Seeking critique partner for literary horror/epic poem

[Ilani Karp]

Hello everyone,

I am looking for a critique partner for my literary horror/epic poem, totaling 24k words, 43k words including the literary-quality notes. Oh yes. It has not gone through critique partners yet. 

Through a fractured polyphonic narrative that blends ironic prophecy, fourth wall breaking provocation of the reader, apocalyptic imagery, searing cultural criticism, dense and carefully woven literary and mythological allusion, epic style and fragmentary personal reflections, the poem invites the reader to wrestle with the prospect of human extinction, the origin of human existential alienation, the meaning of life's emergence on Earth, and the ambiguous, precarious and undetermined role of humanity's anomalous intelligence, culture, freedom, historical memory and civilization within the largely lifeless cosmic drama of fractally unfolding naturalistic processes, patterns and events.

Structurally, the poem could be compared to T.S. Elliot's "The Wasteland", just to give you some idea of what to expect.

This is the first of my works that I am seeking to publish.

The choice to integrate interrogative notes on the scale I do is influenced by the rhetorically effective and engrossing deployment of notes in both “The Wasteland” and on a larger scale in Tiqqun’s Introduction to Civil War. I’ve dialed the use of this device up to eleven, because this poem is intended to be a work that can transform the reader’s mind and worldview if they engage with it, similar in intent to a koan, and the notes deepen the potential for that kind of close engagement with the text.

The poem is very dense and deliberately very challenging, meant to be wrestled with, so I am happy to read something significantly longer in exchange for help with it. 

I welcome and hope for scathing criticism, provided it is intended to be constructive! I want to constantly improve as a writer, and I want to improve my work, so that kind of criticism is precious to me and much appreciated.

The last poem I read that I found enriching was Robinson Jeffers' "Tamar."

My favorite poem is Tzara's "The Approximate Man", both in the original French and in Mary Ann Caws' lovely English translation. My favorite work of fiction is Dostoevsky’s The Possessed / Demons, as translated by Constance Garnett.

I am interested in reading varied genres of poetry and literary fiction. I have given writing feedback before for both poetry and prose, and I have been consistently told I am helpful. I can read very dark themes. I have read a lot of hard science fiction, ancient literature and horror literature, as well as a lot of ancient and modern poetry. I have read a lot of philosophy too.

If you are interested in collaborating, please don't hesitate to reach out at esk...@gmail.com

Thanks,

Best,

Ila


P.S. In principle I don’t mind erotic or romantic themes per se, but I am not interested in reading erotica or romantic-fantasy fiction. The line I would draw is that I am not interested in reading something intended merely or mainly to create an erotic or romantic response in the reader, and anything with erotic or romantic themes must be intended to be of literary quality. Something of comparably serious intent to Christina Rossetti’s “Goblin Market,” for example, would be fine. What matters to me is intent. I think serious treatment of these topics is important, so if a thought-provoking treatment is what you are going for, then I want to help.