Pink Toes in Green Grass

The sun drowns out the words
placed precisely across the page.
They dissappear in the luminous rays,
making the book nothing but black lines
and curves, broken and scattered.
I am unusually aware of my toes.
They're turning pink from the heat,
almost as if they're embarrassed to be
residing among the overgrown blades of grass.
I lay back and close my eyes, instantly
feeling my skin absorb warmth, and though
it turns my face sticky with sweat, it reminds me
of a flannel robe in winter because of
the comfort it brings.
It's summer.
And that's all I need.

Hey there, Alyssa! I saw this on the front page and I thought I'd drop in. ^_^ Hopefully I can be of some assistance. I'm Hannah, by the way. =]

Alright. One of the first things I noticed about this poem was the fact that you put in a few unnecessary words or made some phrases longer that would have benefited from being simple. I've been loving the summer poetry that's been going around lately, but one of the best things about it is how it tends to be more simple because of the oppression from the heat. If you get the poem too stuffy, the heat and the stuffiness overwhelms the reader and then it all ends badly!

Let's see some examples.

They dissappear in the luminous rays,

almost as if they're embarrassed to be

residing among the overgrown blades of grass.

Firstly, you've misspelled disappear, but that's not really important. Okay. In the first example, you're already talking about the sun. WE KNOW that the sun is light, that it's luminous. xD You don't need to point that out, because the reader knows it, and if you DO use it, it's really just a waste of a word. Try to keep a look out for things like that, because if something is obvious and can be assumed, you don't need to waste words describing it.

In the second example, you've used a bunch of bigger words in a small space and it stuffs up the writing, like I said before. 'Residing among'? Can't you just say 'in'? And if you want to describe the grass, maybe put it after the noun, so it reads something like 'almost as if they're embarrassed to be in the grass, overgrown blades -insert action here-'. Describe what the grass does to her toes. How it feels, how it sounds.

Why not focus on this -- the simple grass, or the way the sun distorts some things, rather than defaulting to the well-known feeling of heat. We all know what it's like to get sweaty in the sun. Tell us why YOU need the summer, not why /anyone/ would need the summer. I don't believe that you NEED it by the end of the poem, and I need to believe that for you to earn the right to close the poem the way you do.

I know you have a connection with summer and you just have to bring it out a little more and more specifically, and you'll have a great poem on your hands.

PM me if you have any questions. =D

-Hannah-

alyssa this is good but what is the point of the pink toes?? you jump from talking about a book to talking about your toes. you should focus on either one or the other. it throws off the rythem. like what hannah said before maybe you could also focus on just the book saying how the sun drowns out the words and also i would suggest that you get rid of the grass part. just stay on one topic and flower off of it

I understand what you're trying to get at here, and it's very good, the two previous reviews you have received seem a bit negatie, but it is a really good overall poem, just in need of some polishing and consolidation of the points you make, such as previously mentioned.
But don't get discourgaed!! this is really quite clever, and appropriate and I like it

Hey guys! Thanks for the reviews! The toes were pink because they were getting sunburned, and the reason I talked about more than one concept was because they were all part of the same thing. The narrator was sitting outside reading a book, and these were all things that were going on. Yes, I could have said 'in', but that's just not very poetic, is it? Anyways, I hope that cleared some stuff up