broken color

she immobilized the world when she put it in her canvas;
the washedout streets and the hopeless birds pinned
to a cloudless sky above a lonely tree besides an isolated
hill that went down instead of rising up, divulged the
verisimilitude and threw home into a void of black
that should have screamed blood red.

she talked of fauvism, linked it to the curtains against the stars
tonight and the line of water from the faucet to the basin,
red, then purple, and finally black as they synthesized
the juncture of her caliber and the staggered mosaic,
once a picture, then a puzzle and today the way-out
vision in the splintered mirror.

Explanation
Wassily Kandinsky; "Improvisation. Gorge."

Well, no nonsense review coming up. Though I will say that it's lovely and I've given it a star.

I think my biggest problem is the big, flowery language that really just confuses me and makes me think huh? It buries your idea, because I personally I have no idea what you are talking about. I know that most people will have to look up verisimilitude in the dictionary.

Your flow suffers from these words because an average reader without your vocabulary will have to look at the word for a second before being able to go through it, often stumbling.

It's just line after line on words seamlessly strung together with a marvelous vocabulary so that you can't see that there is nothing behind it. You're lines are completely hollow, nothing to really follow story or idea wise. You just have these words and phrase that link to to painting in a way but really doesn't give us anything.

At the end, you're left with nothing but a scramble of words that leave a slight idea of colours in your head, and a reader with a decent IQ will be able to link it back to your poem. You do not construct that bridge between the two, you put a sign there and hope the reader can jump far enough.

I don't stand a chance in that contest
all my love,

Kamas

(gasp)

I loved it!!!!!

Cheeseballs, I was almost frightened by your superiority in poetry to me. My mind is blown.

Here is my *attempt* at criticizing whatever I can in here--

Juniper wrote:she immobilized the world when she put it in her canvas;

This is my favorite line. Love it.

Juniper wrote:the washed-out streets

"Washedout" is hard to read, please hyphenate

Juniper wrote:threw home into a void of black

I think that this would flow better, but that's just me. You really... "painted a picture" there.

Nothing else really peeved me, I understood the words and everything fine, it was very descriptive, as well as... well, it wasn't simple, but that's the word I'm trying to use. The vocabulary was complex while the story was almost ineligible, but slightly enough that I was intrigued. Great job. You really must love art.

Love,
Fixed

I suck at critisizm so here goes.

It all read very disorganized, which for me was a side effect of the painting, everything came out jumbled and forceful yet chaotic and almost whimpering.

The force behind it all was very graceful, it was never really oppressive except for with the darker images.

Everything works together in it's abstract way of support that it all comes to gether beautifully.

Well... thats all I can really say.

I did kind of get lost in the sentence structure, but I'm the last to talk.

Exe's and Oh's,
Eraqio.

Hey Toasty O's!

Nice poem! I liked it very much, so you're definitely getting a star!

The main criticism is that there is so much going on in the painting, and it looks like you've only touched the surface. So I would like to see more crazy description. After all, what's the good of making a poem if it only talks about one-percent of the art? So be creative and figure out what else's there. It'll help... trust me!

the washedout streets

\
"washed-out"?

besides an isolated

Nix the "s".

way-out-vision

I think if you add one more "-" it'd make the rythm more interesting...like a nice little surprise. (Meaning, it would be a nice change of pace to the poem...and make it end more nicely than it is already!)


Anyway, I liked this, June!

You /need/ to post more often. You really do.

*Gold Star*

Junie this poem was awesome I agree with Jon you should post more. But I do agree with Kammie. The larger words were a good effect and I think they should the complexity of the art being written about but as you found out in chat if people like me don't know the words they can't really put them in context with what you have said. I understand what they mean now and I feel like I've learned something but only because you explained what the words were. I think you should keep it as is; however, I think you should expand on it like Snoink said. Maybe that would make it a little easier. I feel like I've made no sense....but regardless I'm giving you a gold star. You can ignore this rambley review if you want I don't know if it helped at all

~peanut~

Hi you.

I really enjoyed this.

I don't think it was too hard to read. The rattling on in some places and the few large-ish words peppered throughout fit marvelously with the crazy abstract of the picture, in my opinion.

I think that the painting is more than just pictures. You have a lot of pictures in your poem, but all art has some semblance of feeling. Maybe a description about what the painting would feel if it could...or what the painter feels and why she decided to "immobilize the world" in that manner.

I'm sorry if my review isn't that helpful.

I really enjoyed this and it's getting a star. Keep up the good work!

Hey June,

I commend your bravery in attempting to write a poem about a Kandinsky painting.

The first stanza suffers from a lack of readibility. Have you tried reading it to yourself? The gap between the semi-colon and the next punctuation mark, the comma, is a breathless race. It's almost impossible to understand. Poetry needs to give its readers a rhythm. Can you imagine a song that just never gave you a breath? It's incomprehensible at this time without some adjustment.

S1 L4: "hill that went down instead of rising up" is clumsy. You could word this better I think. Verisimilitude is an almighty word that stucks out like a sore thumb. I don't think it disrupts the rhythm but it complicates an already long and convoluted 'sentence' as such.

