[Alexandra Baez]

Hi again, Mark!

I love the new title. Personally, I’d prefer an epigraph that related to the poem's focus, though—I read what you commented about starting with levity, but to me, it seems out of tune with the content of the poem. On a technical note, the author’s name should not be italicized in an epigraph, and the University of Sussex says “It is still not exactly wrong to refer to a . . . book as `Uncle Tom's Cabin', but it is certainly old-fashioned now, and my advice is to use italics rather than quotation marks, except perhaps when you are writing by hand.” https://www.sussex.ac.uk/informatics.../quotes/titles This blurb also says that in cases where quotes are used for titles, they are always double quotes in British usage.

In college, I actually took a full semester’s course exclusively on Ulysses. I came out of this class concluding that while the book was an experiment the likes of which someone needed to do, the result was a essentially a monumentally pretentious indulgence—bloviated, obscure, and mundane, though with sprinklings of alluring glitter here and there that hint at the author’s true brilliance (which was expressed much more clearly elsewhere). Despite the amount of time and study I put into that tome, almost nothing of it stuck with me, even shortly after. So you might say that any poem about this book would start out at a distinct disadvantage with me.

Due mainly to the unmemorable particulars of the book, I’m rather at a loss with much of your poem in terms of its content. The language is well wrought, yes, but I don’t see that as a sufficient substitute in itself for understanding, and some of this language perhaps generates its own, new mysteries. Straight out,

a mirror and a razor crossed

I don’t know whether “crossed” is intended here as a past tense verb or a verbal adjective, and either way, I’m not sure what the phrase means. I can guess that either way, it simply refers to a razor appearing in a mirror. If so, there doesn’t seem to be any compelling reason for this stretch for linguistic quaintness (except perhaps that it mirrors the book's own such stretches).

I do savor the following phrase and feel that it moves beyond the scope of the book’s particulars:

the day spread out for you - it is a prism
to split the light a thousand ways.

I like your “bloom” pun, too.

And this is definitely universal and downright poignant:

preparing for the slog from crib to tomb

But in the following,

from inner organs, outhouse defecation,
from dodging biscuit tins to spilling seed
on twilit siren sands

I can’t make out what “from” is referring to. "Spilling seed on twilit siren sands” is fascinatingly evocative, though.

Molly Bloom’s famous closing soliloquy is definitely the part of the book that stuck with me the most (though I found it distinctly annoying), and on this foundation, your couplet did resonate with me. Yes, this part feels just right—as inevitable as it is surprising.