Too bad you missed the opportunity, I've always wanted to start a story with an alternate opening from the one Snoopy used in Charlie Brown.."He was a dark and stormy Knight."
Maybe next time.
Seriously, this isn't a bad story, but it lacks something. If I say plot you'll think I;m being insulting but I'm not. There must be a story there about how those who live in a castle can become friends with someone who lives in a cottage. You just don't tell it. What was wrong all the other men she dated? Just saying they didn't have the right stuff tells me nothing what "stuff" was she looking for?
Finally, you need a lot more commas. Just read it aloud and where you pause likely a comma is needed.
Again,, this isn't a rip, I'm trying to help. Take my advise or ignore it as you wish.
Clever, and even witty. A nice, brief, display of an individual's surface personality. It has to be surface because we are all made of a lot more than two qualities. Still, the surface is the first thing most people see and therefore the thing that most people evaluate.
I like the "take me as I am or hit the road" apporoach too.
Suggestions to make the poem stronger. Well, unless it's an intentional thing standard English uses a capital I when writing in the first person. Also standard English uses puntuation. Punctuation is the author's tool to help the reader know how the author intends the lines to be heard. Finally, the last line I think you meant "your" not "you."
Just my two cents worth. Ignore as you wish. Keep writing.
A good capture of a single moment. The kind of thing that stays with a person for a long time. The missed chance, the unsaid word, gone forever. I like what you did here.
Suggestions? Well, a couple. There is something strange about lines 3 and 4. I get the image of eyes crossing. I know that's not what you meant, but that is sort of what you said.
Then there is the line about "the things that keep you up at night." I have no clue as to why you would know that, or even what it is you know.
Otherwise this is, as I already said, a good piece.
That's my two cents worth, ignore it as you wish. Keep writing.
A solid rhyme pattern, tho I winced a bit on quilt/silt. (They rhyme, but it seems like you were reaching for the rhyme at the expence of content.)
The concept is clear, if vague, and by vague I mean just what is "fun?" The only thing you mention is children jumping and shouting and I know from experience that a little of that goes a long ways.
Then you close with sleeping on the beach. Again, I can say from experience that when you wake it is not to any "morning's delight" because sand is surprisingly hard and early in the morning they run the beach cleaners and people with big dogs walk their dogs.
No, I'm not making fun of your efforts. This really isn't a bad poem at all. It just called up few old memories. Hey, that's waht it should do, you did better than I first thought.
A great idea for a contest. When I tought I always gave my students a word to use whenever they didn't know the proper word. I used the word "Thurb" (In honor of James Thurber). It could be used as any part of speech and slid into any tense. i.e. "I just found a whole wad of thurb in my pant cuff." or "All right, let's stop thurbing around and get to work." or " I feel particularly thurbic this evening. And so on.
My point, sure, "fract' is a good word, it has a thurbian quality to it.
Let's take a look at what you've done here. First the good and then the things that may still need work
THE good
First, it rhymes. That is more important than you might think. A lot of aspiring poets jump right into free verse with no idea of the discipline good poetry demands. They end up writing prose, giving it odd spacing, and calling it poetry. Using rhyme forces a discipline. Evey poet should write at least some rhyming poetry.
Second, you stick to the concept (Are we really right for one another?) and maintain a valid mood throughout.
Now there are a couple things which I feel would make he poem stronger.
First punctuation. By my count you use four commas and a question mark. It needs a lot more. Punctuation is the author/poet's method of telling the reader how to hear a line. (I always read a poem aloud before I review it, try it with yours and hear how it sounds.)
Second - meter. That is the rhythm of the poem. The reading aloud shows that the rhythm is very uneven.
Third - A couple places are rather unclear. For example "I can’t help wondering the odds of being with you" is a broken sentence fragment. Maybe "I can’t help wondering WHAT the odds ARE of being with you" makes it clearer.
Well, I hope you take this as constructive criticism. I'm only interested in making you a better writer.
In general this is both clever and witty. I admit I don't understand the Mr Bucket part having never seen, let alone played the game, but the vision of a grown man doing a victory dance at winning a game called Mr Bucket is ludicrous. (and he had to beat a small girl too, oh the challenge.)
Maybe get him to join a golf league or a bridge club. That could pull his victory dances back a step or two.
Suggestions for improvement? Well, I've already mentioned the Mr Bucket thing.
You need a comma after "win" in paragraph four.
It's unclear in the UNO section as to who is saying the slam lines. (and it shoud be "Mr. Draw Four CardS."
I'm not trying to be mean or to rip you, but the errors in mechanics are so egregious that it made me stop wanting to read after the first few lines.
I can almost guarantee that few others here will give you more than single chance if you don't start to proofread.
