Peer Comments 1, Week 5

Down a hole too small for six foot men,

I become a blue cell, following damp

Stone arched arteries. Forcing me one-way

To an opening of crimson cells 

That pulse like a heart with the beat

Of flashing green, white, red lights.

Diving into the right atrium, valves clog

With sweating bodies in hip swaying motion.

I side-walk to a cashier with a drink menu,

The slurring drinkers circulate around me

Like blood vessels, paying for throat burning

Plasma in wine glasses. I order Apple Rum

Then Toast jacket zippers and strangers,

With an unspoken cin cin, and spill my glass

Into a puss pocket that will be taken out in the morning.

My fuzzy mind, controls my bends and stumbles

So that each red-face grin can rotate around me. 

I escape to the left ventricle, and up the vein

That leads to the upstairs smoking section.

The fear of many breaths too close and few familiar faces

Squeeze my cheeks and pump nicotine through my teeth.

I have been separated from my other corpuscles

And shiver with being passed on without them.

Once the Marlboro has been sucked of all its flame, the dance begins again

And my dried foreheads become misty once more.

I stand at the top looking at all the blending heads of brown

Until I see one too tall and too blonde to be an Italian.

Fusing with the rim of his sweat shirt we fight the current

And weave up the central artery and out

Into the streets of the main body that is Bologna.

—Shaunna Chamlee, “The Circulatory System of The Italian Club”

Shaunna, I commend you on a really interesting and unique analogy between a foreign club and the physical human heart. Your draft evidences strong and imagistic passages throughout; “damp stone arched arteries,” “valves clog with sweating bodies in hip-swaying motion,” and “pump nicotine through my teeth” particularly show signs of training. It is also evident that you’ve put some time and research into this, and I admire your commitment. For revision and drafting, I would suggest downplaying the heart side of the analogy. Use the language of the heart without making your conceit too obvious. This first draft is mainly weak in its capacity to be dialogical; you give the reader too much. You want to balance between too clear and too obscure in creative work. I would also suggest pondering these questions: What makes an Italian club more like a heart than a club back home? What might that say about Italian club life or your relationship to Italy? Your piece has not yet reached its ending or its meditation on the subject. You should also contemplate how the pieces within the draft work together. Because you are very explicit in your comparison of the heart and the club, smoking fits much less, which is a part of this draft you emphasize. Good work, Shaunna; I look forward to seeing further drafts.