From Newsgroup: alt.arts.poetry.comments

INSTRUCTIONS
Here are three poems by someone who is not me. What writers have influenced him?
Also rate this poet's skill on a scale of one to ten -- one being Great, ten being awful.

The Sprawling Beatsmith

Profile Shot is a massive, stream-of-consciousness narrative memoir mimicking a walking tour of a faded, gritty mid-century American industrial town.

Apparent Influences

Bob Dylan, specifically his mid-60s surrealist narratives like Desolation Row; Allen Ginsberg, and Charles Bukowski. The recurring background gunshots, specific historical drop-ins: nineteen-eighty-five, Saint Mary's Road, Carver Heights, and casual grit are deeply rooted in the American Beat and folk-lyric traditions.

The Critique

Profile Shot is fascinating, gritty, and atmospheric, but it frequently loses its identity as poetry. Much of it reads as lineated prose - simply chopping a memoir sentence into tiny fragments. Yet, when it hits, it hits beautifully: the imagery of the Spiderweb of a city, the mad cult leader drawing energy from capsized tugboats, and dropping pages into a roaring creek are magnificent.

Conversely, I Met A Girl takes a sharp, jarring turn into crude, hyper-literal sexual detail that lacks the poetic transformation seen in the rest of their work.

Skill Rating
5 / 10 Average
They possess a phenomenal eye for Americana, grit, and cinematic memory, but lack structural discipline and consistent taste.


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