Whimsical and clever. Somehow, the idea of a guy carrying powdered sugar doughnuts in his pocket is so ridiculous it becomes funny.
Your use of dialogue keeps the story flowing, and I will admit, I didn't see the ending coming. However,, once I knew the ending the details you included became even sharper.
i
There are just a couple of places which didn't ring quite right. This sentence:
" He passed the dude in the red shorts who was wheezing and coughing phlem onto his shoes." (BTY it's phlegm.)
has two problems. The word "dude" is out of place here, too laid back for this group, and the antecedent of the word "his" is unclear.
In fact the unclear antecedent is the single biggest reason I gave a four and an half rather than a five. The third and fourth paragraphs from the end are a good example of antecedents running wild.
I guess I'd never realized how many words rhyme with fail. I think it was Edison who said, "Before I got it right, I learned over 2000 ways not to make a light bulb." That is a good summation of what you have here.
A couple of suggestions to maybe make this poem stronger.
First - The third verse is a bit weaker than the others because it really does not address the issue of failure. I know, I know, the last line does, but that is caused by the villanelle, and is not really a response to the first two lines.
Second -Verse four has an odd image. A veil thin wall of fear. The problem is a veil is made so as to be seen through,, most walls are to block sight. Maybe just a different word than wall would do it, "hint" or "fabric." That last has the added advantage of being alliterative.
How odd. Maybe it's nature's way of getting back at Florida for the alligators in the New York City sewer system? Anyhow, you tell the story in a clever fashion. Maybe the third verse is the best.
That brings me to the suggestions I have that, maybe, would make the poem stronger.
Since the snakes have not made life impossible in Burma, why should they be able to ravage Florida?
Most snakes do not have "voracious" appetites. I think that applies to pythons most of all.
It would be a rare python who would take on a 'gater.
The above are points which you may or may not agree with, but I thought I'd toss them out there.
If there was a single way to most improve this poem it would be to improve the meter (rhythem) of it. I always read a poem aloud before reviewing it and yours reads quite choppy.
It might be that you have spent all the time you want to on this, and I understand that feeling. Still, with some work you could make it much stronger Keep writing.
I have mixed feeoling about poetry which requires a very strict pattern and this Pantoum is an example of why. I don't mean your particular Pantoum, I mean the Pantoum in general. Mexed feelings because sometimes, even most times, the focus becomes the pattern, not the poem.
That said, you did a wonderful job of avoiding that. I had no trouble reading and likeing your poem. It is very aliterative, and creats several striking word pictures. I espsally like the third verse.
Just a couple of suggestions to maybe make it stronger:
First - In verse three and four maybe "darkling" rather than "Lightning?" since that goes better with the "shroud" of verse one.
Second -- In verse two maybe "silently" reather than "secretly?" since clouds are rather quiet, but not really secret.
Just an opinion, ignore as you wish, keep writing.
Welcome to Writing.com. I find your poem intersting, and valid. It does address a very real aspect of loneliness, a loneliness that can be caused by several things. You draw some striking word pictures too, and that is where I think you can make the poem even stronger.
You use alliteration very well in verse one and also in the first line of verse two. Then it stops. Why not look for more? It really helps a poem, especially one that starts likes yours does.
Just as an example take your second verse, second line, Why not "Rainbows garlands reduced to gray?"
Or line three "Sorrows softly call,"seek me."
I'm not trying to write your poem for you, just pointing our possibilities. Feel free to ignore anything you wish. Keep writing
Oh and to see one of my alliterative pieces take a look at "What I've Seen" #1476361 in the poetry folder in my portfolio.
Great use of color to tell a story as old as history. As it happens I am working on a poem based on color. It is unfinished and I think I'll wait a few weeks to finish it so people don't think I was just inspired by yours. The two really are quite different in style but very similar in content. I like yours a lot so I only have a couple of suggestions.
First - "whilst" is a good word, but quite archaic and it stands out in this piece, but it shouldn;t. Just use "while."
Second - the line "Golden wedding bands. Never exchanged" is different from every other time you use a color. It might scan better as
"Gold, the wedding bands never exchanged."
That's about it. Take or ignore as you wish. Keep writing.
Clever and cute, but how did poor Mirabelle get tromatized by a chocolate bunny in the first place? Now, if it was a marshmallow peep I could understand it, but a chocolate bunny?
Seriously, this is a fun read and my few suggestions are all on the picky side.
