Rescue

Spoiler

Based off a girl I know

In your strange land, the place known as the neighbor’s backyard,
You’d be laughing wild for no reason, hair flowing like copper wave as you ran, to catch the up with the air.
You fought the dragons, the pirates, the aliens and ghosts…the ones that no one else could see.
Your friends…didn’t get you, with your smile and your laugh,
and…you didn’t care, for you knew
every new day, was a storybook; they could never be changed…


The days grew older, you stumbling along.
You moved around a lot, to the desert, the sea.
You sometimes felt depressed…when you left…but you always made the most of every new “fairytale”
Back then, the world felt like it was given to you…for fun.
You’d pick pedals off flowers and watch them fly
if anyone teased you, asking if you were seeing who your lover was,
you’d simply, blow the rest of them into their eyes.


School was always boring, so you’d spend your time sending rockets into space…
and to the right of the paper’s margin…lied the moon.
You were made fun of, for not being like a “girl”
Still fighting monsters in the sea, shooting glass bottles with a slingshot.
You were more like a knight than a damsel in distress…well,
a knight who could run in a dress.


Something happened, a little bit later,
you fell in love…well, don’t we all?
Then some force of nature made you look in the mirror,
and you thought that “This wouldn’t do at all.”
So you gave up the adventures, with a plan in mind:
Maybe you should try, to be a bit…well, easier to understand.
You put down your book on dragons and wire rimmed glasses,
experimented with your looks, wore makeup, oh, how you had changed.
You abandoned your armor, cut your hair, hid your soul.
Became the “serious girl”
Left the world you knew behind…but I don’t think you’re gone just yet,
just waiting at the Gates of Despair…


You’re here now, and you ran out of books to read, so I guess your free for awhile.
You don’t see a Prince Charming anytime soon,
at least logic has proved you that.
So bring a book on dragons, and your old, dusty sword.
Let’s, anywhere…the forest, the mountains, even the park;
Let’s go be knights like in the good old days, and this time…were going to rescue you…

This is a sad but beautiful story. Unfortunately, as of right now, this is simply that. A beautiful story. A piece of poetry? I wouldn't rightly say so.

That being said, lets break this down a bit. Really try to polish it up.

The first thing I noticed about this piece was the size of the lines. They were giant, like sentences which didn't flow at all well. Too much of a mouthful, really, which took away from the overall feel that this poem could give. So, that being said, start creating a structure. At this point in time, it appears to be an interestingly plotted piece of prose.

The next thing I noticed was the overuse of ellipses. Now, I hate ellipses to begin with especially in prose. There is absolutely no need nor use in having them in poetry at all, so having them merely makes one drag their thoughts on and on to a certain point that does not need to be dragged. Poetry should be clean. It should be spent getting your point across in the precious little space you have.

That being said, this looks like a story, but not a poem.

What I want you to do from this point on is to trim this down majorly. Keep some of those beautiful images of the girl fighting dragons and pirates but don't explain yourself. Don't go back and say 'that only she could see' because the beauty of poetry is that you don't need to go back and explain yourself. The imagery already does that for you and the reader is willing to take a bit more time to dissect each words for the meaning. So having a poem of this length is a bit... extreme.

By the end of the poem, you start getting rather blunt. Stating what happened instead of being pretty with it. This takes away from the fact that you're trying to put a piece of something good and any chance of originality goes down the drain. Being blunt will get you nowhere. Subtlety is key.

Other than that, I love the idea. Very cute and it reminds me of the sadness of growing up. Of letting childish ambitions go. Its an unfortunate point in our lives - crossing that line into adulthood - but then again, some of us don't. I suppose that's why they call us writers, dreamers.

You've got some work to do but, other than that, this was cute. More narrative than other, but cute nonetheless.

~Walker

Thank you for the review! I really appreciate you to took the time to read the poem. However, I wrote the poem this way for certain reasons.

First, there really is no write or wrong way to write poetry. (okay, if you have grammatical errors, or don't follow a pattern, yes it's wrong)

I see where your coming from, but what I also see that the only problem you point out is the style, and how it's not " a real poem" because it doesn't meet "standard requirements"

On young writers society, I notice most poets write short, easy quick to read poems, and I find them boring, shallow, and just plain cliche. We've seen normal, rhyming poems. We've read short, simple poems. Now it's time to start writing large, complex poems.

You're write. This is a story. But that doesn't mean it's not a poem. The problem with your argument is, you went into this expecting to read what you consider a poem, but because this isn't the normal poem your normally see, you think it's not a poem. Keep an open mind when reading poetry, or creative literature in general. Theirs a reason why it's called creative literature after all, and that's to experiment, to have no limits, to be creative, to create stories and build worlds.

And, to be the ones to create new styles. Their are many forms of poetry out there that you probably wouldn't ever consider poetry. For example, slam poetry; you would never think it's a poetry. (and if you don't know what it is, look it up on google)

Poetry, in my eyes, is simply a piece of writing that doesn't need or isn't written in the proper English format. And that's what my story - my poem - does.

Don't get me wrong. ^_^ you had good intentions. And it's a beautiful thing that we each like to write and read things in our own way and form. I just honestly don't see what's the big deal about how I wrote it. I don't see what I did that was "wrong".

I like this poem. It was like a short story/ poem type of thing. Some lines were a little too long I think, which can be shortened. Also in the beginning there were a lot of dot dot dots. ... I think those didn't need to be put in.

But I liked the story you had here. It was really interesting and I think this a story that needs to be told more often, to certain people. I think you did a good job at how you wrote it, and I really love your writing style!

Deanie x