What MM said. For that matter, the fact that several people -- Buffistas, who are smart by definition, right? -- have raised the issue suggests that whatever the intent, those choices aren't coming through to your audience as "better". Don't take it as any intentional diminishment, but do take it as feedback that should be considered seriously.

Also, "yr" for "your" is v. old-fashioned, unlike Ur.

Yr obedient servant,

Jesse

Hey, I didn't mean you were being a StyleBot. But people do pick up stuff that's floating around, don't they? Like the story I wrote is in second person, which some writers loathe pretty much. I had my reasons too, but if I hadn't seen other writers do it, I probably wouldn't have.Maybe someone will make a case for 1st or 3rd.

Also, "yr" for "your" is v. old-fashioned, unlike Ur.

Which is always amusing for me-- I like to sign things "yrs to command in some things".

And those "Amerika" people thought they were saying something too. Some of them did. But now it says "Seventies much?". It's the Harvest Gold of poems. Talent like yours needs to think long-term. And, Jesse, you are right. I didn't even think of that.

I liked it, RL. The abbervations are an issue I'm not going to comment on. I felt it was slightly 'jerky'... um... how to put this? It's not clumsy, which is what I'd say about similar things, but it has things in it that jar the reader and not in a good way. You know: some things jar you into thinking more deeply about a poem, and some things jar you out of understanding it. It may be that I'm not getting the allusions, or that the expericence I'm drawing on is different, or something, but I'm not enteirly sure I've understood what you were trying to say. As soon as I got hold of the meaning, the sense as I saw it, something jarred me and I lost it again.

Did any of that seem not-crazy?

I'm old-school hard core about spelling and grammar stuff, so the "yr" jarred a little, but the poem itself was just so, so far above the kind of writing I usually see cre8if spelling in. It's not my favorite thing about it, but I won't throw down my keyboard and stomp away.

What I loved above all else was the rhythm of it-- how lines like

The forgotten broken-bottled
Ink spreads stains across the piles of clean laundry."

were so deceptively simple, and yet still very complex in rhythm and structure. If half the writing we got in litmag as half as good as this, I would never say anything bad about teen poetry again.

Unless I ever have to listen to the horrible aabb forced-sounding too-long-lines-and-no-sense-rhythm poetry again. Because a girl can only hold back her homicidal grammar rage for so long.

wrod, Holli.

Thought that the writerly types might be interested in this, well, if any of you are writing screenplays.

I grew up with non-trad poetry, one of the bigs ones being (god, what's the whole name) "On a Gift of Watermelon Pickles". I'm sorry you felt attacked, I tried to phrase it merely as one not-very-avant-garde-person's reaction to what I perceived as a new influence in language. I've never felt poetry had to adhere completely to the rules of grammar and spelling. I believe that you choose every word with care, that ever variant has a purpose, and if I'm not catching all the nuances, that's a lack in me, not you. That may be the definition of art, that you have to stretch your perceptions to pick up all the meanings.

That said, Sophomore English teacher Miss Closser in the back of my head is still twitching her blue-haired head and pursing those weirdly thin lips in disapproval. I'd have liked to sic you on her.

Edit: And I find it oddly cool that we're having disagreements over language. I feel so coffee-shop and intelligentsia.