I liked this immensely. It's dark, but there's just enough imagery to really get the imagination going. And then the rain drops of sadness, so to speak, pile up, feeling a lot like a crescendo, only to be followed by quite a poetic turn of meaning from an intransitive raining to a personal raining of the self. I think it's brilliant.
Of course, I feel myself obliged to mention that some people won't appreciate the "improper" grammar, but honestly I think it only adds to the subtle beauty of such a striking poem.
This was an interesting read. I'm not sure what I think of it yet, for I feel something of this potential magnitude takes time to ferment and evolve within the subconscious. I think the format of an address to some sort of unspecified religious or political audience is, though an often used situation, nonetheless a very good premise for this sort of discussion, or rather pronouncement. I found the teasing bits of information regarding the greater story just fascinating, though I imagine if this works into a chapter anywhere but at the beginning of your book that aspect would sadly be lost; I'm eager to find the time, though, to read through Alien Bond sometime soon.
One of the only concerns I have regarding this at its current stage as not quite yet a part of the greater story would be either to tighten up some of the topics covered, or maybe just juxtapose the questions mentioned being in front of the speaker with her speech itself, or to be sure that the range of discussion, covering specifics from rituals and practices to the spiritual nature of her species and their lack of need for the discipline of medicine, is necessarily relevant to the story itself.
I can see this being a grand speech in the vein of John Galt's radio address in Atlas Shrugged, if you're familiar with it, in which the character takes an exorbitant amount of time to carefully and precisely outline and describe the entirety of his philosophical beliefs, as well as what he saw as indictments against the powers that be which were in that particular story. I can also see this as being the beginning of what could be a moving and inspirational speech that moves the peoples of the world to take proper notice of the alien species that it has encountered.
This was an interesting read, and I instantly liked it. I don't know if I necessarily agree with the assertions this poem puts forward regarding the connectedness of complacency, self-degradation, affection, self-hatred, and validation with regards to conformity and social norms. While I don't think all of those characteristics are quite components of the actual average of human behaviors, I do think I see your selection of those qualities as understandable since they are by far some of the most prevalent in the socially constructed norm now-a-days.
As far as comments on the poetics themselves, I think you've done a fine job here; the metaphor of conformity as an addiction is an insightful one, and I think you carry that through to its logical end here. This reads very much like an addict's realistic confession, as I've seen occur on multiple occasions myself; the narrator's disgust at the separation of meaning between habit-forming and addictive really made the entire scene all the more real, and for me it really made the poem hit home.
I have two comments regarding specific word choices, but they're nothing detrimental to the poem itself, more just personal ambiguity or ambivalence. For one, the use of "crack" and "dust" in such close proximity seems to be overloading a little bit, both being such specific terms that it distanced me ever so slightly from the narrator; I don't have a suggestion, just wanted to mention. The other is the use of "focus", because, while I understand the attempt to stay within the metaphor of drug addiction, I feel that nothing within conformity necessitates the losing of focus, for an individual can be entirely focused upon the imagined pleasures of fitting in or such.
I have to say, this is one of the best alternate creation stories I've ever read. It shows a clear and planned story with obvious and consistent deviations from the commonly accepted versions of the Eden story that center on the point of view of people, but at the same time this story is so much more in depth and detailed than any other Judao-Christian story of the garden of Eden and the Tree of Knowledge. Your imagery constantly drew me away from psycho-analyzing or philosophizing about the details of the Snake and Woman and Man in this story, really letting me get into the story and enjoy it in the moment.
I can only find maybe two real criticisms to offer after reading this, except of course that I could complain about the adherence to the commonly accepted story of Eden that is simply approached from a different point of view instead of actually revised any, but that's just a personal desire to see some truly alternate versions of Judao-Christian Genesis and such. As much as I did enjoy this story, there were just these very few things that really felt like loose ends needing to be tied up or dealt with.
Anyways, one of the only real concerns I had when reading this was that despite the fact that this story is written through Snake, it nonetheless only slightly gets into its head even remotely. It's left to the reader to take scattered bits and piece them together into what I feel may be an incomplete understanding of the character's motivations and inner workings. While it is never wise to underestimate the ideal reader's intelligence and paint a picture too boldly, at the same time I know I myself would have liked to find a little more authorial creativity inserted into the story regarding the development of the main character and focalizing agent.
A second concern I had was the twist near the end of the story. I liked the idea, but think that unless you may be planning a sequel to continue the story, since in most Biblical translations and versions things happen after Genesis, there may need to be a little more fermentation of the idea at the end here or possibly a little explanation via a third-person point -of-view insertion of information that the reader is allowed to disbelieve that Snake has any more substantial knowledge of human nature than Creator.
Keep writing,
Steven
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