I can not only hear him play. I can see him grinning as he play. What little 2-year-old boy would not love to bang on his very own special set of drums!
He's a lucky boy with indulgent and long-suffering parents, and a very, very indulgent honorary uncle to record his escapades in verse...:)
Excellent! Dormael was right--this story really glides by. You're one smooth writer. Still, there are a few minor rough edges that can do with some polishing, so I'll go right on to those. Mostly, it's to do with syntax, with POV (point of view, as in who's telling the story and how you have to present things, events, etc. from his and only his POV). Also, it's usualy better to replace passive with active wording. I'll show you how with a quick edit.
Even though they WENT to the music room almost every Thursday afternoon (past tense is appropriate here)
His eyes closed, Lars's BROW furrowed and his cheek twitched, his GRIMACE A COUNTERPART TO THE SOLO'S MADDENING PACE. (word choice; syntax)
it lies WITH NONCHALANT AMBIVALENCE between two notes that BELONG PROPERLY ON a scale, (word choice; syntax)
<i>Malls are supposed to be bright so people won’t mind losing their money.<i> (use italics for internal monologue, not brackets, and nix the dialogue tag)
to avoid bothering the SLEEPING lady next to her
LARS WAS AMUSED. <i>She’s bound to fall asleep with the wind on her face like that. </i>
Her eyebrows were perfectly trimmed, gradually thinning out towards her temple. (delete 'He looked' from the beginning; it's his POV, we know he's the one looking)
Compare this: 'Her eyes looked sleepy but they seemed to hold his gaze. Then he felt overcome with embarrassment and felt a little flushed on the face.'
with the much less wordy but just as effective:
'Her sleepy eyes held his gaze. Overcome with embarrassment, he flushed.'
Glasses clinked that night at LARS'S SISTER's birthday party.
Her tight jeans clutched her long legs each time she took a measured stride. (delete 'He noticed' from the beginning, again we know it's his POV; it's more direct and less wordy this way)
Julius, Bea...GLADYS RATTLED OFF some more names, ALL OF WHICH Lars INSTANTLY forgot.
If you could go through and self-edit with the points I made, you may catch something similar that I've missed.
On the contrary, my friend, you understand it well enough to write it--you betray yourself with your line breaks and apt quotes, among other things. Well read you must be, and well read anyone has to be to even approach the craft with such skill (the opening smacks of confidence as much as frustration).
Ah, he who protests too much...perhaps you need to go further back in time and tackle the ancient poets as opposed to the modern pretenders? Just a thought... Nice yawp, btw. ;)
This is a beautifully descriptive and well-constructed concrete poem, with great attention to detail and lyrical prose poetry that will appeal to the ear, to the eye, to the heart and to the mind. Very well done!
I read this several times and with each reading, the poignancy increased. The 'poor empty words' are poor and empty indeed, and sometimes when you say nothing, it is a lie. Insightful and sad, and beautiful in the way only sad things can be.
I took half a point off because it took me a couple of readings to figure out who the narrator is. But that could just be me. :)
This is so beautiful I don't have the heart to penalize you for the faulty punctuation! But do please take away both comma and period after 'tomorrow', remove the comma after 'tide' and add 'the' before 'sea' and remove BOTH commas after 'sea' in the second last line. :)
I love this cinquiano! It flows so beautifully and the last line is unexpected and funny--it's like a 'turn' at the end of a sonnet. Perfect!
Very nicely done. All the best, JC
Ah, the inexorable, inevitable approach of Death. You've made it scary and horrid and inescapable--just as it truly is. The tension is palpable as we read along. The alternating short and long lines work well together, especially the one-word lines. And the ending is well-crafted, with the penultimate line teasing the reader with a faint ray of hope and the last line dashing it.
Your poem made me smile. Matilda's a great name for a happy chicken and she certainly sounds like a lot of fun. As to whether a chicken can have ADHD, I'll hae to take your word for it. :)
'Whenever' is one word--just close the space between 'when' and 'ever' in line 3. Probably a typo.
--As writers, we sometimes fall into bad writing habits. (I know, you are stunned. I'll wait.)
--Review heaps praise, fidelity, and potential proposal of marriage to said author.
