As a critic and avid reader, I totally got and appreciated the story. It was filled with a handful of overused tropes and cliches, and they were thrown together in a form that wound up being a pretty funny read. Spoofs have their place in fiction, and I was glad to read a spoof of horror tropes -- horror writers by and large tend to abuse these cliches to the point of not being scary, or effective in storytelling.
However, you were able to poke fun at these successfully, though I would change a few things about the delivery. As a writer, you are telling a story about characters -- so the story should be good, and the characters should be fleshed out. I didn't get that from this piece: it felt as though all of your characters had a face, a name, and a few lines in the story. The dialogue was funny at times, but the rapid pacing of story felt distasteful and rushed. Slow down, and grant me the opportunity of some nice details and descriptions. There doesn't have to be a formula, but I'd say about one line of description for every two showing action is commendable. Of course, only my take, so take it with a grain of salt!
Thanks for the great read, good luck with writing, editing, and rewriting.
CRF
Great job on this humorous piece, I was amused by the end. I also want to call attention to something you do, it's actually a trope that the most intelligent humor writers use to suspend disbelief.
""I know that!" The familiar meowed, "why can't you just wiggle your nose or your ears or however it is that you activate your magic and carve his head that way?"
"Because," she glared at the obviously irritated familiar, "tradition requires that I do it manually.""
This is literary gold. The cat's reaction to Prudence's manual carving is called "lampshading". You take an element of the story that is less than believable in context to the story or the subject matter, and you call attention to it. This soothes the reader's mind, and keeps the elements of YOUR story from contradicting the previous inferences of others. What you have here is a wonderful device, that is used masterfully.
And that is my big spiel on that. I noticed early on that you use transition words throughout: don't. I wouldn't. They become laborious and signify nothing after used more than once or twice in a paragraph. It's a bit poisonous to your writing -- the antidote is to not do it at all.
Overall, great story, funny, and crafty writing. What more could you ask for in a piece such as this?
Limericks are so much fun for me. When I read them, and they do come few and far between, I always get a sense of "sing-song" that makes me tip my head back-and-forth in rhythm to the drum beating in my head. Yeah. Don't judge me. :)
So far as the poem goes, I really enjoyed it, and found it appropriate as a limerick. Poets struggle with appropriateness of subject matter in a limerick -- there is supposed to be a twist to knock off the reader's socks. I'm still searching for mine. Also, does this method work with girlfriends as well?
Allow me to go line by line, since the poem is so short.
"Joe tried to de-clutter his life,"
Here, Joe is obviously doing some spring cleaning. Where this line falls off is in the meter and the word choices you make. "de-clutter" doesn't sit well with me, unfortunately, try to piece the line back together and find different ways of making the same propositions while ending in that "life" rhyme.
"Remove all the stress and the strife,"
This line works. It is showing some glimpses of the conflict to the poem, which will be addressed and resolved soon. Here it comes:
"Gave huge boxes away,"
Okay, so he gave some stuff away. Cool. Where does this tie into "the stress and the strife"?
"But at dawn the next day,"
Be mindful of conjunctions. Does "but" work best here? Sure, you're trying to set up the contrast for the punchline, but nothing has happened that I can reliably depend on a new clause to resolve.
"Was unable to find his wife."
Classic.
Pour through the lines and make sure you are conveying to me what you intend to convey. The economy of limericks is tricky, but you've got it in you.
Your poem is filled with emotion, and raw emotion, at that. What made this poem stick out among others: honesty. This poem is completely earnest, and depicts the adoration and faithfulness of love that so many poets before have strived to portray.
Whether knowingly or not, you end most of your lines with a final nasal sound "-n, -m". It produces a cadence of sorts, that gives your poem flow when it otherwise lacks a set meter or rhyme scheme. Don't be afraid of rhyme schemes, but I do embrace the poem's appropriate lack of rhyme or meter. Consider returning back to the poem and ending each line with that sound, "eyes" at the end of line one, "trance" in line two, and "will" in line three break that cadence that you build, and make your voice falter a little.
Overall, you conveyed your message and made me feel what you felt. And that is the mark of a remarkable poem. Continue to pour through this one, and ask yourself the purpose of each word and phrase. You'll find some personal meaning in the phrases with which you should stick.
