculation and inquiry—a genuine questioning that seemed fair and well-considered despite the fact that the work, it seems to me, suggests the author is pretty close to flatly opposed to that particular war—but then again with a certain recalcitrance to commit blindly and unthinkingly—dogmatically I mean. Definitely not a “doctrinaire” work, despite the expressions of conviction. Not condescendingly didactic I mean—which peace lecturers and various other kinds and stripes of moralists and moralizers can be—but not only peaceniks I need to mention again. Again, there certainly are others who do this, and your work didn’t come off that way despite my expectation that it would upon first reading the first three or four lines—I think only three in fact.

Considerately* thoughtful. Subtle and I think at times even ironic, probably sad at times, but certainly a kind of wandering but smart curiosity indicative of a certain tentativeness towards matters this kind and nature—a refusal to commit oneself to a cause or belief, conviction or opinion, no matter how important, without subjecting one’s own feelings and predilections to a certain doubt per them themselves. The sign of a thoughtful and, dare I say it, intelligent mind.

Well done, comrade—if I may say so without sounding, well…didactic—(not sure if I’m using the word here (didactic) in an entirely normal manner—perhaps unacceptable to some—or just flat out wrong—).

Best,
Matt

* "Considerately.” Not a typo.

PS: I'm not sure how to rate this work numerically because I don't know if I should rate it as a poem or as prose, or both. WDC’s system won't let me not rate it, however. Therefore, I'll just give it a standard 3.5—but if I were to know it were pure prose I would probably give it a four. If just poem? Well, less than either of those. Sorry!
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Review of Fifteen Horses  Open in new Window.
Review by Matt Bohart Author IconMail Icon
Rated: ASR | (4.0)
Hi. I read your poem, 15 Horses, and enjoyed it very much, especially the first third or so. Very well written with an interesting insight and even real wisdom. However, I noticed that your last entry was in 2005. I wasn’t going to write you but then I saw one had been “modified” on September 11, 2010 (obviously a significant date. I imagine the entry being on that day was intentional), so I decided to email you, but I am a little bit confused for Writing.com technical reasons. Let me know, please. Thank you.
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Review by Matt Bohart Author IconMail Icon
Rated: 13+ | (4.0)
Capri Rogers (or is it Evonne?),

Thank you so much for your latest blog entry, "Turning eighteen: Blog #1." The writing was passionate and honest—as well as simply well-written. Very alive feeling, as it were.

You say you want to “be” a “writer.” Well, I think I know what you mean. You wanna’ get published, paid, have a job etc.—oh, and readers of course. However, please remember that the first thing that makes a writer a writer is that she or he writes! Right?

I understand your feelings about not having really experienced childhood, etc. I feel somewhat along the same lines—I was sick for a long time—too long. I’m a lot better now but sometimes I worry about becoming like the way I was before, back then.

Anyway Capri (do you mind my calling you that?), I could write on forever (right on! Ha-ha--), but I’ve got to be getting to bed early enough to be able to write tomorrow with ease and pleasure and joy.

What da ya know?

Best,
Matt

PS: You might want to try keeping in touch—I like to write letters to people on this site, especially about their writing, not so much mine (go figya).

A Note: “Figya” as in “Go figure.” An expression I’ve heard over the years. I kind of like it.
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Review of God, Who Are You?  Open in new Window.
Review by Matt Bohart Author IconMail Icon
Rated: E | (4.0)

Warm and comforting, and well written. Candid and thoughtful. I do not believe a word you wrote. I believe in what YOU wrote, but not in your assertion that something or someone else is doing it for you and for all of us. For example:

"I am all that ever was,
Ever will be,
And all that simply is.

I am the light within
Each one of you,"

He ain't the light in me. I'm not saying I'm the source either. But I think it's much more complicated than that--not to sound like I'm better than you are in terms of theoretical analysis, etc.

In any case, rather beautifully written, I must say. Below is my answer to the ultimate reality of our lives--I mean the link right below.

http://tinyurl.com/2b2tesp

Yours,
/
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Review of Dream Catcher.  Open in new Window.
Review by Matt Bohart Author IconMail Icon
Rated: 13+ | (4.0)
Quite honest and quite good. Bitter, thoughtful, and frank. I’m surprised you’re still alive and kicking—although perhaps not exactly kicking—but at least you’re not busy kicking the bucket as it were.

I’ve felt that way for long time also—however finally a certain medication did pull me out of it. Are you still there? I mean in this kind of a mood, for lack of a better term?

Or have things gotten better.

Nice job. Thanks.

Matt
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Review of Hell  Open in new Window.
Review by Matt Bohart Author IconMail Icon
Rated: 13+ | (3.0)
Hilarious!
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Review of Insomnia  Open in new Window.
Review by Matt Bohart Author IconMail Icon
Rated: E | (2.5)
Not bad. I like the refrain, "Where is my love for you." I also like the absolute brokenness of the character, for lack of a better term.

Boiling with anger, and rage, and anguish.

Where is my love for you?
Embedded deep in the meat of my face
Below my cheekbones
The ghosts of so many tears having traveled those roads countless times
I woke up and saw oily hair matted to my scalp
And I thought of you

Good because the image of the tears embedding themselves into the girl's(?) "face meat" and causing "roads" to develop, or having followed roads already there--plus the image of the "ghosts" of the tears traveling a road, obviously in a state of utter oblivion and loss--often ghosts, etc., haunt a place because they can’t exorcise and/or cleanse themselves of bad, unresolved memories. So the ghosts of your tears are wandering these roads on your(?) face because they have not yet forgotten what happened to them before, when, as it were, they were alive, and then the following loss of that aliveness--"alive" perhaps being tantamount to when the intimate(?) relationship was actually happening. The ghosts do not forget. When will they? And how is true forgetting brought about?

However, can you see how you jump about more than a bit in this stanza below from images of the material to the non-material? (the corporeal to the incorporeal). I like it. I do. But the problem I think is that, if you look at the "memories": they deal with things that you never felt--you can't physically experience the flash of a face (as in touch, for example), and you can't feel a "touch you never felt." And yet then you move to something more mundane, seemingly perhaps material, and completely out of sync with the flashes and the memories and the incinerated sheets--each dealing with things either completely or almost entirely non-material--memories, ideas, images, ashes (soft, mere remains), flashes, “never felt,” “where?”--almost all of them entirely absent in terms of physicality. However, when you wake up and see the "twisted mess," the substance of the pain changes radically from the absent and the well wrought and fine imagery and metaphors to something, again, seemingly far more material, mundane, and yet nevertheless more indefinite and seemingly lacking the same level of definition (as the terms right above the “twisted mess,” just discussed) in terms of substance, space, and form, and specificity--and certainly quite childish in the choice of words. "I saw the whole twisted mess," like something a 15 year (girl) old might say to another 15 year old girl--can you hear that?

I can.

However, you did say that "This is a poem I wrote a long time ago," so perhaps I should keep that in mind when I say things like that.

Where is my love for you?
Rising with the ashes of my incinerated sheets
They were tainted with memories of something I never had
Flashes of a face
Or a touch I never felt
I woke up and saw the whole twisted mess lying on the floor
And I thought of you

My best wishes to you,
Matt Bohart

PS: Please feel free to reply—or to read my poetry online at this site (or anything for that matter)—and you can comment as much as you want—“no-holds- barred,” I mean.
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