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Hmm. I like it. It's sort of like a little revolution of happiness, but then it was subdued, but you never know when it'll happen again. It made me smile as I was reading it.
Maybe it's just me, but the first letter of each line in a poem is usually capitalized. Also, I found it a tad bit choppy. But overall, great job!

Hey there Sarah

They told us to look

away from the flames,

to ignore showering silver

and mandarin green settling

on our eyelashes.

But we didn’t.
I adore that stanza, it's so beautiful. I just love it!


Instead we fought with explosion debris,

unfurled our tongues to the sky,
That sentence made me laugh until I cried. It's so good Sarah x
grabbed handfuls of powder-puff pink,

our collarbones smeared

with glittering soot. The dog

rolling around in ruby red ash.
Hahah I love this poem


Everywhere the urge

to write, to sweep away dirt with

slick little fingers.

To message the dead and the living. The lost

found themselves with us,

sledging through metallic drifts. Laughing.

Raiding the orchard for apples,

charred, sweetened.
I completely adore that stanza Sarah. I am being deadly serious here, I loved it!


Until they hosed down telegraph poles,

scooped out sodden mud, viscera

from gutters. Scrubbed our faces raw.

We went back to looking away.

The only sign; shimmering dust

whenever a hand stretched out

to ruffle our heads.



[/i]Ok Sarah, I absolutely loved this poem with all my heart. It's so beautiful and random at the same time, how Sarah? How?! Please make a mistake, a tiny tiny one I utterly adore your poetry. It's charming, a pleasure to read.
-Kirsten xxx

I'm back from lunch.

They told us to look

away from the flames,

I like your use of lines here. Having the image completed on the second line highlights the idea of a person taking the time to look away from the flames.

to ignore showering silver

and mandarin green settling

What's the purpose of having the alliteration "showering silver"? Alliteration is used when a poet wants to link ideas or images together or for the aural effect of repetition (eg: a gun being fired). Also, what is "mandarin green". Keep imagery more concrete, abstract thoughts only detracts from the overall purpose of the poem being expressed.

Instead we fought with explosion debris,

unfurled our tongues to the sky,

grabbed handfuls of powder-puff pink,

our collarbones smeared

with glittering soot. The dog

rolling around in ruby red ash.

If the narrator and company were fighting with explosive debris, then I should be able to picture a struggle and the sense of danger and rush of adrenaline. I don't get it here, because your rhythm scheme here is too calm. You need to use words with shorter vowel sounds and hard consonants to give it that aural effect. Your imagery here is just nonsense. Why would you want to unfurl your tongues to the sky in such an incident? To grab stuff? Why would the dog roll around in the ash?

Everywhere the urge

to write, to sweep away dirt with

slick little fingers.

To message the dead and the living. The lost

found themselves with us,

sledging through metallic drifts. Laughing.

Raiding the orchard for apples,

charred, sweetened.

Again, some more nonsense imagery. Who in their right minds would sweep away dirt with slick little fingers? That's why we have scoop up trucks. How does one message the dead and the living? What does an orchard have to do with an explosion at a glitter factory?

Until they hosed down telegraph poles,

scooped out sodden mud, viscera

from gutters. Scrubbed our faces raw.

We went back to looking away.

The only sign; shimmering dust

whenever a hand stretched out

to ruffle our heads.

Your imagery here is more concrete, but what purpose does this fulfill? What are you trying to express here?

Overall impressions:

What significance does this poem have? I was expecting the theme of the poem to be about grief and loss due to the title of the poem, but here, I can vaguely see it. A big contributing factor to this is that your imagery doesn't make any sense in terms of its literal meaning. You can't expect the poem to have depth in it if the literal meaning is lost. Right now, I feel as though I'm trying to analyse nonsense.

Your second stanza contradicts with the rest of the poem. It is too carefree and happy, whereas the rest seem more serious in tone (you even mentioned something about messaging the dead and the living in the third stanza, suggesting the idea that some people have died in the explosion). But think about it: Imagine a glitter factory has exploded somewhere in the world. Would people admire the glitter that's flying around everywhere or grief for the lives that are lost in the explosion? Most likely the latter.

Hence, the second stanza really annoyed me. It seemed as though the narrator would care about something as superficial as glitter more than the lost of human lives.

Please keep your imagery more concrete so that the audience actually understand the significance of your poem. Your other poem "Paper Dolls" takes into consideration of its literal meaning which is why I was able to get the theme/idea of that poem.

Good luck.

Andy.

CastlesInTheSky wrote:Explosion at the Glitter Factory

They told us to look
away from the flames,
to ignore showering silver
and mandarin green settling
on our eyelashes.
But we didn’t.

Instead we fought with explosion debris,
unfurled our tongues to the sky,
grabbed handfuls of powder-puff pink,
our collarbones smeared
with glittering soot. The dog
rolling around in ruby red ash.

Everywhere the urge
to write, to sweep away dirt with
slick little fingers.
To message the dead and the living. The lost
found themselves with us,
sledging through metallic drifts. Laughing.
Raiding the orchard for apples,
charred, sweetened.

Until they hosed down telegraph poles,
scooped out sodden mud, viscera
from gutters. Scrubbed our faces raw.
We went back to looking away.
The only sign; shimmering dust
whenever a hand stretched out
to ruffle our heads.

Wow... that was brilliant. It was great, because it was almost unusual in a sense, but that's good because we're tired of the same type of poetry on the same type of subjects... this was different and well written. I love how vague the "glitter" is. At first it has a joyful air to it, almost like they are celebrating something. It's really, really good... and I want to ask your permission to frame this and put it on my wall?

I love this... it's just perfect! It made me smile as I read through it.

June =)

I liked it, but I can't say it was perfect. I agree with many points that Squall made, and think that most of it was pointless.
However, many readers enjoy such things. (i.e. this poem made me think of the works of Lewis Carroll)
Try to make more sense of your poetry, and if not, then nonsense poetry is fine too (again, think Lewis Carroll) but try not to stray to far from your original idea.

Keep up the good work.


*anti-pop

I am a deep lover for randomess. Glitter does make everything better, doesn't it? The poem goes from happy and joyful to moody and depressed. Reminds me of kindergarten when we decorated with glitter untill the teacher told us art time was over.

Thankyou to everyone who read! You're all stars.

Hey!

I saw this floatin' around and I thought that I should check it out.

Hmm, I have a love/don't like relationship with this poem. I am all for the majestic and odd poems but this was infested with sugary sweets. Sometimes, you must render your urge to indulge and eat only the meaningful stuff. As Squall asked, what is the significance of this poem? Sure it can mean a lot of things, but what does it mean to you? If you portray that in this poem, then I think this can be greater then it already is.

Favorite Stanza:

They told us to look
away from the flames,
to ignore showering silver
and mandarin green settling
on our eyelashes.
But we didn’t.

This is a good way to start off a poem. Try to build from this instead of going all over the place.

Keep writing,

~Angel

I loved it!

As always I don't have anything constructive to say because I'm not really a poet but I thought I would let you know that I read it and loved it. I always like to know when someone enjoys my work

You get a gold star!

Merry Christmas!

Sofi.

*LOCKED*

Plagiarism.