Do You Remember the Garden?

OK, I really don't know what to think of this. Some parts I like, but I kind of just wrote this so I'm not sure if I like the whole thing... I'll definitely be changing things around. I'd love any and all constructive criticism! I was inspired by the Sylvia Plath quote "I am dead to them, even though I once flowered."


Do you remember the garden?
How the petals never fell, never crumpled,
And how the stems never gave in,
Never snapped from the pressure
When the wind tested their strength.

But then winter ran its fingers through our hair
And tucked the world to bed.
The flowers succumbed to the cold
And never thawed from the ice.
They forgot how to grow.

No one knows how it started,
How the flowers began to question their beauty,
And now they deny they were ever pretty at all.
They want to rip away the inadequacy they feel
To their common descriptions.

Was it a catharsis,
Or a terrible numbness
When the soil was made pure of visitors footsteps?
Flowers stowed away their pollen, folded up their petals,
And still they waited for someone to pluck them from the earth.

So now you step over the wilted mess of a girl
And don't notice the dirt in her eyes.
It stings, it makes her cry,
The parasites got to her mind.
Why don't you to unearth her roots?

Why don't you remember the garden?

The poem was well thought out. You used amazing imagery. The poem came to life and when you mentioned winter in the poem I saw the garden die down.

Hey
This is really, really beautiful. It has this earthy simplicity to it and yet there's the constant metaphor of the girl being the flower which makes it simply complex. So apart from the fact that it really is very good here's some constructive criticism:
I'm not sure on the image of petals shattering, to me its just a bit too big of a jump. I mean petals can wither or perhaps even crumble but shattering? I think you just need to find a better word there. I don't really get these two lines :

They want to rip away the inadequacy they feel
To their textbook caption.

I don't think you should try to bring in another element like a textbook here, i think you should keep it to the garden, simple and natural references. Other than that it really is perfect! I'll tell you the parts i really, really like (as opposed to just really liking).

And how the stems never gave in,
Never snapped from the pressure
When the wind tested their strength.

But then winter ran its fingers through our hair
And tucked the earth to bed.

They forgot how to grow.

So now you step over the wilted mess of a girl
And don't notice the dirt in her eyes.
It stings, it makes her cry,
The parasites got to her mind.
Why don't you to unearth her roots?

Why don't you remember the garden?

The sinister and anxious qualities to the last bit really made an intense ending that contrasted greatly to the rest of the beautiful flower imagery of the poem.
Reading it again i realises that the flower=girl metaphor really works from the very beginning so well done! keep writing because your really good!!

Hi,

You have some lovely images here. The opening question instantly drew me in. I'd change "never shattered" because I don't think "shattered" and "petals" work together without further explanation - I can't imagine how petals would shatter, and it seems out of place.

I like "tucked the earth to bed" and "They forgot how to grow."

I think stanzas three and four need another look. They too directly explain the meaning to the reader (for example:

"No one knows how it started,
How the flowers began to question their beauty,
And now they deny they were ever pretty at all.
They want to rip away the inadequacy they feel".)

I think it would work better if you didn't tell the reader that the flowers are questioning their beauty and denying it, but showed them instead. How do the flowers look, move and grow, that would suggest this without you having to say it directly? The girl is brought in too late. I'd cut her out or bring her in earlier.

The final isolated question works well.

Hope this helps,

Jas

Thanks! Yeah, I wasn't sure why I used shattered now that I think about it, but crumpled works a lot better! I changed textbooks, too.
I'll definitely work on the other parts you suggested as well!

I love your imagery! You just exactly described what a girl feels. It is simple but full of life and meaning! I won't criticize your work anymore since I can sense no error at all Keep it up!

Well done! Great imagery and voice! Your twist ending was truly magical! I can not believe I am saying this to this incredible poem but more contrast! REally allow the reader to feel the passion and miracle in a flowers bloom. Then get them hurt and frustrated at how they are frozen, lost and have given up. This will make your ending even more of a punch! Incredible idea and you are really talented!

Hello!

I think this is the start of a truly beautiful piece, especially the first three (or two) stanzas left me breathless. The wind 'tucking the world to bed' and the flowers that 'never thawed from the ice' and the winter who 'ran its fingers through our hair' made for powerful pictures of the lyric universe. In my opinion even the line 'How the flowers began to question their beauty' is fine, even more as you repeat the adverb 'how' and it keeps the reader interested, like entering a story over and over again. The problem, I believe, starts when you describe in too much details the possible causes of the flowers' transformation: 'catharsis', 'numbness' and then their resignation. That particular stanza would improve if you kept the lines a little more verb-free and maybe just leave the emotions as they are: 'catharsis' , 'numbness' and so on.