The description itself suffers from stock phrases like "lonely tree" and "blood red." The best advice I ever heard about writing poetry was to create new language, new phrases, because things like "blood red" are so overused they evoke nothing in the reader's mind. You just ignore it. You need fresh language to really engage a reader. I just don't get anything from "cloudless sky." And why are the birds hopeless?

Stanza 2: The line-break transition from Line 1 to 2 is awkward. Hanging tonight on the second line makes it so. Unless you have a reason to break-up a flow like that, avoid it.

"as they synthesized the juncture of her caliber" -- this is probably the most exciting line in the whole piece, even if it is a bit word-heavy.

I like "staggered mosaic" too. I'm not sure "way-out vision in the splintered mirror" really makes sense. It certainly says nothing to me.

I'm not sure what you're trying to say. The 'she' in the poem is hard to grasp (after all, Kandinsky was a man) so I thought it was perhaps a woman interpreting the painting; but she seems to play an active part, it is "her canvas" after all. Did the woman create a different painting to Kandinsky, or one inspired by it? I'd like to see more engagement with the narrator and what she's trying to describe/say.

I like it, June, but right now it's a bit of a muddle. Still, the language you've attempted to use shows talent and potential, but the basic bread and butter of poetry seems to have gone wayward. And it's much better than most poetry on this website (which shows what an awfully difficult skill poetry is.)

Good luck on any revisions.

Hello Juniper!
You do quite beautifully with vocabulary and descriptions. However, when it came to stitching them together for the poem, some things held together; other parts unraveled.

I love big words even if they're almost never engaged anymore. It is a problem, however, if you throw in such marvelous vocabulary merely for the point of graceful syntax. That may not have been your intention, but I can spot a few places where lines felt verbose: that lovely word, verisimilitude, did not seem utilized to full potential. Clarity was also unfortunately missing in places.

Phrases such as "splintered mirror" and "staggered mosaic" are both wonderful, and my mind had a fun time imagining them.

I like Kandinsky's artwork, and you captured his abstract, blistering quality. Excellent job in spite of the (few) problems.

–antimelrose

Hey June! Here is your review, as promised.

For starters, I really really liked your poem. I've already starred this, and I wish you luck in Hannah's contest. There are a few things.

• First, there was one minor spelling error. I think 'washedout' is supposed to be two words, dear.

• What on earth do 'fauvism' and 'verisimilitude' mean? I know you want it to seem like you have a sophisticated vocabulary, but not many know the definitions of said words. Besides, they are a bit too flowery. This is one case where simpler words will do.

• Who is 'she', and how come she's only subtly referenced in the story? Besides starting off each stanza with 'she, we're given almost no reference to her character. I know that this is only a poem, but that doesn't mean that she can't be a strong protagonist. There is a reference at the beginning to 'canvas', possibly suggesting that she could be a painter, but the reader doesn't know if you're using the word in a literal sense or not. 'Canvas' could really suggest the basis for anything that someone creates. Also, the painter idea seems a tad corny. As a reader, I want to know more about her. Subtly is fine, but I think you're being a tad too subtle.

Anyway, June, that was a fantastic piece of artwork, and the painting that you used as inspiration is equally beautiful. I love abstract and modern art. Anyway, see ya!
I hope I don't sound harsh, and again, good luck in the contest! ^^ You get a gold star, missy.

Ta Ta.

Thank you all, so much for the wonderful feedback! Especially Jack; I can now revise this when I get around to it.

At any rate, I think I should explain this a little, especially since it's not in-style with what I usually write.


Although I mention fauvism in the poem, this doesn't have anything to do with the Fauvism art movement. Kandinsky's painting is abstract expressionism, and the poem is supposed to mirror the helter-skelter tone of it.

I understand in the original, it's difficult to decipher what I'm talking about. Up front, it's a painting-- Immobilizing is usually used to refer to when an artist makes something unrealistic, either through surrealism or outlining the lines so that the objects don't appear real.

The washed out streets are a metaphor for roads that were abandoned. Wash out in art is usually used to refer to when you whitewash a canvas and start over, so the washed-out streets are starting over with dreams, you know, all that cliche stuff. Hopeless birds pretty much mirrors the same sort of ordeal; I tried to throw an image of "taking flight" without direction and motivation into it.

Divulging the verisimilitude is a branching together of all of this. In the painting front of this poem, she's using fauvism (in art, like the impression movement, fauvists usually painting objects on the opposite side of the color wheel, for instance green trees red, blue skies yellow, so on, such forth; basically painting things wrong-- the technique is called broken color, hence the title of this poem). Anyway, by fauvism I mean that she's messing the perspective of things up -- talked of fauvism refers to a change.

Verisimilitude refers to the reality of normalcy, and she divulges that by using fauvism, meaning that in the figurative part of this, "She" fixes a "broken" home in her own way, which breaks it even more, hence the fauvism.

The colors in the water is a very weak symbolizing of drastic change. Caliber is more of an English form of "Chi", as in inner strength, (not a gun, for a certain wonderful person who mentioned suicide. ) and the broken mirror is a symbol/reflection of who she was, basically concluding that all of this broke "her" more than it seems.


I hope that clarifies, haha. I'm also aware that this screams cliche after cliche, but I needed something to abstractly express.

June