Thread: "God's Presents"- dont get put off, essay about a

ok, so this is a college essay. I'm really just looking for whatever feedback anyone can give me. The topic is "a piece of work that was influential". The grammar in the second paragraph is intentional by the way. just let me know what you think, and be brutal, thanks.

God’s Presents

On his arm he tattooed a poem. “God’s presents” it was called. Inked in the pixilated language of photographers, the B’s ran, the M’s and the A’s rolled, and the words blended as markings veined in the pale fore arm. This of course was not his only tattoo; there were many covering his body. He was in fact Shannon Hoon, Blind Melon’s front man, a grunge prophet, and so it fit well that his body be adorned with tattoos- a tribal band on his arm, “the mind’s eye” on his back. Magazines showcased his presence- Palms rolled back, knees buckling in bathrooms streaked decaying white. And his overdose- blurb columns and a photograph. A concert close up- Greasy hair gleaming and eyes battered, in the soft light his lips were silhouettes. And those veins crawled his arm.

It’s on the last album. On the track titled “Car Seat”. Subtitle: “God’s Presents”. Muted drums pulse. The melody winds in frenetic calm. “Tongue tied nerves as big as boulders, why mom I thought I was your soldier…” The piano plinks abandon. Flutes roll thin, waning in hollow chorus. Silence resonates. “Out back where they plant all the trees, ten feet away my daddy buries me”. Drums rage, tappings trill into negative space. Silence clicks in “…if my path be smooth or rugged, if with thorns or roses strewn, where I go the father seeith, and he will leave me not alone”. Violins scratch words, toms pulse faster, and tapping, the air clicks static in his voice. He swallows and stumbles. “…and as his loving arms enfold me, he will leave me not alone.” Silence rolls, clicks, and clicks off.

I don’t think I made a move, that first time I listened. This was years after Hoon’s death, and Blind melon had been my favorite band for some time, yet I remained still. It was the deepest sense of disquiet I had ever felt. Later I discovered that “God’s Presents” had been written by Hoon’s Great Grandmother 100 year earlier, and he later had it tattooed on his arm. I had never noticed it. It was at that time I began to respect Blind Melon. I had idolized them, but they always had the voice of a Who or Zeppelin. It was Rock and Roll. Yet this song, it was quiet, simplistic, subdued, the lyrics a prayer, and yet it had a much deeper sense of human darkness. What Blind Melon had done was create a mental state. The song structure created the darker murmurings of our thoughts, the suppressed and paranoid. The song itself had become the message. It was then I knew I had to write. Hoon had made the medium become his message; he conveyed his mental state in the structure of his song, as I should mine in the play of sound and content, in the structure of my sentences, in the flow and meter. I had to become a verbal impressionist.

Is this all of it?

It has the feeling of a praxis essay, writing about writing, and not a literary essay. No problems with that obviously, just trying to get my head around the genre.

You seem to be quoting poetry in the second para, but I like the way you've done it. A part of me is screaming for a proper format, but you create quite an effective mood the way you've done it.

My only problem I suppose is that the proposition is never disclosed, and so I don't really know where you're going with it until the last three or four lines. Although I think I'm trying to apply a literary format when the peice doesn't require one.

I like the flow of this.