of emeralds and rubies

of emeralds and rubies



sweet is the site of an
everlasting gleam. Unfurling
crystalline stars,

sparkle sparkle

they dance in the pale moon. rainbows of color
and tidal waves of reflections spit their soul
onto walls and delicate portraits.

my Ruby shines the brightest.

red and green and silver and blue
tango overhead to La Tango de Parlor. the moon is,
sufficient to say, beaming with colors from the
Emeralds and
Rubies.

Such potential wasted on such sub-par substance sustenance. Watch:

BigBadBear wrote:of emeralds and rubies

Is this the beginning of the poem, as well as being the title? If it is, then cut the four lines underneath, there's only so much you can do with all this New Age write-in-rectangles-and-call-it-a-human-condition spacing stuff. If it isn't, take it out. You already have the title in...the title line.

sweet is the site of an
everlasting gleam. Unfurling
crystalline stars,

Everlasting is one of those words that tramps over the line of description and boring history-book matter and back again, confusing the heck out of the reader's inner eye. Aesthetically, I would either change it or that ugly word "site" or both, even though I know that this is me being unfairly subjective. But whatever, it's your life.

Stars are crystalline, okay. That doesn't dazzle. It looks like it's been thrown in there for the sake of being thrown in there. Circular reasoning. And it doesn't even come up with any kind of image past a star, which you should be trying to succeed by now. Change to something else. Anything?

sparkle sparkle

they dance in the pale moon. rainbows of color
and tidal waves of reflections spit their soul
onto walls and delicate portraits.

That sparkling bit is cute - a child's teasing? It fits with the line below this paragraph so I'm inclined to believe that's what it's supposed to convey. "Tidal waves of reflection" is one of those pseudo-academic-pretend-poetic terms that's supposed to be all deep and insightful, but the very nature of how you've shown it makes it obvious that it pains itself trying to make a point, to present an image. "_____ of _____" usually never work well in poetry and this is no exception. Take that part out but keep the spitting, it's nice.

my Ruby shines the brightest.

red and green and silver and blue

No thanks. Come up with a better way of conveying color besides yelling out each individual hue to us. Sounds tacky and juvenile, and no, it doesn't corroborate the child-like aspects of the "Ruby shining brightest" or "sparkle sparkle" either. It just doesn't work.

Try...I don't know...imagery, maybe? I've heard that usually works.

tango overhead to La Tango de Parlor. the moon is,
sufficient to say, beaming with colors from the
Emeralds and
Rubies.

Beaming doesn't do this image justice, although this is an admirable attempt and does put a picture in the reader's mind. Don't forget the ephemeral and haunting beauty of the moon. Coupled with the fluid and dimmed landscape the rest of the poem portrays, this stupid Disco-ball image contrasts too harshly. Even if you did mean to portray a Disco-ball, do it in a way that's consistent with how you speak in the rest of the piece. Right now, this isn't it.

Overall, not a bad attempt but still very rough. Hope that helped.

Gurlfrand's review makes me laugh. xD But anyway. I noticed that you posted this on Facebook so I came to review it here.

The problem with this poem is that the subject has such a potential to branch out and be very original. But it's sort of cut short; some of your descriptions, while nice, are kind of cliched.

sweet is the site of an
everlasting gleam. Unfurling
crystalline stars,

I don't like 'site' used in this stanza. The location of the gleam is sweet? Rather than the actual gleam itself? I think that "sweet is the everlasting gleam" sounds better. My second problem with this is... what's unfurling the stars? Because it sounds like the everlasting gleam is, which makes no sense to me. Maybe you should say 'the sky unfurling', but use some fancy language to describe it. To keep the poem consistent with the imagery.

sparkle sparkle

Something about this is bothering me. I think it's that the word 'sparkle' seems far too childish for this poem. It doesn't really... fit. I get the meaning you're trying to convey, but it just doesn't work for this poem.

Unfurling
crystalline stars,

sparkle sparkle

they dance in the pale moon.

The punctuation here is a little off. When you put it into a sentence, it looks like "Unfurling crystalline stars, sparkle sparkle they dance in the pale moon." You may want to fix that.

rainbows of color

This sort of ruined that whole stanza for me. Rainbows of colour... it's just so overused. I'd like to see you find some really creative, unique way to get your meaning across.

delicate portraits

When I read this, I felt like I was missing something. What do you mean by this? The moon shines on paintings of people? Or maybe I'm totally wrong. Either way, I think you should be more specific on what you mean by 'delicate portraits'. If I am right, why did you choose paintings, versus something else?

my Ruby shines the brightest.

