A wildly inventive poem that creates its own form and sustains it with remarkable energy. The acronym structure gives Plahm a framework for his characteristic blend of irreverence and vulnerability—each...
A charming, sonically driven poem that achieves its goal through sheer musicality. The “-inkle” rhyme scheme is the poem’s engine and its greatest asset—it creates momentum, levity, and a kind...
A tender, functional poem that succeeds as both literary work and actual relaxation exercise. The progressive structure—from acknowledging exhaustion through releasing tension to synchronized breathing—mirrors genuine meditation practice, and the...
A warm, discursive meditation that succeeds through the specificity of its observations and the natural grace of its central analogy. The workspace inventory is the poem’s strongest section—each object (the...
A gentle, well-intentioned poem that succeeds through its emotional posture more than its technical execution. The speaker’s stance—reverent, patient, curious without entitlement—is the poem’s greatest strength, modeling a form of...
A sprawling, fearless poem that trades polish for raw emotional truth—and mostly wins the bargain. The quilt metaphor is both structurally generative and emotionally apt: it justifies the poem’s patchwork...
A likeable, accessible poem that sustains its central metaphor with charm if not always with depth. The simmering conceit works on multiple levels—emotional patience, relational boundaries, existential curiosity—and Plahm navigates...
One of Plahm’s most powerful illness poems, succeeding through unflinching specificity and a brilliant rhetorical gambit. The personification of Alpha-Gal Syndrome as “She” creates a sustained double reading that weaponizes...
A buoyant, structurally inventive love poem that turns the Q&A format into genuine emotional architecture. The question-and-answer structure gives the poem a conversational immediacy that most aging poems lack—it reads...
A conceptually inventive poem that applies legal methodology to emotional and philosophical inquiry with interesting results. The sustained legalistic register gives the poem a distinctive voice within Plahm’s catalog—this is...
A deeply personal, emotionally generous poem that trades structural discipline for raw honesty—and the exchange is both its strength and its limitation. The opening confession of a failed Easter gift...
A startlingly effective piece that proves poetry doesn’t require metaphor to achieve emotional impact—sometimes a grocery list is enough. The Eternal Chicken Soup recipe functions as both literal sustenance and...
A deliberately unadorned piece that derives its impact from documentary precision rather than poetic craft—and succeeds on those terms. The day-by-day degradation (food fear, skin rebellion, clothing reduction, eczema resurgence)...
A wildly energetic poem that achieves its effect through one of Plahm’s cleverest structural gambits: using the language of chronic illness to describe musical ecstasy. For readers familiar with his...
Among the most powerful and unsettling poems in Plahm’s entire body of work. The structural architecture is flawless: four seconds of transcendent peace, the violent return to consciousness, the emotional...
A fearless, chaotic, profoundly human poem that earns its redemptive ending by refusing to skip a single station of the cross on the way there. The opening section’s unflinching catalog...
A poem that achieves remarkable density in a small frame. The NATO phonetic conceit gives the piece structural identity without overwhelming it—WOW becomes simultaneously an exclamation of wonder, a distress...
A poem that justifies its existence as a sequel by deepening rather than merely repeating the earlier “She Is My Infection.” The triadic anaphoric structure—three symptoms per stanza, three stanzas...
A poem whose formal architecture is its greatest strength. The three-movement structure borrowed from musical composition gives the piece a satisfying shape that many of Plahm’s longer, more discursive works...
The "Taste of Honey" page features ratings of David's poems. The ratings are organized in batches from David's most recent poems at the front to his earliest submissions at the back. You can use the page number and date buttons below the boxed content to navigate. Recommended for use when browsing. You can also locate ratings for David's poems by visiting the Poetry Blog, selecting a poem and clicking on the "Ratings" tab. Recommended for use when reviewing specific poems.
