Snarky-Sweet Review of the Four Minute Readings (Literary Event)

In order to end this review on a positive note, I’m going to start with the super-snarky bits (leaving out names).  If you are reading this and recognize a reference to someone you know, then please have the decency not to mention it to him or her.  If you have impulse control issues or just a sadistic interest in sowing seeds of discord or any other condition which prevents you from keeping your mouth shut, well, then, I guess I can deal with a few extra glares.

I had a distinct Anders moment when one girl delivered a line that went something like, “Rachel never got to experience the beautiful rainbow of death, because her face had been smashed in by a baseball bat.”  Thankfully, I miraculously managed A) not to laugh inappropriately and B) not to get shot for it.

Public Service Announcement:  Weather/emotion metaphors have been way overdone.  It is advisable for any writer with intentions of recycling them to add some kind of original twist.

I was definitely alienated by one reader’s derogatory attitude towards painting.  He posed some rhetorical question at one point implying that still-life painting was somehow an unnatural and distasteful activity for a six-year-old.  Dude, I definitely did that when I was six.  Yes, of my own free will.  No, I was not forced to it by some stuffy, oppressive father figure. 

Also, don’t you think it’s a little implausible that a single dropped birthday candle would ignite an epic enough fire to burn down an entire mansion—to the ground—before help could arrive?  Despite the fact that the perpetrator was standing right there and had plenty of opportunity to stamp it out?  You must have had some seriously badass birthday candles when you were a kid of a type which should definitely be banned from airplanes.     

(And now for the) COMPLIMENT SECTION:

Liam had infectious energy and momentum.  I found his casting of Sisyphus as a socialist propagandist to be quite thought-provoking.  The inclusion of “Namaste” near the end was also quite effective as the equivalent of taking a breath after the hectic, jubilant rollercoaster ride that was the rest of the poem.

Emma impressed me maybe just as much with the power of her delivery as with the actual content of her poems: she was so earnest and tremulous that I kept thinking she should try acting.  (Although that might be a bit of uncalled-for cynicism on my part; it’s possible that her poems were at least to some degree autobiographical, and that the emotion was entirely genuine.)  One phrase of hers that I loved for its vividness and the complete unexpectedness of the pairing was “Hottentot Venus.”

Tiffany’s affectionate odes to her devoted parents made me smile.  I love the line, “Thank you for pouring milk in a saucer on Tuesdays/When I was a wolf.”

I found Vanessa’s story the most entertaining.  Her premise itself was hilarious: Pregnant Girl pleads immaculate conception, Hillbilly Community buys it.  Despite barely getting a glimpse of him, I somehow sympathized deeply with the girl’s father, who seemed wise and wryly sardonic.  Also, that little factoid about the gators drowning dogs for no reason really gave me an emotional jolt.

Oops.  Unintentionally ended on a sad note.