Also, in my opinion, you could leave out the girl or at least place her somewhere else as someone has already mentioned above. It's as if you're asking the reader to go from a world of metaphor and wonder, to the reality, simultaneously teaching him a morality lesson: to look deeper in the eyes of his fellow human. The message in itself is wonderful, but failed to incense me to actually do so. The title already suggests what the last stanza is saying and you could develop it with a little subtlety towards the end of the poem. After all, no magician reveals its tricks, right?

I hope I wasn't too harsh.. I really did like your poem. Keep up the wonderful writing!

Awesome and no problems, now your poem is as pretty and sad as a forlorn flower. Haha ok I know that's lame. Anyway good job

Poetry. Yes. I can do poetry.

Either way, Walker here with a review as requested! Thought I would give all three reviews in one fell swoop.

In any case, lets break this down!

The first thing I noticed about this piece with the nature imagery. As much as its a pretty thought and an interesting way of explaining things metaphorically, natural imagery is also very overdone. Simply speaking, using such a topic can be almost a death sentence to any piece if done incorrectly or rather unoriginal. This is unfortunate because the topic you wrote about is also a bit on the cliche side so partnering the two up might not have been the greatest of ideas.

But I digress.

Either way, the imagery was thick but the topic was weak. From the first stanza, we get this idea of strength. Of the beauty in trying even if futile. I love that image and I love the idea of it but almost immediately afterwards, you pull out the stanza about crumbling and failing. You bring it up merely to break it down without any real digression. In that, we get dropped too quickly and it leaves the reader unsatisfied.

This brings me to my next statement. I think you should take the two first stanza's out completely. You have a good start with the last three. In fact, you may actually have a full poem with simply the last three. The first two stanza's are far from necessary.

From this point on, my review surrounds around those last three stanzas.

Stanza 1[/]:

No one knows how it started,
How the flowers began to question their beauty,
And now they deny they were ever pretty at all.
They want to rip away the inadequacy they feel
To their common descriptions.

The first two lines are strong, which I like, but the third line starts to confuse it a bit with the diction you chose. So, what I'm going to say is instead of having the 'And now', change it to 'or why'. Then you follow up with a line which is... decent, and then the last line which I don't care for at all. They believe themselves inadequate but no one has given them a common description. When one thinks of flowers, the initial thought process is beautiful.

[i]Stanza 2:

Was it a catharsis,
Or a terrible numbness
When the soil was made pure of visitors footsteps?
Flowers stowed away their pollen, folded up their petals,
And waited alone for someone to pluck them from the earth.

The two first lines are interesting and lead up to a thought which would be interesting. That is, until you put the thought across in the third line. This one, right off the bat looks like you were trying to make a poetic sounding line without really caring if it mean't anything at all, which it doesn't appear to have. I'm not too sure what type of imagery you wished to pose by saying the soil purified itself from the sound of footsteps, but it didn't quite make much sense to me.

The line after that, we get an interesting description of what the flowers did, yet the line after counters it. No one picks flowers that are closed up. They want to blooms. The beautiful ones. Maybe that's just me, though.

Stanza 3:

So now you step over the wilted mess of a girl
And don't notice the dirt in her eyes.
It stings, it makes her cry,
The parasites got to her mind.
Why don't you to unearth her roots?

Why don't you remember the garden?

This part didn't make much sense. You start off with flower imagery, then speak of a girl. And the thing is, if this girl believed herself nothing, why should she expected everyone else to think something of her? She closed herself off from the world. They world shouldn't be the one to have to pick her up. She should have to do it for herself. That being said, I'm not quite sure what you were trying to prove with this last bit.

Overall:

This was kind of all over the place. In an act of creating imagery and metaphor, you didn't stick to a certain topic. Instead, you jumped between different ideas which left me rather confused.

Of course, I liked the fact you attempted metaphor and imagery. That was a breathe of fresh-air, which is nice in any case. So I give you props for that. That being said, there is still room for you to grow as a poet and as a writer and I can't wait to see the day when that happens. You're on your way.

~Walker