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Jun 03, 2026
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From: Matthew Scott to his youngest daughter
From: Matthew Scott to his youngest daughter
to where Redmond Proficiency Academy located.
who chanced to come upon this file
after 724 Railroad Avenue you did flee
(understandable why and how eagerness
arose to go west after your big sister left prithee
to attend a Philadelphia ivy league University
nine years ago to the tee.
alias harris40tude at america online dot com
Sat, Apr 15, 2017 at 12:57 AM
High School Sadness sans S_ A_ H_
Subtitled: A quiz sic hull
emotionally test ting senior event
where the best years of her life spent.
Valedictorian somberly treads
across makeshift platform
i.e. most likely auditorium stage
marked by frankly zapped,
pronounced and hushed audience,
who exude a collective
sigh leant sage
laden tour de force
vis a vis inhaling, notating,
and regaling gleeful
yet pained page
turned - closing a chapter
of progeny prolific accomplishments,
I honor S_, who did engage
her wholesome being
i.e., she with her sunny
delightful disposition
and lightness of being
buoyant feat (yeat
as heavy of hearted butler)
feted for 2017 Redmond i’ ching
a bundle of mixed emotions sans
Enrichment Academy graduates, by tests acing
who attained milestone
vis a vis earning
hardy laurels and plaudits
from family members hook air
high school diploma,
and ready to launch
bountiful daunting challenges,
yet surely unclear
about destiny, though
place one foot before
t'other each young gal
and/or guy will exude flair
to succeed, now
bestirred by joy and sorrow
upon grasping their papier
ma shay – nah -
High school diploma aware,
a sound education
sent each on their
own future path veer
ring this way and that,
while pomp and
circumstances issues forth
by adroit musically
talented underclass mates
and seniors next school year
from the human or hue woman,
twitching emotional celebrate
achievement denoted, evoked,
and feted voiced loud and clear
by keynote student speaker,
whose melodious voice
reaches every ear
who braves the tsunami
of glomming audible suppressed tear
but also underscored via
shutter-flying pristine mortarboard,
linkedin, kickstarter, Joyus
eye-to-eye grin
freshly minted graduates wear
the mood swept up
via that well-worn tune
(composed by Sir Edward Elgar, his moon
light Sonata - subtitled
March Number 1) acknowledging June
a per cheers,
eliciting grownups immense
Kleenex moistening
overpowering quintessential immune
eye zing, simmering,
twittering, ululating wrenching
and yowling laments
indistinguishable from a loon
as tassels get tossed, ripped
and flipped in tandem with a boon
dog gull (maybe in conjunction
with a non twittering
uber angry big bird)
to the left side
of the caparisoned
newly anointed future
where flocking sounds of silence heard
Dharma Bums walk
along the road of broken dreams,
many obeisance’s proffered
to professionals and/or trades persons
momentarily stung with
sadness NOT absurd
to cry departing
iz such sweet sorrows adieu
to favorite classmates
and teachers, whose supportive word
just the perfect balm
to ease academic
despair, who voluntarily
cosseted, ferried, and whispered magic.
How quick capitalone
two-step flickr ring imperceptibly,
kneaded asper byte
sized LivingSocial ties,
linkedin and massaged
viz MineCraft flight
of fancy outlook with
plenti of off fish shill
filleting full confidence,
though with faith no more,
and inherent lettered oblations height
ten ing to serve
snapchatting amidst misty soundcloud,
thence spring boarding
into unknown ether akin to a kite
thing shutterflying at warp speed of light
weft turn signal
dimension of opportunities,
no matter what destiny
each young man
or woman doth await
decision to pursue
with accolades dedicated genuinely
(just distant participation)
for gem I helped create
thus aye write this poem
for special veneration of ecstasy
accorded beautiful daughter,
now this papa does evaluate
her outstanding success
wells sorrow at my absence,
but internally rejoice that fate
did proffer ecstatic
gloating honestly jubilant heiress –
whose worth to me....
(no matter aye gyrate
thought, thy dost weep,
how fast sands of time
flow in one direction,
this dada loathes to scorn fate
cuz, he will miss,
and thus Doth hate
not being present
at tha mucho greatest chapter
Per Story of Your Life
when hosannas hooray
gift of your being great
tar than fine-spun gold,
cuz aye ache
fur yar sore absence,
kind hearted, kindred
and linkedin offspring of late
made noble perseverance
reaching the ultimate
write angle of hypotenuse
passage ja squarely x zit
that will usher her
as proud 2017 class mate
onward toward opportunities
sustained by confidence gained
thru academic ambition like ice-skate
ting with dynamic dedication,
and gigantic germination
i.e. maturation metamorphosis trait
whose individual future
exploits icon hardly a wait
further education and
thence employment endeavors
So Punim – a pet name assigned
trajectory predicated with rubric
of essential scholastic tools
essential to gain positive
(whom this dada,
whose more omnipotent
than Comcast cables can bind
attempted to let words
tumble upon display screen
communicating with difficulty defined
in my patois,
(a gallimaufry of mumbo jumbo
shrimp limp ping missive)
at your success
and lucky Gadshill find
attaining laudable momentous occasions,
when positive autonomy
exceeded my bag of tricks,
thus genuine praise
goes to a gamut
of tender loving hands,
when ma did grind
to a halt, nonetheless
rejoicing, at how ye mined
inherent esprit de corp
no matter the message
possibly all a jumble
lost amidst
this cobbled gobbledygook,
the literary analogy
of watermelon rind
and/or reflections
on the gift of a watermelon pickle
which attempts to pass
as acclaimed endeavor
literary scholarly signed.
