Hi, Prosperous Snow celebrating !

          Overall +/- :
My thoughts on the piece as a whole...

         Hello! I'm here from "I Write"! I love reading poems full to the brim of passion, poems where you can tell the words came out raw. I love poems that punch me in the gut. Needless to say, I enjoyed the passionate thoughts you shared here.

          Rhythm & Flow:
Whether freeverse or tightly-structured formal poetry, flow is paramount.

         This is a poem without discernible rhyme or meter, but it flowed like a speech. I could imagine someone crying this poem out in front of a microphone to deafening cheers. Some poems have a tone, and yours is distinct!

          Language & Word Choice:
Because poetry is one of the briefer art forms, every word matters.

         Powerful! I really enjoyed your purposeful and specific word choice. I liked the extended metaphor of copulation and birth. The repeated line, "We hold these truths to be self-evident,..." was strong and effective.

          Things I liked :
Sometimes phrases or lines jump off the page.

xenophobia and unbridled nationalism
copulate in the cathedrals of power
begetting heretical and anti-scientific dogma
that threatens to destroy the nation

Where is the solution? Where is our salvation?

          Suggestions:
Take them with a grain of salt.

have become confused — In a poem with otherwise extremely tight language, the little bits that aren't pared down jump out. "have become" seems a bit weak in contrast to the rest of the poem. This is just off the top of my head, but something like this may tighten up the first two lines of the stanza:

We conflate equality and unity
with sameness and uniformity,

have became — become; also, if you can, I think the poem would be stronger for removing and rephrasing this.

indwelling evils that need exorcised;
[...] that threatens to destroy the nation — See how I am? Nitpicking a poem that's already excellent. "That" is another word you can remove if it's feasible. The latter line ("that threatens to destroy the nation") might even be more effective if you continued the metaphor of the monstrous birth. Rather than just "threatens to destroy," it can "grow," "malform," "metastasize" or some other unpleasant verb.

          In Closing:
Any final thoughts...

         Thank you for sharing your zealous and engaging work! It makes me want to stand on a stage and shout. As always, feel free to take any suggestions you find useful and leave any that don't align with your vision for your work.

Write On!



My review has been submitted for consideration in "Good Deeds Get CASH!" .