Hi Glenn,
Ha, even more meta than poetry about poetry: a workshopped poem about workshopping poetry. Will it swim? Will it sink?
I wonder a bit about the tenses in the poem. We start in the past perfect: "I have stood on the scaffold" then move to the perfect "I trimmed", "I tried". Then mid-S3 we move to present: "I have", "I throw", and we're stay the present from then on. But it's not clear to me how that the tenses match the temporal progression of the poem. I wonder if the poem should stay in the past ("I threw" ... "" . Or maybe you should try moving the whole thing to present. Or find a way to transition that's clearly flagged and so makes sense in the content of the rhetoric.
I don't think the title is doing much beyond making it very clear in advance what the poem will be about. I wonder if there's something a bit more slant?
A few other thoughts:
all well-deserved, considering my sin,
for me, this raises the question: what is the N's sin? It's hard to consider without more information. Of course, if it's just there for the rhyme, then I guess that's the sin
yet, still, I feel your shame in my thin skin.
"through" instead of "in"? Though maybe not. Maybe "in" is more interesting.
limping and bloody you waddle across the street.
"down", maybe, instead of "across"? For the metre, and for the sense of being paraded? Though maybe the idea is that they're only posted for critique if they make it across the street, so it isn't a public parading?
When I have cleaned you up in face and limb
Seems awkward in its construction ...
escape the Slough of Despond and certain death.
Maybe avoid the cliché of "certain death" by using a different modifier, one that adds something. "lonely" maybe, or "airless", "shameful", "unmourned" or something else ....
hopeful that you will find a loving reader
whose day your words will render a bit sweeter.
The final line is a bit of an odd place for a slant rhyme after so many perfect ones.
It also has a somewhat inverted/awkward feel to me (though it's not actually inverted, I think). It might be a bit more natural sounding if the construction were more like, "and render their day a little sweeter", albeit in pentameter.
best,
Matt