On the Basis of Friendship

Niiicee I really really like it !! The last stanza was soo cool I can relate myself soo well with this poem don't change a thing !! the part about the shoelaces is sooo sweet !!

When did you stop using poetic language? I miss your old poems. This just seems too conversational.

Good, though I'm with Jack in general your old ones were more classically poetic.

One thing - I think the rhythm in the first stanza could do with some tweaking - my suggestion is to make the second line "at the self-righteous age of five" so that you've got an 8/8 thing going with the first and second.

That's all good stuff.

i, personally, liked it. then again, i also liked your old style better. this means more to me - it makes more sense and fullfills certains passions i can share with you as relating to experiences of lifetimes. but your other poetry, while more flowery, made you go "whoa". it's like...

old: WHOA! IT'S A POEM!
new: wow. i totally know how he's feeling.

yeah. i hope you understood my pathetic comparison.

i loved the beginning, by the way.

Hmm...Brad...differently style showing from the others of yours I've read recently, which is not bad, just different, which is good, okay stopping there, and continuing on...

I agree with Xan on this one, although it is conversational, I relate.

There are a few things that just stop my tongue though, when I read it.

line 1. when I read it aloud, the flow seems choppy, a bit of tongue twister. Maybe - '...my shoes the same way you...'

line 2. 'self-righteousness', the 'ness' also is a tongue stopper, maybe try from something like 'self-righteous stance' or rephrase to 'self-righteous at the age of five,' like Bob said.

line 4. 'up', superfluous, I read it aloud with the 'up' in and with it out, and I would take it out.

I used to have lines
from laughing so hard I had to bend over and spend
five minutes trying to catch my breath.

- some of your early, early stuff I remember had this kind of tone. Love this lines, the imagery is really powerful.

8. the period after 'drove home' makes the lines chopped liver, well maybe not that bad but it not fabulous. Maybe a comma would help the flow, or merge the two sentances to one.

10. Suggestion: making line 10, its own stanza, I feel that it would make it that much more powerful.

13. with 'hands' it seems like there is an extra word. Maybe cut the line down to 'my palms in yours'.

Overall notes...

Despite, all my little crits I have to say I like this. Not as 'classicly poetic' as some of your others as the boys are saying, but certainly not sophmoric.

Hope this helps. CL

I can relate to this really well, and apparently, I'm not alone. I agree with everyone else in that your old work was more classically poetic, and that now it's much easier to relate to. As such, there's not much for me to say here. Awesome.

-*-*--Diana--*-*-

A simple poem, but nice. I liked the way you wrote it, the voice was perfect. i don't know what the above posters mean by "poetic language" but I don't think you get more poetic than this. I have a couple suggestions:

I secretly slipped my palms in your hands.

"I secretly slipped my plams into your hands" is better, I think, because "in" implies that the hands are already there and are slipping, but "into" tells the motion your hands took.

I used to write you lovenotes;
I used to dream of holding your hand.

I know what you're trying to say, here, but...I think it can be said a lot better.

Good job.

I hate the phrase "on a daily basis", because you could say...well, "daily" and have it mean precisely the same thing. I don't care so much in daily conversation, but in poetry, where you're trying to saturate every word, maybe it should just be daily...

fight for the conservation of adverbs!

I also think that "in your self-righteousness of" whatever the hell the rest of the line is is...awkward to read. Not terrible, really, just something that could be worked on.

A sweet and simple poem. As many previously mentioned, a poem many could relate to