The Girl Who Wore Men's Cologne

Well, the girl who wore men's cologne certainly sounds intriguing, and I was fascinated by her all throughout the poem. I have little experience with different forms, but I am familiar enough with the pantoum to question if that was the perfect form to use - the repetition makes it difficult to throw in extra details about her without ending up with a rather large poem. I would have liked to have known a bit more about her, and I felt the repetition of the cologne idea was a bit shallow - but that's understandable since cologne is an external quality of hers as opposed to an internal one.

Okay, repetition aside, the way the poem was all bopped over to the right was interesting too. It was hard to read, since I'm not used to it, but I wanted to make the effort, just because it was something I hadn't seen before. But at the end of it, I felt like the poem just swept right over my head and that I remembered nothing of it, possibly because I was focussing so much on trying to read it properly that none of it ended up sinking in!

I liked the ideas behind the following lines:

I swear it has something to do with the men's cologne that clings to her throat

Yeah, okay, so it was a bit long, and the ame thing could have been said in less words, but the 'I swear it has...' gave me the immediate voice of the character, a sort of head-shaking disbelief and incredulity at the girl.

Oh, how I admire from afar the girl who wears men's cologne

There's something a tad clunky about this too, but I like the idea behind it - the narrator 'admiring her from afar' - which is something almost everyone does; watches other people from a distance and notes their every little detail.

Instinctively I wonder: does her parents know?
Does she keep the cologne in sight on a night stand or perhaps hidden away in a drawer, away from view.

Note: first line in above should read - 'do her parents know?' But this is intimate as well, and here the narrator asks something I had not actually thought about. Which explains why the 'instinctively' bit made little sense - but that may also have been since I had no indication of how old the girl actually was . The girl actually seems like she might be a teenager - or a tween - from the way you say 'fusing the charm of musk and the artificial boldness,' which are rather mature sounding ways to describe her.

Yet I stand here, wondering about the girl who wore men's cologne

Not a brilliant ender, but the idea is again sweet - the narrator standing there, cologne-struck and curious.

The following are lines that were either a bit cliche or just too commonly heard:

It's so very cool

For a really perceptive and insightful narrator, who throws up astute questions about the secrecy of her wearing cologne and makes rather sharp comments about her as well, this line came across as a fake - didn't fit in with the type of narrator you had.

Causing me to stand there - dumb struck

The way you repeat 'how I admire from afar' makes me picture the narrator standing there, gazing at her, lost in thought. The 'dumbstruck' is really unecessary, since it adds nothing to what you've already implied.

Laughing at a joke that I must've not heard.

This poem is anything but cliche - it is original and quirky - but this above line WAS cliche, and looks horribly out of place. Change it.

She's gone.

While this wasn't exactly cliche, I'm sure you could have been a little more inventive than that.

Anyway, a delightful read. I would have liked to have seen the details in bold above surface in the poem as well; it would have added such an awesome flavour to the girl (ebony designer pants, charming vest, and all the rest of it!) as well as the narrator ('part of me thought her to be a cowboy...'). Hope that helped. If you have any questions, feel free to PM me, okay?

Hi there! I thought that I would stop in and give this a quick review.

So, you have an interesting concept and subject matter here, and I rather like that. Expand on it a bit further, and you ought not have any kind of problem with it. What is really weighing this poem down, in my opinion, is really your formatting. You may not think that it really matters, but with poetry even formatting can make a difference. Unless you're deliberately wanting to obscure what you're saying in order to secretly say something else, I would suggest that you format this normally so that we can all follow along easier. Then we can see what you have to say quite clearly, and more enjoyment shall be derived from it. PM me if you have any questions or comments.

Good job, and good luck.

-Conrad Rice

Thanks for your reviews on The Fox and the Prince.

First thing: I'm wondering why you chose to right-align this poem. It's rather unusual, and I don't see a clear reason for it in the poem unless you did it to catch your readers off-balance like how the girl wearing men's cologne caught you off-balance.

It's so very cool how she attracts people.
I swear it has something to do with the men's cologne that clings to her throat,
Fusing the charm of musk and the artificial boldness of cologne.
Oh, how I admire from afar the girl who wears men's cologne.

Your use of the word "cologne" is too repetitious. Three times in three adjacent lines - there's not enough space in between them, and you don't use cologne in a different way. This makes the mentions of cologne a bit overpowering and uninteresting.

I swear it has something to do with the men's cologne that clings to her throat,
Oh, how I admire from afar the girl who wears men's cologne.
Instinctively I wonder: does do her parents know?
Does she keep the cologne in sight on a night stand or perhaps hidden away in a drawer, away from view.

I really think this stanza could benefit from streamlining. Cologne aside, you've also got a redundant "away" and some adverbs that really aren't necessary. Adverbs more often than not weaken your writing, especially when writing poetry.

Also, though I know it's part of the form, the repetition of the first two lines from the previous stanza struck me as too repetitious. They are not presented in a new light or a different context. They mean exactly what they meant in the first stanza, and that is a bit boring.

Oh, how I admire from afar the girl who wears men's cologne.
Does she keep the cologne in sight on a night stand or perhaps hidden in a drawer, away from view.
It makes me wonder if she's the only one of her kind.
Causing me to stand there - dumbstruck - as she twirls curly locks of her bay hair., laughing at a joke that I must've not heard.

The fourth line is just ridiculously long compared to all the other lines in the poem, even considering the irregular line lengths. It's so long that the text wraps to form a second line on my screen, so I didn' realize at first that it was one line. It's also not punctuated properly. I suggest breaking the line at "laughing" and moving the second half to the final stanza. You can break stanzas in the middle of a sentence.

I can imagine it now,
Fusing the charm of musk and the artificial boldness of cologne.
She's gone.
Yet I stand here, wondering about the girl who wore men's cologne.

The first two lines make no coherent sense together.

Overall, I think this poem would benefit from more even line lengths and restructuring so that the repeated lines don't feel so redundant and repetitious. Streamlining your word choice would help with this. I think this poem would also benefit from a more conventional left-alignment to make it more accessible to readers. Also, keeping a closer eye out for grammar and spelling would not be remiss.

It's a start, and the subject is a good, solid one. I just think it could be handled better. But that's what drafts are for. :P