First - The antecedent of "he" in the first paragraph is unclear. Maybe just make it impersonal like "That's where it was left each year." etc.
Second - You need a couple of commas in this sentence"
". She tucked a well worn afghan with a pony stitched on the front around Mirabelle’s legs and kissed her on the forehead. Mirabelle stared at her "
At least after "legs" and I'd also think after "afghan" and "front."
(Told you they were picky.)
Third - I find it hard to believe that if this has happened before, her parents don't know what is going on. (even more picky.)
A very nice memory. I wonder if all Bichons are named Bear. I have two friends and each of them has a Bichon named Bear. (I name all of my dogs Duchess and call them Dutch for short.) I like the image of you sliding down the wall at bad, no, not bad, call it surprising, news.
You are also right that a new dog does take a lot of time, and in your case, a lot of time you might well ahve spent feeling sorry for yourself.
Just a couple of rather picky suggestions: I guess the first isn't a suggestion at that. You need a few more commas. They are cheap so don't stint on using them, A couple of random examples:
"I was not looking for a pet, certainly not a dog as me and housebreaking a dog was a proven failure." This line could use a comma after "dog."
"She slept on the bed with me and shredded squeaky toys." This one needs a comma after "me."
You also left out a word in:
"Housebreaking my oh-so-intelligent pup was breeze!" You need "a" before "breeze."
I do like your style and ease with dialogue.
Oh, an appripoe to nothing in particular, my wife and I are going dog shopping this afternoon, Keep writing.
I just posted a religious poem and when I saw yours I decided to take a look. I'm impressed. The controlled image of the spinning wheel and the rising clay works very well.
I am ambivalent on the title change. Maybe "The Potter's Wheel of God" or "In the hands of my Creator?"
I might also suggest that in the second verse you make the second line "Thrusting hard and deep" since that avoids a tense problem.
Lastly, it is rather common to capitalize the pronoun when it refers to God. As in 'God is good and His mercy endures forever."
They grow up so fast, don't they. One day they are dependent, the next day defiant and the day after that departed. I think I see a pattern. Your poem, of course, is aimed at the defiant stage. That is a time we all go through when we, at least in the eyes o our children, become dumber every day. I think you caught the flavor of that time nicely.
I do have a couple of suggestions which could make the poem stronger.
First - The rhyme in your second couplet is forced. That is, you found a rhyme, but it's not a very good image. Maybe try
"But later in life, as my children grew,
They took over my stuff, I wasn't sure what to do."
Second - In verse three the first line reads a bit better as:
"Nothing was sacred, they took over my space"
Third (and last) - Last verse, try:
Now that they're older, but not yet quite grown
They tell me they're sorry for the fight for the phone.
Just my two cents worth, ignore it as you wish, but keep writing.
OK I'll see what I can do. Concrete poetry is not a genera I use, however, as a fine arts teacher I did use it as an assignment.
The problem here is that you say you are responding to a work I have not read. That makes commenting on the content hard.
That being said, I'll try anyhow. During WW II a German bomb hit Canterbury Cathedral while a service was in session. Many lives were lost. I kind of get that feeling from your poem. Close?
As to the structure, that is, the concrete part, good. You get the image of a church,or even a cathedral. I might wish the cross bar in the cross was a bit longer, but that is about all I can say.
Sorry I can't be more help, but that''s all I've got. Keep writing.
I can not argue with the sentiments, they are both well conceived and valid. The poem itself is a little rough around the edges, but that is likely a factor of a quick deadline.
I'll offer a few suggestoins to make the poem stronger.
First - a few general comments - You sometimes use rhyme and sometimes not, further, you often use slant rhymes and feminine rhymes. Try to read the poem aloud (I did) and you will see what I mean. Next the meter, also when read aloud, is a bit harsh in places.
Second - let's look at a few places we can tighten this poem up.
Line 6 is awkward.."starkly daring" is a hard concept to get around. Maybe "Your responce was swift and daring?"
Line 8 "not" is better than "so"
Reverse the first two words of verse 4.
Verse five, did you mean "quite?" Also the last line is abrupt, just add "is" as the third word.
Last line Stronger as "Our hearts forever pairing."
That;s my two cents worth,, ignore it as you wish, but keep writing.
There is a quote by that great philosopher Satchel Paige that addresses your poem. I wrote a short essay about it. (It is someplace in my port.) anyway, the quote goes:
Work like you don't need the money. Love like you've never been hurt. Dance like no one is watching.