Saying that it's your work and you don't want to be tied down to tired old conventions is fine as long as you know that you will likely be your only reader.
Conventions such as puntuation, capitalization, spelling, tense and things like those are integral to our ability to communicate.
You seem too have a way wiht words, but no one will know that if you continue to disregard mechanics as you do in this piece,
Tender, touching, and a little careless. You have a good feel for the confusion of the first love, the way it takes you to the top of the world and then drops you into a crevasse so deep you think you'll never get out.
You also have some striking images. I liked he frankness of "Although we were young and quite frankly stupid
I tell myself that it was worth it" A good insight.
Now, as to the careless, well "I felt safe in this castle as long as your in it" "your" should be "you're."
or "Life isn’t fair, it’s far from it
I officially learned that you can’t live without it
It’s an incurable disease, one without medication"
What that says if I turn it into simple English is "Life isn't fair but you can't live without it and it's incurable." which doesn't make a lot of sense.
There is very good poem in there. Dig it out and I'll be gald to take another look at it.
My two cents worth, ignore it as you wish. Keep writing.
Sure, I'll return the critique. Thanks for your comments on "I am Love" BTW.
OK, you have a problem right from the start because you are writing on a well cover subject. However, it;s not the author;s job to find an original topic so much as it is his job to find a new take on an old topic. You come close to that.
I think maybe you over-withe a bit. Sometimes the fancy words get n the way of what you want to say. (A common thing among new, talented writers.)
A random example:
"for I shall always navigate that lonely path gazing far behind and pondering my unlived destination would I have avoided the path of the secure and unliving.""
I'm not sure what that means. Trying to put it into simple language gives me "I'll travel alone looking back and wondering how my life would have been different if I'd have not come this way." Maybe that's what you intended to say. but a reader shouldn't have to translate to understand.
Now I'm nor ripping you. This piece does have promise, but it needs a good rewrite to make it shine.
My two cents worth. Ignore it as you wish. Keep writing.
I'll buy the spiritual In fact you border on the existential. That isn't a bad thing. You have a way with words. There is a flow to this that makes it very readable.
That is a test i use for poems. How do they sound when read aloud? Yours is good.
Suggestions? Well, ,maybe a little confusion, are we "Upon the shores" as stanza one says , or "Near the shores" as the last stanza says?
Also, and this is very picky, a leaf falling from a pine? Don't pines have needles?
Still, I liked this and I'll take a look at some of your other work. You are also welcome to look at mine.
What a nice memory. It's often the little things that we recall in detail. I call them life memories. They are the things that make us who we are, since I think a person is really nothing but the sum of his memories.
You have a flow to the poem even though it doesn't really have a set meter. That is the sign of someone sure of his language abilities.
There isn't a lot I can suggest to improve this, just two things. First, a bit more punctuation would have made it easier to follow the natural flow of the piece. That's what punctuation is for, to let the author guide the reader.
Second, the word "she" in line 10 really has no antecedent. It implies a nurse, but why not use nurse the first time? It makes things a little clearer.
Just my two dents worth, ignore it as you wish. Keep writing.
A very astute insight. Suffering comes in more than one flavor and the bitterest is often caused by what you can't do to relieve other people of their suffering.
There is one suggestion I could make. In the second line of the third stanza you use the word "you're." Everywhere else it's always "you." I think the poem is stronger if you use "you hurt" rather than "you're hurting."
My two cents worth, ignore it as you wish. Keep writing.
Whenever a poet attempts to take on a subject that has been covered many times before he needs to stop and think about what new insights he has to offer.
I get the feeling you did this, even if only at the subconscious level. The "Rage, Desire, Longing" combination is very solid.
The last few lines weaken the effect. Keeping the pattern would have made this a much stronger poem. Something like:
Love,
to only forget
love forget love
forget me not.
That is only a suggestion and I'm not trying to put words in your mouth. Ignore it as you will.
Interesting take on a not much written on topic. You do create some striking images, sometimes almost too graphic for tour purpose. (Unless that purpose was too gross us out,)
However, there is a problem which hurts your total effort and that is poor proofreading. There are just too many errors in mechanics and they jar the reader and break his concentration. Some examples follow:
Stanza 2 "greater" should be "great."
Stanza 3 "withstand" should be "stand."
Stanza 4 "deceased's" should be "deceased."
Stanza 6 "site" should be "sight."
And so on. Clean it up and I'll take another look.
It's often hard to give reviews to very short pieces. A critic needs to have something to get his teeth into, I think you just make the cut...
After reading the poem I got to looking at it in terms of physical shape. The first four lines get gradually longer, then a short line breaks the picture. You might think about makeing the poem more concrete. maybe three lines increasing in size, then a short line than three lines decreasing.
