Summary
Analysis of three submissions. First submission with LGBT+ themes and an intriguing personal poem expressing vulnerability. The second submission has beautiful visual elements but also has inappropriate content which had to be addressed. The third submission was humorous but seems to have unraveled a Press53 rule, I didn't know about. The winner AND runner-up have been decided, but I do not comment on them on this blog, I will do so on the next one.
“The Observer” is a poetry submission that starts with a poem of a lawless world with lines that suggest a message about religion. It either promotes atheism or criticizes it, this was not in the poet’s favor. The next poem depicts a dream of a phoenix in a snowy setting. Like a dragon from fairy tales, it guards gold, but also stuffed animals, and dolls. There was a line that used terms associated with lesbian gender identities. I think the purpose is to beautify the sexuality of lesbians as divine, which I liked and found to be entertaining.
The poem I enjoyed the most in this submission expressed the aching of the heart which is coped with emotionally eating. It described the process of clothing, jewelry, and perfume to be an unbearable routine. And it ended with suggesting the speaker fakes their personality and wishes they could start over again. The poem felt very personal, like a diary of some sort. This submission received a thumbs-up from the team.
The next submission, “Smart Lips” was wordy and most of the poems were more prose-like. This submission could’ve used more abstract elements. However, one of the poems had an interesting imagery of Ballet with medical providers operating on a man. And a beautiful imagery of a “cloud of fireflies” scattering into rainbows, and birds swooping into figure eights. The last part suggests the poet’s admiration/almost obsession for Ballet. Two poems contained inappropriate content. I now remember this was the submission that I was worried to discuss about in the blog. Simply put, the poems suggested illegal activities which I found were not okay to be published. I think poets should know if it’s not OK to be read out loud to a crowd, then it’s also probably not best to publish it publicly. This usually isn’t a problem throughout the content I’ve read as an English major, this was quite the surprise.
On a lighter note, “Agreed and Pajamas” is a poem that emphasizes the sense of touch with tickling but breaks the fourth wall, which Editor Tom didn’t like. Perhaps Press53 has rules about breaking the fourth wall. Something future poets should take note of. Some lines made no sense at all, which Tom also humorously noted with utter confusion. The poems had religious titles which raised a red flag, but then the content wasn’t religious at all. This was certainly a weird but funny submission to read. It certainly was a relief after having read “Smart Lips.”
There are around 10 more submissions that I have read, which I haven’t posted about yet. I know I won’t be able to go through all of them, the internship felt fast. The winner and runner-up have finally been chosen. These are submissions I will prioritize for the next blog. Unfortunately, the submission I believed to be the winner didn’t win due to its dense poems. But it did at least become a finalist.
