[Critique Group 2] Leonard's critiques

[Tuchyner5 at aol.com]

Abbie'spiece. 
    1.  There  was no paragraph indications. No  indentations or spaces to 
separate them. So, I put the paragraphs in where I  thought they should go. 
I think this is a pervasive problem as we try to send  and copy our work out 
to and from different soft ware systems.  
    1.  The first  paragraph was a good grabber. It had immediate emotional 
 tension.
    1.  I like the  way you ended it.  It was a day  filled with life 
threatening anxiety, but in the end everything came together.  
    1.  Most people  will relate to this story. Most of us have had medical 
scares. You’ve captured  the process very well. there is always the inner 
battle of how serious to  treat little medical signs which could mean 
nothing, or could mean our lives  are in jeopardy.
    1.  I think  you’ve done a good job in describing all the things that 
were going through  your mind. the internal argument about how bad it could 
be, but how that might  not be a rational conclusion. About the lack of 
caregiver resources.  remembering how bad it was when your husband got sick, 
proving that all these  dark shadows were not unrealistic. . I’m halfway through 
your book and I don’t  know how you did it.
6:  You’ve included the ‘who is meisms’ and  the ‘Why me feelings. You’ve 
eally got it all in there and in a very believable  way.  
    1.  In the  en,there is a sense of “What was that all about?”  Was I 
being silly. Should I feel  lucky, ashamed, etc.  Youcertainly  seem to have 
learned how to roll with the punches and to get up with a  smile  and 
embracing life.  
7. I’ve been looking  for some way to improve the piece, but I really havn’
t been successful.   Good job. 
8.In Paragraph 7 you  said, “ I don’t know, K answered in exasperation. I’
lll get there when I can.”  some people would criticize that for being 
redundant. They might say that the  reader already knows you are exasperated. I 
disagree.  It helps me to have that pointed out.   
9. In paragraph 10 you  say your brother would want to come down and take 
care of you, but he really  couldn’t. so I’m picturing him making the 
gesture, but counting on you and his  family to say how he could not afford to do 
that.  I wonder how that conversation would  actually have gone. How honest 
would it have been. Did your relationship depend  on everybody playing their 
part?  I’ve done that danceon both sides and  have sometimes felt like the 
cowardly lion in the Wizard of Oz when he asks his  comrades to talk him out 
of something he has just committed to.   
-------- 
Building a Mountain  from a Clogged Pore

1.Recently, I stepped out of the shower and was  drying myself when I 
discovered something on my left breast. It felt like  the moles on other 
parts of my skin the dermatologist said were nothing to  worry about so 
I told myself I was making a mountain out of a mole, but the  fact that 
it was on my left breast was worrisome. 

2 I hurriedly  dressed, called the women’s clinic, and was able to get an 
appointment for  later that morning. When I called the paratransit 
service to arrange a ride,  the dispatcher said, “We’ll get you there, 
but you’ll have to be patient  getting home.” As I put my cell phone in 
my pocket, I thought that if I  wasn’t diagnosed with breast cancer, I 
would have all the time in the world.  I then realized that the  
nurse-practitioner at  the clinic wouldn’t be able to tell if the spot 
was cancer by looking at it.  A biopsy would need to be scheduled, and 
that would mean waiting and  wondering. 

3. I threw myself  into my work, eating half a bagel and banana at my desk 
while checking  email. I usually did this every morning to save time. I 
then started work on  an upcoming blog post. Fifteen minutes before my 
scheduled pick-up time, I  was ready. The bus was late.
It was about ten minutes before my scheduled  appointment, and the 
driver said, “I’ve got a couple people to pick up  before I can get you 
there. Sorry.” 

4.  Oh great, I thought, and I removed my  cell phone from my pocket. “Just 
tell them it’s our fault. We had a  scheduling problem.” 
5         The scheduling problem  was my fault, I thought. When I called 
the 
clinic earlier, there was another  opening for the following day, but I 
didn’t want to wait that long. The  paratransit service usually 
preferred to book rides at least a day in  advance, but I’d convinced 
the dispatcher it was  urgent. 