I liked this. But I'm not entirely sure why you're talking about rubies. Because before, we've got this whole starry night theme going on, and then it's like "What? Rubies?" What do you mean by rubies? Is it a metaphor for something else?

the moon is,
sufficient to say, beaming with colors from the

Eh. I really don't like the 'sufficient to say' bit. It really disrupts the flow of the poem and seems out of place with your previous use of language.

Emeralds and
Rubies.

I've already asked earlier what rubies [and emeralds] have to do with the poem, but I'd like to expand on this. I believe that this poem could use another stanza or two. And in those stanzas, I'd like to see why emeralds and rubies are akin to nighttime elements. What makes the two similar? And why did you choose them to represent this? What I mean to say is that the reason why this poem has to do with precious gems is very vague. As the reader, I have no idea what makes them similar because you haven't really linked the two together. There's no relationship in this poem at all... it's just there.

Overall, I think this poem is just a little messy. You need to clean it up, explain, expand, and refine your language. Make us see the connection; make us imagine just what you're describing. I can't really picture what you want us to picture. I can't see what you're seeing. The subject of the poem is a little vague, but if you work on it, make it more profound, I think that this poem could be awesome.

I'm sorry this review kind of sucky and confusing. xD But I hope it was of some help, and I hope it wasn't too harsh.
-Holly

Hello BBB!

I used to be really into gemology, so this will be a weird critique that may be on a tangent sometimes. But that might be a good thing! Maybe!

First, line by line!

sweet is the site of an <-- "site" is such a vague word! And let's face it... poetry is already too short to have wasted words. What do mean to say, really? Unless, of course, you mean the word "sight." Which might actually make more sense, considering you're talking about gleam and such.

everlasting gleam. Unfurling <-- I liked the use of "everlasting" actually.

crystalline stars, <-- I like this with regards to rubies, since there are special sapphires (rubies are a type of sapphire) that are starred, so it's really awesome because you combine gemology and poetry in one. But emeralds? They don't have stars, really. So it doesn't really fit.



sparkle sparkle <-- ...I didn't like this line. It felt tossed in.



they dance in the pale moon. rainbows of color <-- Look at a emerald or a ruby, the bigger the better. They do have luster, yes but they aren't rainbows of color. They're the color of the gems themselves. And! They do not have "fire" (which is a measurement of the "sparkles" created by the gems) when they're in pale moonlight. It's usually in sunlight. Moonlight, especially pale moonlight, is terrible for that stuff.

and tidal waves of reflections spit their soul <-- Have you ever been to the ocean before? I don't think tidal waves are what you want, as far as your description goes. And I have noooo idea what you're trying to say here anyway.

onto walls and delicate portraits. <-- Get rid of "delicate." It clutters up the line.



my Ruby shines the brightest.



red and green and silver and blue <-- ...are you still talking about a ruby? Because that's what it sounds like. It doesn't really make sense.

tango overhead to La Tango de Parlor. the moon is,

sufficient to say, beaming with colors from the <-- I like the technical sound of this part.

Emeralds and

Rubies.<-- This ending seemed a little flat, mostly because your descriptions don't really support the whole emeralds and rubies idea.

So! Basically, this sounds all right, but upon analysis, it really doesn't hold up well.

Questions to consider:

Why emeralds?

Why rubies?

Why is light/darkness so important in this poem?

How can you use color to more effectively integrate rubies and emeralds?

Why is "sparkling" so important?

Explore those questions. Then rewrite the poem. Trust me, it'll be more awesome then.

Wow this piece is getting ripped to shreds.
Anyway here’s my review of this piece. (Is it the final polished copy?)
The choice of words in the first stanza is interesting. You use site. The wordplay is subtle but still trivial. Everlasting is such a boring word. Use another word to describe its perpetual sparkle. Unfurling crystalline stars makes absolutely no sense. It feels more like a filler or a horrible attempt to instill imagery. Sparkle Sparkle. No comment…
Spit their soul onto walls and delicate portraits… Random much? Everything in this stanza feels forced.
Were you on LSD when you composed this? Your figurative language is not consistent. It’s as if you put together random figurative language together to create your poem. Your themes are just as random and there’s something about your vocab usage that makes your writing seem so synthetic. It’s not natural.