I live in a place where we get more ice than snow. It breaks my heart every winter. Except this winter, we didn't have much of a winter. It was either hell or the reverse, and that's no fun.
Your poem isn't very complex, thank God. It contains simple images that effectively convey the frustrations of a snow day. And, then, that's just it. It's a collection of dilapidated images that, while telling a story and moving, feels static. It's not your communication, it's the lack of poetic imagery. You use these big ideas and constructs (snow, Jeep) and fail to whittle down to the core of the poetic language itself.
Next time, I would attach your POV to a particular aspect of the snow day. Then, use the wonderful images you come up with to make something out of the snow day.
Now, all of this being said, I'm just one man with some idea of what he would do. You may do poetry differently, and I respect that. Don't take my critique as focusing on the negative -- you have a lot of potential, and I want to see that go somewhere.
Here are my notes below that go into detail about things I experienced when I read through your poem the first time. Cheers.
CRF
1) I would choose "beneath" over "under" any day. It sounds more poetic.
2) This line is slightly awkward. You're requesting something to stop the snow covering your home -- what is it?
3) This line is nice. Warmth has such a warm sound.
4) Works nicely, closes out the idea.
5) "the nature" doesn't work for me. If I were to add something, I would say "I like the nature of this fallen snow."
6) The cadence is off here, but it works
7)
8) Specific. What is this saying?
9) Me neither -_-
10) The cadence is off, but it works, like line 6.
11)
12) Nice!
13) Comma between chance and I
14) Fragmented, doesn't work for me.
15)
16) The rhyme isn't quite there, but it's not that big a deal. Nice ending.
I'm thinking about joining up with you guys and gals sometime soon. I have a novel that I've been working on for past couple weeks and it's starting to stall out. I'll save the details for the actual group, I'll message you if I have any questions!
This is glorious. I absolutely despise writing in meters and rhythms. When it's natural, sure, let's go for that, but I'll be damned if I have to go through with an entire poem making the perfect rhyme.
Which is why I really enjoyed your poem. There are certain parts that, to me, didn't quite work. Particularly "but Dan Sturn is a trochee, not iambic—", it's clever, but I was confused for a while, trying to ascertain what you meant. But, nonetheless, the majority of your poem was pretty great. Thanks for sharing.
CRF
"Huckleberry Finn" is one of my favorite novels of its time. It really captures the essence of the South, while parodying certain aspects with a deft hand. Mark Twain wrote many works of merit, I would file this one as his magnum opus.
The scope of a blog is to communicate, which you have done in your own voice. That's great. I would like to point out that you have more than a few comma splices in here that make for choppy, disjointed reading. "And her face, DROPPED" sticks out, and serves as a great example of your style. You are evocative and persuasive in your writing here, but the comma prior to "DROPPED" leaves me with a few questions. "Did he mean to write more? Is there a reason for the comma? Am I supposed to pause here?"
It may seem that I'm making a big case out of something as trivial as a misplaced comma, but I invite you to pour through your work and identify places where your comma usage may be less tasteful. It is something I make myself do, as well. "There are no jewels in the crown of a comma king," as my fourth grade literature teacher once said. I only hope to improve your effectiveness in communicating your day to others. Starting with removing comma splices can, and will, start the process of improvement.
Once again, enjoyed the read, and I hope you enjoyed HF.
CRF
Hello BriStar, thanks for the great read.
Starting off, your poem introduced a great amount of contrast that makes snarky poems so much fun to read. I like how you write "I think of your words" as opposed to "Your words", it adds a certain intimacy to the first line, giving the rest of the poem an extra oomph.
The tone begins to sour at the end of the second line, but I would put more contrast by using a word other than "sparkling". Perhaps "blinking" would do the trick, a negative connotation. This way, the next line can provide much more "oomph", which seems to be a favored word of mine, as of late.
"But really they are cheap and fake." This hurts. The ad hominem here is delivered well, and the whole set up of the poem lends to this delivery. It's like the perfect punchline of a really well written joke, it has a certain cadence that makes you laugh or react in an appropriate matter.
I have no qualm with the rest of the poem, though I would recommend swapping out the period at the end of line three for a semi-colon, as the ideas seem disjointed when separated with a full stop. Personal preference, I assume, but that, to me, would be the cherry on top of an already polished poem.
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