Poetry seldom does anything new. This is about as close as anything I've seen to being new. Oh, there have been many poems about envy but I've never read one from quite this angel. I applaud your.
That being said I'll make a coupler suggestions which I think might make this even stronger.
First and foremost, proofread. There are just too many errors in mechanics. FOR example in stanza 2 it should be "it's led" not "its lead" You often leave out the apostrophe.
Second: more punctuation would make it easier to grasp where you want the lines to start and stop. That's what punctuation is for, to let the author steer thee reader.
Well, OK. You want to write a novel about jealousy. he topic isn't new so to be successful you have to find a new slant on an old topic. Of course that's what writers are suppose to do.
You really don't give enough here for me to see what your angle or slant will be. How old are these people? Does she consider herself the "girlfriend" of the watching man? Answering questions like these will give direction to your story.
BTW it's "holding" not "holdin" and what do you mean by "natural good looks?"
Just my two cents worth. Ignore it as you wish. Keep writing.
Well, OK. I don't know that there is anything new here, but all I've seen is the teaser. Most every fantasy story has a few brave charterer going up against a seemingly unbeatable foe.
The chattered sword is also not a new idea. Saberhagen did it very well in his "Book or Swords" series.
Now it may seem I'm just ripping you, but I'm not. I'm just telling you what you are up against when you chose this topic. To make it work you need a hook and an angle not used before.
You are entering a popular area and even though the stories there often have the same basic plot, well written ones sell very well. What makes Isaiah unique? Why is Drastamus evil? Why was the sword broken in the first place? How and why did the six wizards get the pieces? How you answer these and other questions determines the success of failure the work.
I'll be interested in knowing where this goes. Keep writing.
Been there, done that, still have the tee shirt. You write about a situation which most every one has experienced. You also give it a new slant which is what poetry is for.
Problems? Just a few. Most of your images are quite good but s couple are below the rest.
"You can't help but lust me" is just a reach for a rhyme.
"I am perfect all the drama you say I am worth it." is very unclear.
The ending is nicly understated.
Just my two cents worth. Ignore it as you will. Keep writing.
Sonnets. Wonderful, I'm glad I'm not the only one trying to write them. It's a great way to learn discipline in poetry. Feel free to check my portfolio and comment on any of mine. I have at least five or six there.
Now let's look at yours. ABBA ABBA CDECDE The rhyme is right. Now, is it valid? By that I mean did you ever have to stretch to get to the rhyme. Well, yes you do in a couple places. Ending a line with "the" is usually a sign of stretching since "the" is seldom a stressed word which throws of the iambic pentameter. The same can be said of ending a line with "for."
In fact, as I see it, the biggest problem here is the iambic pentameter. That's part of the discipline thing I mentioned.
Please don't think I'm ripping you. This is a good first try at the Italian style. With some revision it can become very good,
I suggest you let it simmer a few days, then try a rewrite. I'll be glad to look at that if you like.
Just my two cents worth. Ignore it if you wish. Keep Writing.
Time, of course, heals this sort of thing, but you hit the initial feeling very much spot on. When I was in college I got engaged to a girl from California. I lived in Ohio and at summer break we both went home. In the middle of July she wrote breaking our engagement as she had started to date someone out there.
My point is, I felt all the emotions you describe. AS a side point she and I have been married for over 40 years.
You can likely tell I like the poem, but there are a couple things you might consider to make it stronger. For example these lines:
"I am wondering how did I become your lover?
It was later discovered that to penetrate you was like voodoo"
Are weak, in particular the second one. By both content and rhythem it is out of place.
Also these lines:
"Can I really handle life without you?
I would be lying, my sweet sensual flower
Self discovery can't change the fact that I need your passion"
Again, it's the last line that throws the rhythm.
Also why did you stop using question marks half way through the pome? They helped a lot.
Just my two cens worth, ignore it if you wish. Keep writing.
To really make a mess of this toss in the critical philosophers. They question even their own ability to know facts. They use the usual concept that a fact is something which is true, observable, and provable, as needed. However, they reason, what if some force is keeping us from seeing the facts? How would wew know? Descartes said "I think, therefore I am." Oh, where is he? Prove he ever was?
I admit I operate on the watchmaker principle. That is, the existence of a watch implies a watchmaker.
that leads logically to :THE existence of a universe implies a universe maker." Works for me.
And if someone asks where did God come from ask them why they don't ask the same question about the watch maker. As I see it, the thing that most separates man from God is time. It controls us, but does not bind God at all.
I don't know if I've added to the discussion here, but I felt a need to toss out a couple ideas anyhow.
Keep writing.
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