Pretty Faces

A poem I wrote about the modeling industry in America. It's a bit disturbing, but very real. Inspired by the documentary, "America the Beautiful." Enjoy!

~~~

Black lace gloves
A face so pale
Radiant clothes
Spiky red shoes
Spotlights shining
Strut down the runway
“Good show, nice work.”
But look in the mirror
See the face they’ve designed
It can’t be you, that’s someone else
You recognize the crying eyes
But everything else
Belongs only to them.
Everyone loves your body
They’re lavish with praise
Skinny hips, long legs, tall frame
They don’t care to notice
The tears sliding down
Breakdowns don’t matter
The mask you wear is good enough
Looking like a million bucks
But feeling like nothing inside
There’s nothing to live for
A face is loved, personality discarded
All that they ask for are smiles and poses
And you give it to them nicely
Packaged up with your lies
Tied with a string of self-doubt
A Christmas alone grants presents like these
No friends around the fire for you
The slut in the mirror will never deserve it.

Hey there Dark Angel! June here!


This poem made me feel so guilty. It speaks so much and certainly carries emotion.


However: This belongs in other poetry; it's rather free form, not very dramatic and has no set structure to it.


The poem goes from short, brief lines to longer, more in depth lines. That doesn't work well for me in this poem.

When I read this aloud, it was very hard to get a steady flow from it. Your line length changes drastically, and that makes it a bit tricky to read.

I believe your lack of punctuation was intentional, but I think that this poem needs a skeleton and bit of punctuation.

Some of your lines begin, and sort of end with nothingness.

The tears sliding down

Breakdowns don’t matter

See what I mean? It's a jump. You go from one line that could have an elaborate point to another where you do the exact same thing.

To speak, it's not dramatic enough. It's rather flat-- which isn't an entirely bad thing.


So! All this poem needs basically is a structure and a bit more detail. Read it aloud as you revise; it will show you what things you need to change. If it can't flow properly when you read it, chances are it's not going to be much better for the reader.


This is more "free-form" so it goes more in other poetry. Nevertheless, a good poem. It did have emotion in it and made me feel guilty .

Good job! Keep it up!

I hope I wasn't too harsh!

xxJune

Black lace gloves

A face so pale

Radiant clothes

High-heeled shoes [this line didn't flow either for me something like "strapless shoes" might though]

Spotlights shining

Strut down the runway [ahh, this line didn't really 'go with the flow'!]

“Good show, nice work.”

But look in the mirror

See the face they’ve designed

It can’t be you, that’s someone else

The crying eyes are yours,

But everything else

Belongs only to them.

Everyone loves your body

They’re lavish with praise

Skinny hips, long legs, tall frame

They don’t care to notice

The tears sliding down

Breakdowns don’t matter [I just didn't like this line.]

The mask you wear is good enough

Looking like a million bucks

But feeling like nothing inside

There’s nothing to live for

A face is loved, personality discarded [I'd change "A" to "Her"]

Smiles and poses are all they ask for [to flow better I'd put: All that they ask for"]

And you give it to them nicely

Packaged up with your lies

Tied with a string of self-doubt

A Christmas alone grants presents like these

No friends around the fire for you

A slut like you will never deserve it.

dark_angel: Overally, the piece is very good. Some tightly knit opinions here! I don't know if the public would like it, and I can't say I necessarily agree with every opinion put out here. I have to say, If I was you I would change the last line because it shows that you too, are prejudice. Not all models are sluts, and not all models are famous at all. Not all models are rich either. My sister did some modeling and only earned maybe a hundred bucks. I feel you emotions steong enough already, and I think your last line is just plain overdoing it. Very nice hook, although I didn't like the fact that you made no punctuation throughout until the last line. I would add just a really, tiny, little bit. I don't know if you noticed this, but the poem in itself was in a sort of "skinny shape", hahaha, ironic. There were some lines I pointed out that didn't flow with the rest of the piece and distracted me. Overally, though a job well done. If you have any questions, concerns, comments or would like me to do another review, please feel free to contact me.
8/10

I know very little about poetry.
Now, with that said, I may share my very uneducated opinion with a clear conscience.
I love it. Mostly, I love the theme. I think that a lot of people don't realize the people behind all those pretty faces on TV and in the magazines and this poem reminds us.
I agree that "not all models are sluts" but I don't think that would have to be taken as the writer's opinion. When I read it, it almost sounded like that was what the model was accusing herself of being a slut.
Isn't it wonderful how writing is so subjective?!

Hey Dark Angel!


You wrote this poem to try to put the reader in the models position, right? To me, it seemed rather bleak. If you want the reader to imagine themselves as a model, you need to give them emotion to work with. Do not just go physical. Go mental. Describe what they are feeling every second, not just what they are wearing or the monotony of it. Give them senses to what is going on.

Almost all models have some sort of eating disorder that makes them not want to eat. Describe how the model goes through that, and also, the pain of plastic surgery. Models go through a lot of pain while trying to make their bodies perfect. Let your readers see that through this poem.

All of line seven is just somebody talking. The only one, in fact, throughout the entire poem. You may want to take that out. It throws the whole poem off balance.

The crying eyes are yours

How about, instead of eyes, why not mention your soul? That is what instantly went through my mind, and that is the only free part of the human existence. It would go great, and sound much better.

Pm me if you have any questions, or if you would like to discuss this poem.

-Prin

P.S. It would be a good idea to not capitalize every beginning to a line, and to add punctuation to this poem.(to add punctuation, just write it out in story format and put in the commas and periods where it seems necessary.)

Hey everybody, thanks so much for commenting! Okay, so I'm going to change a few things here, due to the comments and recent revisions of my own. Again, I much appreciate your inputs! Thank youuu!

~Dark_Angel

It seems insightful, but it still holds a disgusted distance between the reader, the subject and even the faceless character being spoken of.

Very appealing, I'm glad you shot for both Ethos and Pathos in this, very hard to pull off.

Fashion and the culture of borderline self-mutillation is a very common subject but you managed to make this a unique part of the growing critisizm culture.

Very well done, Star.

Exe's and Oh's Eraqio.

I think that you could have gone without an omniscient narrator. It feels as though this model is writing in her diary, not that a poet is taking her diary entry and placing it against an unbiased backdrop.

This model is obviously very self-conscious and perhaps self-loathing, but is that all this is about? What about the other models- the ones who may not feel the hint of guilt that she does, who are so completely overcome by narcissism that this girl can be pitied in comparison.

I just found myself wanting more, but that is not to take away from my certain engagement, interest, and enjoyment from the starting line.

This was really good. I can see where your coming from...I'm a model. It was kind of flat though. I would really want to see more drama put into it.

Tears sliding down

Breakdowns don't matter

This didn't make too much sense. To me it sounded like you can cry all you want but it will never matter. You sound sad, which I guess you were going for. Some little things needed to be changed, but other than that great job!
~ Abigail