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I am Celeste (or Kara), say my name.
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Savin' Me / Discussion
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This is the discussion related to the wiki page Savin' Me.
this is inspiring me to write a poem to.
Easy +1, very nice flow and thematic elements. I've always wondered how they would respond to their permanent classification as a number beyond the simple "please use my name; you can't, oh, okay." This poetry captures that quite well.
~~~🐜Ant boi baby🐜~~~
i want to like this—the sentiment that trans people deserve to be called by our chosen names is one i obviously agree with, as a person who similarly detests deadnaming. i feel kind of bad downvoting this as i can tell it is meant to be a celebration of your name; it just feels like it rests a lot on this premise of deadnaming being bad and robbing of agency that is just so obvious to me, without providing much else in the way of emotional hooks. there's really a way to convey this message that would resonate with me.
largely, i find that this piece doesn't play with the concept of names enough imaginatively for me. its primary point that i gather is that being deadnamed is like being called scp-xxxx by the foundation; okay, a fair way to analogize the lack of agency. but it doesn't do much more than that—a large portion of the poem is consumed by a repeated hammering-in of that lack of agency with unsubtle language, without providing me anything new. this means there's a lot of wasted space, and it feels repetitive as a result. the stanzas that feel the most guilty of this are the ones that describe being taken away from families and being locked away—this kind of loses the thread on deadnaming, and just becomes talking about how awful humanoid scps are treated.
i'm not left with any specific imagery or feelings until the very last, forceful "say my name." for example, i'm told the numbers are godawful, sickening, but as a reader i am never given any opportunity to actually feel that myself; only to have those feelings circumscribed for me vaguely. i feel like there's more you could do to invoke feelings in a reader without simply describing what the narrator feels. i think part of the trouble is in your word choice; often the words you choose don't really feel carefully picked or particularly interesting. there needs to be a greater density and weight to each one of these words than in a prose piece, and for some lines (like the hefty "say my name") that weight exists and there's a clarity to the voice, whereas for others ("To change the future / To help those around us" and "Not any type they may reference") the choice doesn't feel deliberate.
the thing you do best in this piece is establish this cyclical, drum-like rhythm. the repeated return to "who are we?" and the lines ending in "name" establishes this sense of hammering something home, or a revelation in parts. i feel like those are the bits that form a good framework that the rest of the poem could be shaped around quite nicely. there are also moments when that rhythm is lost—those same two stanzas i mentioned about being locked away also drop that thread in a way that feels disconnected from the rest of the piece.
i hope i do not come across as overly harsh; i am a trans woman years into transitioning, who is already over most of the novelty of the trans experience. a lot of this kind of trans literature does not feel like it speaks to trans people like me as a result, beyond a level of "oh, i've been there too." i don't really get that flare of emotion just from trans topics anymore, since it's just been my life for so long, so works that largely rely on major trans milestones (or how much deadnaming sucks) for emotional output don't really hit me like they might with other audiences. it's like a poem that simply says how nice walks are—i know how nice walks are! i take them every day! i am more interested in specific, more personal elements of your trans life, as opposed to generic analogies about deadnaming that feel a bit too sterile for me now.
with all that said, i really do think this piece could work for me if the technical components were refined and made more deliberate, and you drew in more specific and personal imagery to the piece.
But it's not just about being trans. Surface level ranting from the characters point of view is what this piece is. Yes, it has a double meaning, but there isn't a reason to go into detail as it isn't just about being trans.
there's a lot more to my criticism than just the bit about the trans element—i also talked about word choice, rhythm, and imagery. that said if there are bits in the poem that are beyond just about being trans, i couldn't really see them personally—the thesis of the piece, or the point you seem to be getting at for a lot of it, is about the value of names, being called ones desired name, and specifically in a trans light. and then it goes into stuff about being a humanoid scp as well. i read it over a couple times, and personally those were the bits that jumped out at me far more than anything else.
to your edit: unfortunately that "surface level ranting" just doesn't jump out at me in any emotional way then. surface level ranting doesn't tell me much about this character, or myself, or the world either of us live in, or leave me with much imagery or emotion. shallow ranting is not revelatory. you do see how "surface-level ranting" is bad? because i really think there's a lot here that can have depth! but if your piece is meant to be deliberately shallow and without nuance or emotional detail, then you've lost me.
The flow of the poem and its double meaning was well made, good job. +1
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page revision: 1, last edited: 02 Apr 2021 15:16
