Jodie’s House

The roof is leaking.
Great, fat drips of water
plummet into the rug and
splash against the tile floor.
Jodie screeches “more, more!”
She stands above the house with
a bowl of water and pours. A
little at a time through a hole she
asked her daddy to drill into the
pink plastic. The little doll’s legs
are soaked as they lie unbending,
helpless. If they were human they
would have turned blue. Maybe
one day Jodie will paint them.
Once, she dropped an ice cube
from the roof. It landed on the
doll’s head and fell on her baby,
knocking him sideways and there
he stays. Jodie named her dolls
Mummy and Brother Bobby.
Her mother sits singing baby Bobby
to sleep in the next room. Jodie
doesn’t have a daddy doll. Daddy
is working. Daddy is always working.
Mummy is always with Bobby. So
Jodie pours and pours.

My favorite Sammattoo,

I haven't read works of yours in quite a while; it's in fact refreshing to see you've writ something.

The problem that I am having here is that you have too many images that you aren't fleshing out, and as a result they're half baked, because I'm not sure where you're going with them.

Here,

Great, fat drips of water

I felt that you only needed one adjective, and you have two, which kind of sets things off kilter in my mind, because they're practically meaning the same thing.

Jodie screeches “more, more!”
She stands above the house with
a bowl of water and pours.

Two very minor nitpicks: I feel that there should be a comma after screeches, and I think that you can connect this first line with the others with "as" after the second more; it's ridiculously silly of me to point those out, I know, but I felt a sense of fragmentariness from things like this throughout the poem that I feel that you can easily tie the ends into something else.

Similarly, I think that you are lacking a lot of substantial description, dearie. See here:

The little doll’s legs
are soaked as they lie unbending,
helpless.

"little" is the only adjective to this doll thus far, and you can tell us more. From "soaked" I incur that this doll has fabric legs, but I don't know? Tell us more, describe the little details in details more than what you're giving us, Mattoosam, because I'm not feeling the inner workings of the poem.

The main problem that I'm having here, though, is the lack of emotion. I feel that because this is about a child, there is so much more you can add. Avenues for imagination with a child are near endless, and this all seems pallid to me, dear, because the sentences are so short and simple that they almost seem cold.


While I think that the outside approach that you've taken here could work, I'm not sure that it's touching the kind of potential that it has. Towards the end when you mention that "Daddy is always working" is a great point for elaboration -- not so that you're blatantly narrating everything that this is founded on, but enough so that we get a better sense of reflection from the girl's daily life interpreted in her playthings, which is what I think makes this poem solid as it is.

Keep writing! You have way more potential than you've let here, and I think you should let it rip.

June

Hey there! I would just like to say that this is quite good!
Simple and direct. XD

Daddy is always working.Mummy is always with Bobby. So Jodie pours and pours.

I couldn't get this part. so, why does Jodie pour and pour? Haha.

But aside from that, this is splendid job.
Keep writing. XD

-KAT <3

Hey Matt Bellamy!

I'd like to day that this was quite interesting! I assume it was through the eyes of a young girl? And that her mother is having an affair while Daddy is working with a man named Bobby? I do hope I'm right. The poem at the beginning was confusing. Why does she pour water? And why does she pour and pour? With that, I leave you.

MWAHAHAHA!
-RepublicOfCoter(ROC)

I'm not really into poetry, but just a little view. I liked this but I agree with June that "this all seems pallid to me, dear, because the sentences are so short and simple that they almost seem cold. "
Good luck
~Lava

Hey Sam!

Good to see poetry from you, haven't read one of yours for a while!

June has hit the nail on the head a couple of times with this. First -- she's right about the short sentences. It's choppy, and it seems distant, like we never really get into the heart of the matter. Second -- the language doesn't present much more than it is, there's very little secondary meaning to each line. I'm not really sure there's any need to point out they're dolls -- I quite liked the idea of the reader comprehending this is childplay, these aren't real, even if her emotions are. I think it was too straightforward in its delivery, too obvious. There was no mystery, which meant it suffered in the second half.

Jodie named her dolls
Mummy and Brother Bobby.
Her mother sits singing baby Bobby
to sleep in the next room. Jodie
doesn’t have a daddy doll. Daddy
is working. Daddy is always working.
Mummy is always with Bobby. So
Jodie pours and pours.

This is the worst bit. All the sentences are about the same length, it's all statements. Jodie did this. Jodie did that. Daddy did this. Daddy is that. Mummy blah blah. It's horrible to read and I think from a poem we expect more! It's too infantile in its construction, to the point where it's no longer representative of a child's view, but it's just annoying.

I did like how your enjambement was like pouring water. Good job. As I read it, I felt like I was being poured onto a house. Whether that's a good thing or not ... haha, I don't know.

This is a pretty solid effort, though, Sam, and with work I think this could be improved, so do another draft!

Cheers,

Jack.

Hey Mattoo!

At some places, the choppy sentences fitted perfectly. At some, however, they became annoying. I think that with everything, less is more, therefore also with the short sentences. With this poem, I like the overall idea and the poem as a whole and what I get out of it, but I just don't like the execution as much as I could. This reminds me again of how much I like narrative poetry, but I think that the ending could've been stronger. The idea is alright, but the wording should be more BAM and less meh.

Something else I was going to say... ah yes. It popped to my mind that it would be wonderful to see this poem with rhymes. It would probably be difficult, but it'd be great to see how it would look like then. I think that rhyming poetry is generally a bit underrated, because rhymes can make a strong effect where it's needed. So that's another reason why the thought is fascinating.

That's all for now!


Demeter
x

Matt! Here as requested. First off I like the idea of this. The way I saw it the dolls were representing Jodie's family and I really liked that. But as Jack and June and the other reviews said there wasn't very much description.

I said that I thought the dolls were showing her family, or how she thought of them. But I didn't know at all how she felt. There were tiny sentences that had some adjectives and then some that had the same adjectives but with a synonym right beside them. Use different words to describe things and that will help a little bit. I kind of get the feeling that Jodie is not paid attention to, that she is left with her dolls while her family is doing other things. There are so many ways you could describe this, so many things you could do. So do them!

I agree with Demi that the short sentences were a good choice at some points and not at others. They reminded me of a little kid but I've noticed that little kids say one tiny thing and then go and ramble about something else. Keep this in mind when you are writing about this especially if you are telling how she feels.

I hope this helped. PM me if you have any questions(:
~peanut~