6   When I called the clinic a second  time from the bus and explained the 
situation, the young woman who answered  the phone said, “When do you 
think you’ll be here?” 

7.  “I don’t know,” I answered in  exasperation. “I’ll be there when I 
can. 
Just tell the nurse-practitioner  I’m coming.” 

8. As the bus  bumped along, I thought my life was going great until now. 
My new memoir was  out, and a couple of promotion events were scheduled. 
Why did this have to  happen now? 

9. I remembered  the time when my late husband Bill suffered his first 
stroke. We’d been  married for three months and were happy, then boom! 
Was this thing on my  breast another bomb about to droop (drop)? Why? 

10. I alternated  between these thoughts and telling myself I was making a 
mountain out of a  mole. I thought of my editor, Leonore Dvorkin, who 
fought her own battle  with breast cancer years earlier and lived to 
write a memoir about it. While  she was recovering from surgery, her 
husband David took care of her. I no  longer had a husband. If I needed 
a lump or the whole breast removed, I  would have to depend on the 
kindness of friends. My brother would probably  want to fly in from 
Florida, but with a wife and five kids and  working two jobs to make 
ends meet, he couldn’t afford  it. 

11. When we  finally arrived at the medical complex housing the women’s 
clinic, I was  surprised when my talking watch told me it was 
ten-forty-five, the actual  time of the appointment. My white cane 
swinging in front of me, I dashed to  the elevator and found the 
Braille-labeled button for the second  floor. 

12. “It’s probably  nothing,” I told Tracy, the nurse-practitioner moments 
 
later. “It could just be a mole, but I thought I should have it checked  
out.”
“Absolutely,” she said. I placed my index finger on the spot, and she  
examined it. “It looks like just a clogged pore.” 

13. “You mean it’s  nothing to worry about?”
“Not at all,” she answered. “It should clear up  soon, but if it gets 
bigger and starts hurting, let us know.”
After  putting my shirt back on and before leaving the exam room, I 
called the  paratransit service to request a ride home, prepared to be 
patient. As I  left the clinic and made my way down the deserted hall 
toward the elevator,  I was relieved and elated. “Yes, I don’t have 
breast cancer. Life can go  on,” I said, thankful no one was there to hear 
me.
Once on the ground floor,  I stood just inside the entrance. To my 
surprise, a bus pulled up a few  minutes later. This was my lucky day.

---- 
I love the  refrain, “I have been here before.” I love the roll of the  r’
s. 
the roll  continues throughout the stanza. They are like a military drum 
roll that makes  our blood excited to go to war and engage in patriotic 
activities. Drums and war  dances have been used thouout  human  history. But the 
writer challenges these heady experiences  by stating that her heart hangs 
low.Even  in this line, the ‘r’ is prevalent.  the heart is not raised but 
lowered. the inner conflict is clearly  defined. 
second  stanza , line 1. 
quote “three flags flourish.” quote. alliteration of the  f’s is good and 
the r keeps rolling. The word ‘flourish’ speaks of the survival  of life.. 
I love the refrainand question,  quote. “Commander-in-Chief, when’ is  
that enough? quote. When is it enough. When has a family and its members made  
enough sacrifices and tempted fate enough?  When has a family’s patriotic 
duty been fulfilled? 
quote. “Ten little fingers and 10 little toes,” quote is  the voice of the 
mothers who see their deployed members as children, born in  perfection and 
innocence. All of which is maimed by war. 
Then the poet turns to the Creator and chief who has  protected her 
children  and she  supplicates that he do it again. Haven’t they earned this? Haven’
t we earned  this. 
When the poet speaks of ‘standing in this room before,’  she is not 
speaking only of herself as a single entity, but of mothers who have  seen their 
children off to battle since time immemorial.  (when will we ever learn?) 
Then the poem moves to what those who are beautiful in  their innocent 
perfection, are capable of when they are not serving the gods of  war. 
The poet stands in honor and prays, even though these  questions  have 
never been answered,  despite the fact that  she cannot  accept the reality  of 
this human  condition, especially when applied to her own family. 
The handshake with OBamma and Michelle indicates to me,  that we are 
compelled as a species  to work to resolve the human condition and to accept resp
onsibility for it.  Doing  Karma with Dharma is an  ancient Hindu concept. It 
is not only what we do, but how we do it. We are not  to be reviled for 
being human, but trust  that a way will unfold. that allows us to live up to 
our  potential. 
The llast line is like a splash of cold water. This is as  real as it gets, 
down to rank, file. and serial number. The deployment  to Afghanistan  is 
what the writer now has to live with.  
Blue  Star for a Bold Nephew 