Okay, I experience tears of euphoria
and misgiving entwined
at lack of finances to share
in person how this dada
daubs dribbling tears ducts that wind
down cheeks creating tiny rivulets
Congratulations thy beloved S_.
Great strides finds
this papa wide eyed,
slack jack jawed and agog,
begat whence soon
after birth sans
full term healthy pregnancy
milestones hie did blog
how ye did leap
with unbridled support
like a lily pad hopping frog
those many needs based
supportive services practically
from first year
of your life) did hog
quite a bit of
our time, but intervention
well wool worth effort
at complex edifice,
despite exhausting bout
sans being at log
er heads, which
persistence with a safety net
immensely helped feed yar nog
gin with wholesome
cognitive dissonance
learning no matter we
(as a family) frequently did slog
thru torturous figurative quagmires,
that nary did hint
that this dada spellbound
with utmost wordlessness,
and stunned at
how ye didst develop
into a lovely and
precious young woman, via series
of fortunate events
(Take that Lemony Snicket!),
this papa doth regale and marvel!
— Jane A. Rug, Jun 03, 2026
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About This Poem
Last Few Words: though written nine years ago, this proud older papa just felt compulsion to post this poem.
Style/Type: Free verse
Review Request Direction:
What did you think of my title?
How was my language use?
What did you think of the rhythm or pattern or pacing?
How does this theme appeal to you?
How was the beginning/ending of the poem?
Is the internal logic consistent?
Review Request Intensity: I want the raw truth, feel free to knock me on my back
Editing Stage: Editing - polished draft
Critiques
neopoet
1 day 22 hours ago
Neopoet AI [2026-06]
The below is a computer-generated response from Neo, Neopoet’s AI:
The poem presents a genuine emotional situation — a father writing to his daughter on the occasion of her high school graduation, at a distance and apparently estranged from the event by circumstance — and that core subject carries real weight. The impulse behind the writing is clear and sympathetic. However, there are serious structural, linguistic, and formal problems that prevent the poem from achieving its emotional goals, and addressing them honestly is the most useful thing a workshop can do.
The most fundamental issue is the absence of coherent syntax. Line after line accumulates phrases, brand names, abbreviations, acronyms, and half-formed constructions that do not resolve into grammatical units. Phrases like "kneaded asper byte sized LivingSocial ties" and "plenti of off fish shill filleting full confidence" may be attempting phonetic wordplay, but they read as noise rather than craft. The effect is not experimental fragmentation in the manner of, say, Language poetry, which still maintains internal logic and intention. Here the accumulation feels uncontrolled, and a reader cannot anchor emotionally because the language will not hold still long enough to be felt.
The poem appears to incorporate email metadata, timestamps, addresses, and screen names as part of the text. This could be an interesting documentary or found-poetry strategy, but the poem does not establish a clear reason for including these elements, nor does it transform them into meaning. They simply persist as clutter. If the intention is to foreground the mediated, digital nature of this father-daughter communication, that is a promising idea worth developing with much more deliberate framing.
The poem leans heavily on Latinate and quasi-formal diction — "caparisoned," "obeisance," "gallimaufry," "oblations" — alongside internet-era brand names, colloquialisms, and phonetic spellings. The tonal collision is so constant that no single register ever gains traction. The emotional vulnerability the poem is reaching for cannot surface through this much interference.
The visual formatting, with its fragmented line breaks that do not correspond to breath, rhythm, or meaning units, does not serve the poem. The breaks appear arbitrary, splitting phrases mid-thought in ways that neither create tension nor release it.
The most vivid and direct moments in the poem are also its simplest: "wells sorrow at my absence," "aye ache fur yar sore absence," and the final acknowledgment of the daughter's development against real difficulty. These passages gesture toward genuine feeling and toward a specific relationship. The poem would be stronger, and more honest, if it trusted those simpler moments and built outward from them rather than burying them in accumulated verbal material.
The recommendation is substantial revision with a single governing question: what is the one thing this father most needs his daughter to understand? Starting there, in plain language, and allowing the poem to grow from that center would likely yield something far more moving than the current draft manages.
Please send feedback about Neo (our AI critique system) to our contact form.
patrickgadoury
1 day 7 hours ago
I can feel the love and…
I can feel the love and father-daughter ache underneath this, but I struggled hard with the length and density. Right now it feels like every impulse made it onto the page: graduation, absence, pride, wordplay, email/found-document texture, brand-name riffs, archaic diction, private jokes, phonetic puns. Some of that may be intentional, but the pile-up makes the emotional core harder to reach.
For me, less would be more here. The poem doesn’t earn all of its space yet, not because the feeling isn’t real, but because the language keeps interrupting the feeling. I’d cut hard toward the simplest human truth: a father proud of his daughter, hurting because he wasn’t there, trying to say congratulations through a messy heart. That’s the poem. Everything else has to prove it belongs.