“You Are/The One” is an interesting formal experiment that mostly succeeds. The decision to present two versions of essentially the same poem creates a kind of call-and-response effect, allowing readers...
“Cuteness” is delightful in its specificity. Where many love poems content themselves with generalities (eyes, lips, hands), Plahm goes granular: dimpled knees, freckled toes, a quivering little finger, a perking...
“My Plant Named Lady” is an unusual entry in the collection—deliberately simple where other poems are lush, deliberately childlike where others are complex. This is both its strength and its...
“Art(ificial)” is one of Plahm’s most conceptually ambitious poems, built around a typographical conceit that allows “Art” to mean multiple things simultaneously. The wordplay is genuinely clever: the parenthetical formatting...
“Sacred Light” is one of Plahm’s most accomplished love poems, achieving a sustained lyricism that justifies its title. The choice of candlelight as central image is inspired—it provides warmth without...
A quietly elegant piece that rewards close attention. Plahm demonstrates restraint here—the short, breath-like lines create a meditative rhythm that mirrors the act of appreciating someone fully. The progression from...
This poem showcases Plahm at his most tactile and emotionally exposed. The conceit of hands as the central image proves remarkably versatile—carrying weight both literal and metaphorical across the poem’s...
An ambitious piece that successfully marries the aphoristic with the personal. Plahm’s “nectar bytes” concept—wisdom fragments earned through experience’s thorns—provides a unifying framework that holds the poem’s varied modes together....
A playful, surprising little poem that demonstrates Plahm’s range beyond the romantic and metaphysical. The central conceit—eulogizing a can of tuna—is handled with genuine wit, and the poem earns its...
A hypnotic meditation on romantic obsession that succeeds through sheer emotional honesty. The incantatory repetitions (Oh—Yes—No—Woe—My) could feel gimmicky but instead create genuine momentum, building toward the devastating final surrender....
A compact, emotionally resonant piece that accomplishes more with less. The short, breath-like lines create a sense of urgency that mirrors the subject matter—the rush itself. Plahm wisely resists over-explaining;...
An ambitious piece that succeeds by embracing its own contradictions. The prose sections risk breaking the spell of the poetry, but Plahm handles the transitions with surprising grace—the scientific framing...
A deliberately raw, experimental piece that prioritizes spontaneity over polish. The opening question about Michelangelo and Shakespeare carries genuine intellectual weight, and the list of paradoxical emotional states (relaxing yet...
A masterclass in compression. This tiny poem punches well above its weight, using the familiar currency of time and money to make an unfamiliar point feel fresh. The repetition of...
A deceptively simple piece that accomplishes more in twelve lines than many poems do in fifty. The paired haiku structure creates a satisfying call-and-response effect: first the speaker examines their...
A sumptuous, unapologetically romantic poem that commits fully to its golden conceit and is richer for it. The blazon tradition—cataloguing the beloved’s beauties—is handled with fresh energy, and the medieval...
A joyously irreverent piece that finds the sacred in the profane—or at least in the fluorescent-lit aisles of Walmart. Plahm’s gift for wordplay is on full display: the “berth/Bertha” pun,...
A powerful illness narrative that earns its epic scope. The cascading natural disasters could feel excessive, but Plahm maintains control through the tight parallel structure and the gradual inward movement...
A masterfully structured poem that earns its emotional payoff through disciplined escalation. The opening stanzas accumulate dread with cinematic precision—wild animal, criminal, roadkill—while the refrain’s variations (“exposed,” “caught,” “stripped,” “drained”)...
A charming, playful exploration of romantic awakening that succeeds through its central conceit: the “Kiss Rose” as both object and action, gift and genesis. The dense rhyme scheme (rose/nose/glows/flows/knows) creates...
A tender, devotional lullaby that succeeds through its deliberate pacing and liturgical structure. The meta-framing—explicitly instructing the reader how to receive the poem—could feel gimmicky but instead creates genuine warmth,...
An exuberant, percussive love poem that uses athletic imagery to capture devotion’s physical intensity. The triplet repetitions create genuine rhythmic propulsion—reading it aloud feels like a stadium chant building toward...
A tender, layered meditation on what makes someone truly beautiful. The poem’s structure—surface observation deepening into philosophical inquiry—mirrors the act of coming to know another person over time. The anaphoric...
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.