by Alice Jane-Marie Massa 
1. I have been here before, 
been in this room before, 
with the blue-star banner hanging on my window 
and my heart, my heart hanging so low. 
2. Three flags flourish on my window sill; 
three years ago, he was in Iraq  for eleven months. 
Commander-in-Chief, wasn’t that enough? 
Ten  little fingers and ten little toes. 
Creator-in-Chief, bring him back once more-- 
like his grandpas, uncles, dad, and cousins. 
Ten  little fingers and ten little toes. 
I have been in this room before-- 
waiting, waiting so long: 
standing, standing in front of the draperies  
where I pinned his airborne wings— 
praying, praying for ordinary things. 
Ten  little fingers and ten little toes. 
Last year, he shook hands with the President and with  Michelle— 
those hands, those hands that play so beautifully the  “Ashokan Farewell”  
on his violin that I love, so love. 
Ten  little fingers and ten little toes. 
Commander-in-Chief, tell me this is all a  mistake. 
Wake me!  Wake me from this blue-star dream! 
I have been in this room before: 
I have been at this window before. 
To honor him and all his fellow soldiers, 
I stand. 
In prayer, I stand. 
Second deployment:  Bagram,  Afghanistan. 
Number of words: 203 
Number of lines: 30 
first draft:  July 10, 2012 
revision:  July 19, 2012 
second revision:  September 9-11, 2016 
----- 
A many layered story told in a  powerful way with an economy of words.  I 
really like this poem, and find I need to knit-pick if I am to have  anything 
to say. It is a story about how we all come from disperate views of the  
world and its realities.  
line 1quote . "A collective gasp  of wonder and amazement." quote. What is 
the difference between wonder and  amazement. Actuallly, the two are 
synonyms.  If you need another word, use one that  expands the experience. For 
example, 'disbelief'. However two words works well  here. Just leave wonder or 
amazement out. 
I like the piece starting out  with dialogue to describe the audience 
reaction. 
line 3. The commenter obviously  believes  that the power of the act  is 
based on the actresse’s performing ability. But the reader never  quite knows 
whether this is a  performance or the actress simply being hrself while 
being in an horrendous  situation. 
line 4. This is an interesting  comment. Is beautiful relevant  to  the 
play? It serves the purpose of showing how many different points of view  there 
are in an audience. If expanded to life in general, it is an equally  
important statement by the writer. so many things in this piece seem irrelevant  
according to  different points of  view. We never get a clear grasp on 
reality. Certainly, the actress seems to  have a rather narrow view of her own 
life situation. I doubt her  credibility. 
Lines 5 and 6. You’ve expanded  this idea of everybody coming from their 
own place.  Except, one of these two audience  members at least has the 
insight to know that he does not know what the actress  is really like. so, so 
far, that is the least egocentric position.The position  of doubt. 
Lines 7 and 8: quote. That’s her  job, that’s what she does. quote. 
Realism takes on a shade of skepticism and  mistrust.  How can motives be  judged, 
when everyone is simply acting. How genuine can we trust people to  be? 
Lines 9 and 10: “quote I know. It  is almost scary.” quote the point is 
that it is scary. Probably most readers  will have encountered others, 
significant in their lives, who have pulled the  wool over their eyes. If the 
reader makes a connection here, it will be a very  powerful connection. 
Lines 11 and 12: Now the one who  supposedly knows the truth (about herself 
and her world) has taken off pretense  and faces her world unprotected. But 
this is also an illusion. 
line 13: “quote Two burned out  bulbs, shadowed her mirrors.” quote I 
think these are tired, burnt out eyes,  which sees her world darkly. She sees 
only dark shadows. 
lines 14 and 15: she opens the  drawer and gets a bottle of alcohol. this 
is more testimony of her inability or  even unwillingness to have a clear 
perception of hrself and her world.  So the reader is not going to get a  ‘true’
 idea of this actress.  
lines 16, 17, 18. Her view of her  world is too painful to try to grasp. 
Life needs a buffer. a numbing . She  cannot stand to be there. so she 
attempts to escae from it, and thereby lose her  potential capacity to deal with 
it. Lern from it. grow from it. 
Line 19. In other words, we cop  out. 
lines 20 and 21: We  wallow deepr and deeper into a swampy,  mucky mire, 
lost in our illusions of who we are and what the world is.  
Lines 22, 23, 24. While she  stumbles around in Hell, she want’s a way out 
of the story.  she thinks about the ultimate copout of  suicide. but at this 
point even suicide is an unclear venture. How can we escape  from a story 
we make  up ourselves.  Wouldn’t killing ourselves just be another chapter in 
this book of tragedy. 
lines 25 to the finish. Even as  she exits the stage, she holds on to her 
story. almost a willing prisoner. Her  fans are a major part of her fantasy. 
Everyone digs the drama 
It occurs to me that writing the  whole piece in the present tense might be 
an even stronger approach.  
Brad 

