Saturday, October 5, 2013

Critical Commentary Post One Week Six

This is a critical commentary on Kelsey's post "Improv 2 Week 6: 'Dream Song 324' by John Berryman"
The original post:

I delight in your continents, your countries when you look at me like that, like I'm a dictator. In control of your land: the stiff upper-lip of your Germany, and the wasteland of America, so much like your hands, never reaching their full potential. Reach for my full potential.

What I wrote:

I am intrigued with this improv. The idea of a person being a world is something that could be considered cliche, but this is done in a way that works to sidestep that. I think that the repetition of the word "potential" is interesting, because it provides a slight turn in the piece. What I really would like to see for a continuation of this draft is maybe taking the idea of a person being the whole world and scaling it down to just a specific country that requires work: a third world country or a country in turmoil. For example: you mentioned Germany in the original improv, maybe you could turn this person into post-World War Two Germany, when the country was struggling to rid themselves of their debt to America and the rest of the world. Or you could turn it into a country like Iraq or Iran that is war torn, and turn this piece into a love poem that comments on how war tears countries apart. That could be cliche in some settings, but I feel when combined together in an interesting fashion, it could be sidestepped.

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