That sort of sums up the way I try to live. Your poem calls the same cadence to me. The future, the past, the hopes and memories, there are the things that make us unique, the individual we are, the individual we were, the individual we will become.
A couple of suggestions for your poem:
First - start with "I reflect"
Second - Third verse, start it with "I dream" since that make the match for the first two verses.
Finally, the last verse is good, but the problem is that not everyone remembers the past the same. Maybe change the third line to "but it needs to be preserved?'
That;s it, feel free to take or indore my comments as you wish. Keep writing.
Not knowing the melody makers it hard to give a valid review of this. I tried several, but none of them fit. Still, the content is wonderful, espesally if you have ever been under a clear mountain sky.
Since this was a 4th place finisher there is likely not a lot you want to change. I can only offer one thing. It is very hard to sing the words "hot tub" and have them sound right, especially at the end of a line. Maybe move them to an internal location, like this "To the hot tub outback?"
A clever little mystery. I didn't have it until the end. Now that is sometimes good and sometimes bad. A mystery story usually needs to be fair, that is, someplace there needs to be a clue or two which can let an astute reader compete with the police or PI to solve the case.
I don't think you gave me enough clues. In fact, you went out of the way to conceal evidence. The closest you come is here:
"I turned around and went inside. I knew he wasn’t telling the truth. I waited for the policeman and the detective to leave. I had to find out what they knew, how much they knew. Then I should inform the other guests in the hotel and maybe even the news media. They shouldn’t be accepting guests here if a crime had been committed."
I admit, when I read that paragraph I wondered why she would tell the media. Still, since it was unclear what, if any, crime had been committed I didn't see it as a clue.
I did like the ending, but maybe as much because I like fluffernetters myself. Why would she have taken a messy knife with her in the first place?
Final evaluation, good writing, good characterization, but a rather average story. Not bad you understand, just not as good as it couldl have been.
That's my two cents worth, ignore it as you wish. Keep writing.
Someone once said the world is divided into cat people and dog people. (I myself have always thought the world is divided into two groups, those who divide things into groups and those who don't.) But I digress.
Your love for your cat shines throughout the whole piece. I had cats when I was growing up, my wife's family had dogs. After were married we compromised and alternated pets so now we both like either.
I do have some suggestions to make your essay stronger.
The first, and by far the most important, is that you need better orgination. You skip around too much. Tell me how you got the cat first, then tell me about its growing up, then about its tricks, then its problems etc. Put all of each type of information together.
I would also suggest starting with the history, then writing about Princess.
That is of course, only one man's opinion. Feel free to ignore it as you wish. Keep writing.
I'm never sure how to approach articles like this one. To treat it just as a piece of writing almost seems callous. Yet, to respond as if I can ever feel the emotions involved is beyond my writing ability.
I usually take a sort of middle ground. I empathize, but I know I can' t take an ounce of the load you carry away. Just know that all life isn't that way and all people not like some of those you have encountered.
I do know something of abuse. I was a teacher for many years and I did encounter abused children. My worst experience came when a boy told me he was being abused but he wanted me to promise I would not t ell anyone. He jsut needed someone else to know he said. State law requires all teachers to report even suspected cases of abuse so I was in a real quandary. I debated with myself for two days, then I asked another teacher who was a very close friend what she would advise. Turned out she had encountered the same problem a couple of years earlier. She took me to the school office and had me report it. The boy involved was sent to live with his mother in another State,
Enough, you don;t need more horror stories. As to your writing, very good for the topic. BTY Time does heal all wounds, but there is often a scar.
Can't argue with the sentiment or the concept. God is good and He shows us this every day. (You might take a look at my "Beauty, Why?" in the poetry folder in my portfolio.)
I do have a few suggestions which could make y our piece stronger.
First - Ii was tought to capitalize the pronoun when it refers to God. (As I did in the second sentence of this review.)
Next, in the fourth verses it should be "there's" or maybe "there is."
Lastly, all of your verses have four lines except one. Why? I think it would be worth your time to find one more line.
I had a problem with this at first, since it seemed wrong on several levels. Then I suddenly saw what the problem was. I was reacting as a teacher, not as a parent. Teachers have to be concerned with how a child thinks. Of course we try to accept them for who they are and we try to work with the positives, but education learned a harsh lesson thirty years ago when it went through a period where giving a child "validation" was more important than giving him an education.