The Curtain  Finally Fell

A Vignette by Brad Corallo
word count 177

1. A  collective gasp of wonder and amazement.
2  "Did you ever see anything like  that?"

3. "No, she is outstanding,
3. What a performance!"

4.  "I thought she was so beautiful!
5. I wonder what she is really like as a  person."

6. "Oh, I have no doubt she had to be playing herself."
7.  "Well, she is an actress,
8. That's her job, it's what she does!"

9.  "But it seemed so real!"

10. "I know, it is almost scary!" 

11.  She sat alone
12. Removing stage makeup in the dingy dressing room
13. Two  burned out bulbs shadowed her mirror.
14. She opened a drawer
15. And  grabbed a pint of Bourbon
16. Uncapping it she slugged directly from the  bottle.
17. The anxiety and the rage
18. Temporarily watered down. 
19.  She did not whish to return home.
20. She hated him almost as much as she  hated herself.
21. For the thousandth time 
22. she wondered why she  
23. Didn't just end it all,
24. Maybe tonight.
25. She exited the  theater
26. waving 
27. while her star struck admirers 
28.stood  reverently,
29. beaming their worship
30. into the empty 
31. rain grey  night.   
:------- 
Leonard’s critique of  Val’s piece. 
I’ve gone for knit  picking here because all in all the piece is fine the 
way it stands. If I didn’t  look for details I wouldn’t have anything to 
say.  But consider some of my alternative  suggestions.  
I like the way that  you do not define who or what the subject of this 
acrostic poem is. Probably  most people would say you are talking of Gd. But it 
could be your muse, an  inspiring person in your life or any number of 
alternative possibilities.   
One issue I have for  acrostic poems is that it forces the shapes and 
lengths of lines in ways that  often seem compromising to me. I suppose all 
poetic forms do that when the rules  are strictly followed.  
1.  Consider saying: searching the depts. of  my soul. Instead of saying: 
Searching in the depths of my  soul. 
2. Examining the dusty  corners… 
You don’t need the article  ‘the’.  
3. Again I look for words to catch: consider using the  word ‘grasp’ 
instead of catch. It’s a small matter of preference, but to me the  word has 
slightly different nuance in meaning and  the ‘r’ and  ‘s’ sounds  make the 
following line run better.  Which is, “rivers of emotions you inspire. 
Lines 5, 6, and 7. I love those lines just as they  are. 
Lines 8 and 9: great lines. 
Searching

1.  Searching, in the depths of my soul,
2. Examining the dusty corners of  spirit,
3. Again I look for words to catch
4. Rivers of emotion you  inspire.
5. Cloudy defenses fall away and light comes
6. Healing and  bright with the sound of your
7. Incredible voice.
8. Nothing can reach  me, in all 
9. Glimmers of experiences as you can so  freely.

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