Presenting and Poetry

Tonight's class began with my presentation on poet Renee Gladman and a piece from her book Juice titled First Sleep. It went quite well and we discussed the poem for quite awhile. I was told I would be a tough act to follow. One person in my class who teaches high school English, asked if I was or ever had been a teacher. I told him no, but once upon a time I thought I wanted to be. He told me I would make a good one which I took as quite the compliment.

The second half of class we critiqued the poems of our peers. Though I have written four poems, I chose the one I thought needed the most work, Observations, which can be found here.
Their constructive criticisms include:

"Not sure about the title's relation to the content."
"2nd stanza doesn't correspond to the description of beautiful boy"
"I would like to know more in terms of concrete detail."
"I like what you have here, but it feels unfinished."
"Are the last 2 lines of the 1st stanza necessary?"
"I'd like more specifics of the boy, define what beautiful looks like."
"Last line may be too large in scope to end with."

Encouragement includes:

"I like the idea underlying this poem, but there are a few lines you might revise."
"Idea presented is interesting."
"Nice opening, nice alliteration in 4th line 1st stanza."
"Nice start."

I am finding the revision difficult because I would like to expand on the boy, but I am not sure how to do it with out revealing who he is or without getting completely away from the original piece. I sort of feel like expanding on the boy is in competing interest with the spirit of the original piece. In spite of my misgivings, of course I will make an effort to take into consideration what has been said about the piece and experiment with the suggestions.

Additional critique from you readers out in Bloggerland would be welcomed.