Honestly Ugly

Call me "ugly" one more time.
Come on.
I dare you.
I'd rather be hideous than be vain,
Callous and self-absorbed;
Choking on make-up and brand names.
My face is no enemy to you
But your shrill voice
And petty chatter
Insult me like nothing else can.
I doubt you've ever read Shakespeare
Or watched Monty Python.
I doubt you understand politics
Or can unravel metaphors.
Your painted face
Is only a mask.
If I am ugly,
At least I am honest about it;
Unlike you,
Who strut about putting on
False smiles and fake courtesies.
At least I don't pretend to be skinny
And stuff myself into jeans
Two sizes too small.
At least my face,
Made of paper, mud, and pink erasors,
Has never been marred
By powder or gunk.
My ugliness is honesty;
Your prettiness a lie.
I would rather respected for my mind
Than ogled for forged beauty.

Hello Pen!

My ugliness is honesty;
Your prettiness a lie.

Is there anyway you can get away from the -ness words? They sound gross.


I love the meaning behind this poem because it is real, honest, and it is a good message. My problem, however, is that this is an apostrophe, and so it makes it harder for me to relate to. I feel like you're accusing me of all these horrible things, and that make me not want to read it. Instead of pulling your reader in so they can relate to it, you just shouted at me. I know this wasn't your intention, but it's how it worked out. It might work better if you turned "you" into "they" or something, so that you're not sending waves of hate at the reader.

Another problem I have is that you're telling your theme (the last two lines) instead of showing it. Sometimes the form of speaking in poetry works well, and (if I am remembering correctly) you do this a lot and it does work for you, it's a really down to earth style. However, here, it's too accusing and much less poetic. In places it's like your ranting/rambling, not writing poetry. (I love Monty Python, but?) You don't need to take these out, but currently it doesn't work for me. I think it's a great first draft, it just needs to be played with. Who knows, fixing the first problem could save it on its own!

Best of luck!

wow!
i really like this poem.
i could not explain how do i feel as i read it.
it's true, it's good to be ugly than wearing mask and hiding who you are.

Great work!

Hey there Pen! June here!

Suzanne just pointed out what I was going to say. Gah, she took the words out of my mouth. Or fingers.

Made of paper, mud, and pink erasors,

Erasors should be Erasers.

Basically, it's rather free form. There's very little poetic about it, so this belongs in other poetry (I should totally stop saying that, ha ha)

It raises a very good point here; it carries a strong point. You deliver your message clearly and precisely; great job with that.


There's not much to say! Suz pointed out most of that!

Great job, you raise an amazing point.


June

I love the meaning behind this. It's wonderful that you ccan except you as you. I like the imagery, your diction seems a little blane but that can't be helped.
I like how strongly your feeling are expressed, BUT the line seems thin between who you're angry at and who you can contrast with. Is there no one else you can relate to? It's almost like you're isolating yourself. Like you're the only one...But that's not a bad thing when the poems meant to center your emotions. I'm just a bit confused on were your passion burns and were it's at ease.
Nice. ^^ Two thimbs up.

I loved this poem. I mean, absolutely from the bottom of my heart loved it. This poem describes my life to the tee.

Woot for empowering poetry

My advice, summarised, would be that there's some excellent lines that are getting lost in the blah lines, and you'd pack a lot more punch if you streamlined.

Let me try and explain myself...

Call me "ugly" one more time.
Come on.
I dare you.
I'd rather be hideous than be vain,
Callous and self-absorbed;
Choking on make-up and brand names.

There the end line is a really interesting image, but we open with a lot of chatter, something you could here in everyday conversation. If you opened with that last line, pow, we'd be straight in there...

Choking on make up and brand names,
and yet you find the breath to call me ugly

Aaaah, I just love that choking image, I want to run off with it now! Be wary of anything that trips out of your fingers easily. If it just comes to you, it's quite possibly ordinary speech that's obscuring your more beautiful lines.

Take the section where you detail the things she can't do, which implicitly, the narrator can.