As a parent my job is quite different that my job as a teacher. True, it's important for teachers not to belittle or put down a child, but that is not a common thing in the profession. It is important that teachers recognize some types of problems. Your mention of suicidal children pulled up a couple of ugly memories. But there are children who are not suicidal, but are still accidents waiting to happen. Those are the ones parents and teachers need to work together on.
The teacher can NOT accept that type of child for who he is. I had three such students in my teaching career and I got no help from he parents of any of them. I didn't then, and don't now, know how I should handle them.
Well now, see what you did? You got me going on a topic I do often think about. Was there some way to reach those three? I don't know if this counts as a review, but it is a sort of responce. Keep writing.
After reading this I immediately went and posted my #1466089. It is my experience on the same topic, Love is interesting in an academic way because, while it is always the same in the general, it is always unique in the specific.
Your experience is, if it is anything like mine, one of those life memories you can take out and look at most any time. How did it work out?
Since this is a review, I'll offer a couple of suggestions which may make the piece stronger.
First - The third paragraph is rather awkward. If I may offer a rewrite -
I sat through the class having to contain the secret knowledge that the man who took my breath away, who delighted me, had actually made a pass at me. Admittedly not the smoothest pass, fairly lame, and decidedly old fashioned in fact. Nevertheless, the words were an arrow straight to my heart. I would never be the same."
I think that keeps your essential concept and is less awkward.
Second - He really went several days before following up? Stretch that part out a bit. What you wrote was fine, but I wanted more of the anticipation.
Third - This may just be me, but I don;t quite grasp the setting. Are you working in an office? If so, what was the class you mention? If in a school, in what capacity?
Details. Details. Details. That is what makes this type of story sing.
I do like poems with repeating words or repeating refrains. You sort of do bot. Bravo. THe theme isn;t new, but it is not the poet's task to find a new theme, all the poet has to do is find an new slant on an old theme. You come close to that. The idea that two people will, someday, meet and be happy together is well displayed.
As an aside, I tought psychology and one study showed that about 40% of high school seniors had already met the person they were going to marry by only about 5% knee who that person was. That is, they knew the person, but did not think of marriage when they thought about him. The other 60% had not met their future spouse by the time they graduated.
Enough about psychology. Let's see if we can find anything to make your poem stronger.
Well, I guess I'll start by asking why you chose to leave the puntuation out. It is a tool an author uses to guide a reader. What do you gain by omitting it?
Next, you use "hearts" in the first two lines of verse one, why not use it in verses two and three? (Instead of "lives.")
The one line I don;t know if I am getting is the second line of verse two. How do you "share' "two lives until then?"
That's my two cents worth, ignore it as you wish. I did like the poem. Keep writing.
Sort of like signs in a locker room. I don't mean that in a bad way, it's just a comment.
Your use of rhyme is good, except for rhyming stance and balance. That is what is called a slant rhyme. That is, words that look like they should rhyme (Foot and Boot) but do not. Since balance takes it stress on the first syllable it really doesn't rhyme with stance.
It might be better to use "resist temptation" rather than 'refute temptation" since refute means to disprove.
One last suggestoin "Loss of focus, IS QUITE atrocious" makes the rhythem smoother.
That's my two cents worth. Ignore it as you wish. Keep writing.
A traditional sort of story. Commen in the general, but unique in the particular. The idea of having the private investigator for the prosecution have a crush on the defendant is less common and a good idea to add freshness to an old story.
I do have a few suggestions and a couple of questions.
First, while I commplements you on the idea of the PI being involved with the defendant I don't know that you play up the attraction enough. You need things like :Because I was looking at her eyes I had to have her repeat what she had just said.: or other thiings like that.
The introduction of Daryl comes quite late in the story. Naybe he should be hinted at earlier? A picture on a table in her room would do.
This may not be true, but i woudl have thought that a lot of what the PI is doing would have bee done by the regular police. I didn;t think ppppppppu blic prsicutters enplayed prvate investgicgaators for routine matters.
With a bit of work this ocould be good, and it;s very epoandable if you would want to go in that diiirection.
I love poems with a repeating refrain. (See half my poetry in my port for proof) This is a good example of why I like it. Good literature should raise questions as well as answer them. Yours is successful for that reason. In fact you could go on for quite a while if you choose to. I would add "Have you ever loved and lost? "
Also you worked n rhymed couplets and that makes it a bit harder since English is a rather rhyme poor language.
Minor problem. The second "Have you ever" is the only one of its type. All the rest are concerned with some physical or emotional act. I wonder if the poem show end with the "who, what, why?"
Just a thought, ignore it as you wish. Keep writing.
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