(Untitled)

So I haven't posted anything on here in 2 and a half years, so... hi everyone! My friend Maggie got me back here so here we go. This is just something I wrote last night after I was browsing through a book of poetry and feeling poetic. I'm not sure of a title as of yet...perhaps it will be untitled? (There are a few parts I'm unsure of.)

You
Nap in your favorite corner
Curled into a ball of linty
Stuff
Long bony nose dripping
The occasional sweet cold
Drop

One ear twitches at a car outside;
One eye opens--

Then shuts.

Bare smooth purple skin
To cold air, hoping
Some hand will come
Smooth the tufts around
The edges
And you are not worried:

About gas prices or
Test scores; with
A pummel through tall grass
You can achieve what we never can
And fly.

I know
That I will never rest the way you do

'Cause you escaped
The pounding headache
In the genetic code

Stretched out long
Each muscle extended
You can touch both oceans
While I can only wish
& talk & write poetry
About it.

A wooly ball
Of sleep and some
Long gurgly moans &
Hums;
Not concerned with
The swine flu or
The bits of dirt collecting in the corner of your eyes

You sleep deeply
As I never will.

Hey Julia,

I'm not going to do any intense line-by-line reviewing, because I honestly have no clue what I'm doing as far as poetry. But, I will say that I did like this a lot. When you told me you wrote a poem about your dog, I assumed it would be able how she's silly and how she looks etc. but though this included some of that too, it was more about what being a dog is like vs. being a person, which is always kind of interesting to think about.

I like several lines you have in here too:

You sleep deeply

As I never will.

Long bony nose dripping

The occasional sweet cold

Drop

Stretched out long

Each muscle extended

You can touch both oceans

But,

Bare smooth purple skin

I want to point out that I understand this because I've met Muncie...but other people might not. It kinda sounds like you have a freaky mutant animal Haha.

You can achieve what we never can
And fly.

Did you mean, can't?

'Cause you escaped

The pounding headache

I think I know what you're getting at, but it doesn't really make sense.


Overall, great! You've definitely got a bit of a poet in you Julia! Hopefully you'll keep writing them and posting them for me to read!

-Maggie

wasitadream? wrote:
You
Nap in your favorite corner,
Curled into a ball of linty
Stuff; 'Stuff' is such a vague word, especially in poetry, where every word matters. I'd change this to something more concrete.
Long bony nose dripping
The occasional sweet cold
Drop.

One ear twitches at a car outside;
One eye opens-- I don't particularly like the hyphens here. Maybe just a comma.

Then shuts.

Bare smooth purple skin
To cold air, hoping
Some hand will come
Smooth the tufts around
The edges.
And you are not worried:

About gas prices or
Test scores; with
A pummel through tall grass
You can achieve what we never can
And fly.

I know
That I will never rest the way you do,

'Cause you escaped This whole part confused me. Pounding headache in the genetic code? Huh? Maybe clarify this.
The pounding headache
In the genetic code.

Stretched out long,
Each muscle extended,
You can touch both oceans
While I can only wish
& talk & write poetry
About it.

A wooly ball
Of sleep and some
Long gurgly moans &
Hums;
Not concerned with
The swine flu or The mention of swine flu here seems out of place to me, because then you go on to say something more specific about the dirt in its eyes, so maybe another specific thing would work.
The bits of dirt collecting in the corner of your eyes.

You sleep deeply
As I never will.

This poem has fantastic flow, and is written very well, but it needs some work still. First off, you left out a lot of punctuation, which I added in bold above. I also made some notes on certain parts that were a bit off, so consider changing those. I also think that a lot of your poem is divided up too strangely, especially the first stanza. I dislike the single, disjointed words, because when stanzas are broken into lines, and when single words are left alone in poetry, it is usually for emphasis on that word or part, but the parts you isolated don't seem to need an specific emphasis. I'd just put the first stanza without any singled out words, and it would read easier.

Now, about the subject of this poem. At first, I though you were talking about a cat or some other small creature, but then you started to talk about smooth purple skin, which didn't make sense with that image, and I was even more confused with the "headache in the genetic code" part. I read the review above mine, and they said you were talking about a dog, but again, some parts of the poem don't seem to fit that image. Readers can easily get confused (or it might just be me ) so make sure the images you use stay constant with what you are talking about.

This poem has some great imagery, and some great potential. Keep writing!