I doubt you've ever read Shakespeare
Or watched Monty Python.
I doubt you understand politics
Or can unravel metaphors

I like that it's personal, you get a sense of a real person instead of just a generic "I'm cleverer nuuuuur", but it feels like a bit of a list. So if you streamlined, you'd get more punch. Like "Your pout spouts no Shakespeare, no politics, no poignant metaphors'. Put all your good ideas in one condensed bit of space and your reader is left reeling from the impact. Drag them out and we yawn.

Before I close, I'd just like to say that I love 'Made of paper, mud, and pink erasors'. Not only is the image really strong, but there's a bit of assonanse going on between the paper and erasors, it feels a bit lyrical

So yeah, streamline, make it all fresh, if we've heard it, cut it! Hope that helped

Alrighty! I think I've got enough advice to do a rewrite so, here goes.


Choking on make-up and brand names,
She mouths "ugly" with a whispered breath.
But I'd rather be hideous than be vain,
Callous and self-absorbed.
My face is no enemy to her
But her shrill voice
And petty chatter
Insult me like nothing else can.
She gossips and prattles on,
But there is nothing Shakespearean,
Metaphorical or political.
Her painted face
Is only a mask.
If I am ugly,
At least I am honest about it;
Unlike her,
Strutting about and putting on
False smiles and fake courtesies.
At least I don't pretend to be skinny
And stuff myself into jeans
Two sizes too small.
At least my face,
Made of paper, mud, and pink erasers,
Has never been marred
By powder or gunk.
Men pass by her
And look her up and down.
They wink at her;
Why?
Because she is pretty?
Like a spider,
She draws them in,
Only to catch them in her web.
Her beauty is the lie
For which she is ogled.
But my ugliness (Couldn't seem to think of what to replace that "ness" word with)
Gives way to the respect
That can only be earned with the mind.



Hmm.... I'm not so sure if this works better, what with the whole added middle part. I think that added more show, though.... So let's see what the readers think!

i like it a ton better. i would say its 99% better. very very very well done.

This is very powerful. And it was all throughout the poem, until we hit the VERY last line:

"I would rather respected for my mind

Than ogled for forged beauty."

I think that that is a lovely line, but i don't really think it is the right ending... to me it came out as just talking. I hope I am making sense! I just mean that the flow of your beautiful poem seemed to have trailed off in that last line?
PM if you have any problems with what i said!

I can't wait to read more of your work!!

Hm. I'm not sure which version I like better, actually. The big chunk you added at the end of the second draft--

Men pass by her
And look her up and down.
They wink at her;
Why?
Because she is pretty?
Like a spider,
She draws them in,
Only to catch them in her web.

--changed the focus of the poem and made it more sloppy, I thought. Now, instead of the articulate Shakespeare-literate narrator we had before, we have petty junior-high squabble, and we hit upon the real reason, older than Shakespeare, why people want to be pretty: to attract. I would suggest either taking this part out or re-orienting the poem so that this idea becomes more central to it from the beginning.

I also think the whole spider thing is a little cliche, as is the line about her painted face being just a mask. They've both been said before.

After the opening two lines of the second draft, "but" doesn't seem like the word to move on with. I hear the harsh whisper, and there needs to be a pause while it lingers in the air and the speaker comes out of the shock and move on to the hurt. I like the first two lines a lot; maybe there could be a space between them and the next line?

My favorite line is the "Made of paper, mud, and pink erasors" one, too.

Good work with this, and way to revise! I like it a lot. Keep writing!
-BFG

Although the poem was pretty simple and slightly cliched, you did a good job of expressing the emotions. It was really powerful and when I read it, it was as if I could feel the anger that you've felt.

Well, I have nothing to point out except for this line:

"I would rather respected for my mind"

Are you trying to say that you "would be respected for your mind" or "would rather respect your mind?"

Well, anyway, keep writing, and keep up the good work!

