Critical Commentary Post One Week One

This is a reply to Kelsey Fleming's Improv 1, Week 1 "The Waking" by Theodore Roethke.

ORIGINAL POST:
"As the man holding a slender neck begins to strum in slow motion
that speeds into now, a woman clad in a burgundy skirt that grazes
the floor gathers its cascading fabric and dips in circles every time his fingers touch
their memory. Her feet slide across the bar's gritty floor, slick with beer.
Worn limbs in the partial air, half-clouded by mouth's fatal fog.
Watch her wake from a dream when sound no longer presses
against her: a small waste of sleep."


WHAT I SAID:
"I love this. There are images in here that I want to steal: "Mouth's fatal fog," for example. This hits me in the gut. I think you're talking about words and the power of speaking, and that is definitely an interesting and different way to think about it. Words have such an impact on the world that they can almost kill. I think you can expand upon this idea, you start to talk more on sound when you said that "sound no longer presses against her," but what I ask myself why doesn't sound press against her? If she is such a deep sleep why is it a waste? What happens to her when she wakes up? Was that whole thing above a dream? If so, what made her wake up?
I also think there are some things you can do to help the actual reading of the piece: some of the lines (the first three) sound really long and run-on-ish, so I would take a look at that. But over all, I think this piece should be continued."