Only two of many instances where I LOL. Thank you for an excellent, informative, well-written and highly entertaining thesis that made me re-think my philosophy (or rather, the lack of it) of review vs critique. This should be required reading for everyone with a interest in writing as well as reviewing. I hope to run across your limerick one day, and I'm sure I will enjoy it too.
This is beautiful. I love the personification of Crabapple Beach in the first few lines; I love the 'slender volumes of verse...promising an eternity of simple joys to souls with private pains'; I love the comparison of writing poetry to a 'life-long marriage of clumsily scribbled words from her spirit'.
I like this little gem of a poem--it's succinct, yet the imagery works really well. Quite a feat!
The only line that's a little awkward is the second last one. Two 'that's make it easy to stumble over.
You could tidy it up by substituting the last two lines with this one:
Cautioning those who follow.
Or not. Your version works too. I just prefer using 'who' rather than 'that' for people. Your call. :)
This is a very telling poem, and comes across as very strongly-felt. I think it can be titled 'Self' or 'Identity'. It reveals a discrepancy between the outer and inner you, and therein lies the conflict.
I especially like the lines: 'Watch me grow from the swan to the duck' and 'Watch me break the chains that bind me to your perfect world'.
Only this little bit needs some editing:
Watch me tear the veil
you placed in front of me,
that you placed to protect me
from the truth,
To ‘protect’ me,
I've taken away some extraneous words and one or two repetitions, but the other repetitions and the quotation marks around the last 'protect' should be kept for the emphasis you intended.
A wonderful poem, with a smashing punch-line! Don't give it away too soon though, as in the first line of the last stanza, you could say something like: 'It has remained resolutely single'. Just a suggestion. All the best!
This is very close to being a perfect little poem. However, you may want to re-consider a couple of word-choices. I find 'shares' rather out-of-place in line 3--something less positive might work better, e.g. 'hectors' or something similar.
In line 5, the phrase 'with his own bold brawn' also made me stumble, stop and think--'own' is a given, so it's somewhat extraneous. How about something along the lines of 'with his brawn and might'?
But 'might' also means 'strength' like 'brawn' means 'muscle=strength'. So how about 'valor and brawn' or 'brawn and grit' with 'grit' meaning 'guts'?
I love 'gains the solace of the grave'.
The conceit of the last couple of lines is wonderful and eloquent and follows well from all that's gone before. Well done!
Beautifully done! You may have intended the wave to be audio, but in fact, it works very well visually as well. I can see the wheat sheaves waving in the wind and it's quite hypnotic when you read it aloud slowly and follow the pattern with your eyes down the page at the same time. Very well done!
I like this on the whole, especially the second stanza which is the strongest, most telling part of the poem. However, the final couplet lets down the whole. It's a little weak, almost like an anti-climax after the stanza before it. There's so much passion in that middle stanza, and then it peters out. Don't allow it to do so! You've got something strong going on, so expand on the last two lines, expand that thought, and see whether that gives you a better ending.
Good effort here, and you obviously put a lot of thought into this, and I can't help but agree with you.
As for the form, I would suggest a couple of things. First of all, the phrase 'That's not camping' is a great title and works well as the very first line of the first stanza. However, it's repeated too often and seems to be haphazardly inserted within the body of the poem. I would keep the first and the last, but remove the two that head the second and third stanzas--you don't need them there and they just wreck the flow and make the reader stumble.
There are a few typos: 'generator', not 'genorator'; 'rough', not 'rougn'; 'luxury', not 'luxary'.
The first stanza is so beautiful, especially the conceit of the last two lines, I read it over and over again. :)
In the second stanza, I stumbled on 'permit' and wonder if the synonym 'leave' would be a better word?
Also, 'causes' seems a little weak and used twice in the same stanza detracts from it, so perhaps a stronger verb for the second one?
'It plunges scholar boys in dreams'
Just a couple of small suggestions. Ignore as you wish. :)
Another beautiful poem. This time the only thing that didn't work for me was the 'treasure-trove of wrongs'. A 'treasure-trove' seems too positive for wrongs, but I understand how someone would hoard their grievances.
How about something along the lines of:
'Bring me violence,
all your trials, all your wrongs'
('trials' used in the sense of tribulations)
Or, 'Bring me violence,
and your trove of woes and wrongs'
Just a suggestion. Ignore me as you please! :)
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