Hey, Explosive I seem to be on a roll for random pieces of work that appear at the top of the screen as yours did, so let's start. xD Hm... I like both versions. I'll do the second one first:

Choking on make-up and brand names,
She mouths "ugly" with a whispered breath.
But I'd rather be hideous than be vain,
Callous and self-absorbed. You have this wonderful voice in your poetry, it's almost as if through words you are truly true <weird phrasing > you do get what I mean though, right? I hope xD
My face is no enemy to her
But her shrill voice
And petty chatter
Insult me like nothing else can.
She gossips and prattles on,
But there is nothing Shakespearean,
Metaphorical or political.
Her painted face
Is only a mask. Really nice thought, I love it. I adore the thought of them having nothing underneath, they're so superficial and shallow. It's very unfair on people who actually possess intellect, and interest.
If I am ugly,
At least I am honest about it;
Unlike her,
Strutting about and putting on
False smiles and fake courtesies.
At least I don't pretend to be skinny
And stuff myself into jeans
Two sizes too small.
At least my face,
Made of paper, mud, and pink erasers, I adore that line!
Has never been marred
By powder or gunk.
Men pass by her D'ya think pass her by would work better? I personally think it reads and flows better, but you might disagree so...
And look her up and down.
They wink at her;
Why?
Because she is pretty?
Like a spider,
She draws them in,
Only to catch them in her web.
Her beauty is the lie
For which she is ogled.
But my ugliness (Couldn't seem to think of what to replace that "ness" word with)
Gives way to the respect
That can only be earned with the mind. I absolutely adore the end, adore it. Only be earned with the mind. It's beautiful, Pen, I love it

Overall:

This is a lovely poem; truly lovely. It's so true. I can tell that you poured your whole heart into this poem, it's heartfelt and wonderful. The truth that this poem possesses is very hard to put into words. I'm probably wrong but what I thought of was this:
The mask
You talked of popularity and false beauty being a mask. What I feel is that a mask signifies not knowing what is underneath. So I thought of it from the reader or viewer's POV, think of it this way. The viewer can't see what's under the mask, so to the viewer there [b]is nothing underneath, so basically a mask means that they possess nothing at all.
Right, that's probably going deep into a poem that is already deep. Confusing, eh?

Anyway, my head kinda hurts from trying to explain that now so sorry if the rest of this review is rubbish.

Your poem held deep meaning, and I love that Of course I try to go even deeper into it and come up with things that probably make no sense This was a lovely poem though, Pen. Well done

~Kirsten
xxx

very nice job editing
liked the poem alot, has alot of meaning and feeling behind it
in the rewrite you addressed its problems very well... and now i don't feel verbally abused
anyway, would be longer, might have been an actual review (O_O)
but, alas, i have run out of time
well done, and keep writing!

-Grimy

Hey I read both poems, and honestly , I disagree with what everybody else said!
I actually prefered the first version of the poem.
I liked the way that it did address me! Because quite honestly I can say that I do judge people on the way that they look, and maybe I don't do it to the extremes as the girl you are describing in the poem does, but I still do. I think that everybody does to be homest. I think that by addressing me also, it gave stronger emotion to the poem, and really really showed your frustration towarda this person.

Call me "ugly" one more time.

Come on.

I dare you.

I like the start of the poem, it grabs the readers attention straight away, I got a feeling of tension in my chest when I read thi, which made me wabt to read more.

I'd rather be hideous than be vain,

Callous and self-absorbed;

Choking on make-up and brand names.

My face is no enemy to you

This stuff is great too, great imagary ect.

But your shrill voice

And petty chatter

Insult me like nothing else can.

I doubt you've ever read Shakespeare especially like this part, it has more effect this way then when you change it i the second version

Or watched Monty Python.

I doubt you understand politics

Or can unravel metaphors.

Your painted face

Is only a mask.

If I am ugly,

At least I am honest about it;

Unlike you,

Who strut about putting on

False smiles and fake courtesies.

At least I don't pretend to be skinny

And stuff myself into jeans

Two sizes too small.

At least my face,

Made of paper, mud, and pink erasors, misspelt eraser

Has never been marred

By powder or gunk.

My ugliness is honesty;

Your prettiness a lie.

I would rather respected for my mind I would rather be

Than ogled for forged beauty.

When you use the word "you" you don't mean you as in me, really you meant "ye".

I think I'ts great!!

In the second poem, I do think it gets slightly confusing.
The part about getting the men caught in the web. Im not sure if that fits in.


And our only 13:) ha ha great work!
It's only my opinion though!. .