In the Boxes Under the Bed

you captured All
then it faded, twisted.
shades of blue, old
borrowed and new.

it's been forgotten,
found and shifted around
in the boxes under the bed,
moments in convenient compartments.


eyes close,
breathe in, breathe out
wrapped up in warm arms;
click, shutter, snap.

sleep, quiet snores,
soft face, little hand,
grasp.
click, shutter, snap.


filtered finely by dust
in a sun burnt haze
fingers, buttons,
jacket,
All.


----

Edit: okay I've change a few things now. I'm still going to think about what I've edited and go over the second part of the first stanza.

Hi there, Weare!

wearebright wrote:you captured All
then it faded, twisted.
black, gray, bits of blue
there's yellow too.

I sort of like the capitalized "All" it makes it more intriguing and allows the reader to really stop and think about the part. I don't know whether I should say this, but had the A been lowercase, I probably would've just kept reading without really paying attention to the "All". Now I have different theories about what the "All" is, whereas if it had not been capitalized, it would've struck to me as vague and not something enough. It's quite amazing what a little letter can do. Or in this case, big letter, heh.

I don't like that much how you say "bits of blue" – to me it sounds a little awkward despite the alliteration Do you think "shades of blue" could fit what you're reaching for? I think that would sound better. Also, the last line of the stanza is vague and it seems like you've taken a shortcut there. Since the rest of the poem doesn't rhyme, I don't think you need to push the rhyme in the first stanza, while you could reword the last line and make it more expressive without the unneeded rhyme.

its been forgotten,
found and shifted around
in the boxes under the bed,
moments in convenient squares.

Remember the apostrophe in "it's". You aimed for "it has", not the genetive form of "it", didn't you? Okay, so I actually realised just now that you have a little rhyme there in the second line, however, I don't know whether it's intentional and I still stand behind what I said about the last stanza.

Hmm, the fact this is about boxes makes me wonder whether you meant "cubes" instead of "squares" in the last line. I have to say I don't know if the word convenient is the best choice for this, but I still want you to keep it because I absolutely love that with the preposition before it it morphs into "inconvenient". I think it's brilliant, because it's sort of cunning and again, allows the reader to think with their own brain and not to cling too much to the words. It gives us the feeling that everything might not be exactly the way it seems – and this reminds me of Twin Peaks: "Owls are not what they seem." Haha, sorry about that, it was random and uncalled for.

eyes close,
breathe in, breathe out
wrapped up in warm arms,
click, shutter, snap.

sleep, quiet snores,
soft face, little hand,
grasp.
click, shutter, snap.

I like this part. It's a little vague with the choppiness and all, but it still gives us enough to make our own interpretations. And what I like about it as well is that you haven't limited the amount of different theories with showing us too much, but instead you have there just enough to have the readers possibly go to different directions with what they've got out from this poem. And by doing this, you've made sure that the one poem divides into many different ones in readers' minds. Again, I don't know whether you meant it to be, but I like it. Also, the fact you use italics softens the stanzas, so it's not panting and/or too choppy. Italics kind of take us a to a different world, and I can relate to it because I've written poems with intentional italics too.

filtered finely by dust
in an eyelid haze
joy, fulfillment,
memories,
All.

You know what? I like your word choices, because in some of those there are these different meanings that come out differently in the paper and said out loud. In here, there's that "finely". It's all fine and sweet, but when you read it out loud (which you should of course always do when reading poetry) it becomes "finally", and I think it's genius. You don't have to stuff the lines full of words and make them too long, when you can fuse two words into one and still have the poem together. This is so clever, and I'm surprised I haven't come across with it before.

I advise you to think about the "joy, fulfillment, memories" part. Are all those words just where they have to be and have they been thoroughly considered? When you say big things with few words, each and every word has to be something that can't be replaced with something else. They have to be Just The Words for that part, and nowhere else. They have to be made for the poem. (I don't mean you should make them up yourself, but I think you get it.) So ask yourself whether there words are like that, and if you think they are, leave them be.

I have to say that at first I think this was just an alright, cute poem, but I found so many things I didn't even think about at first, that I came to like this very much. Great job, and thanks for this reading experience. =)

PM me if you have questions.


Demeter
xxx

Hey, Weare! Welcome to YWS! I noticed this post on the front page and thought I would stop in to add a few comments before I go to bed. ^____^

black, gray, bits of blue

there's yellow too.

This is probably the only part of the poem that I really dislike. Colors are powerful when used one at a time and only when necessary, but when you mix them all together like you have here, I find that it ends up just being a jumble of concrete words that never end up forming anything. And the thing is, I kind of get what you're trying to do, but it doesn't work. Maybe, and this is only a suggestion, you could describe things like 'smiles, noses, eyes,/ shoelaces, too' or something like that? I don't know. The list of colors just doesn't sit right with me.

I /adore/ the italicized stanzas though. My favorite part is how the rhythm of 'click, shutter, snap' imitates what you're talking about. The repetition, as well, was an excellent choice and I'm glad that you chose to do that.

filtered finely by dust

in an eyelid haze

joy, fulfillment,

memories,

All.

I think that the reason I don't dislike this stanza as much as the color phrases is that it's too vague to have any emotion about it. First of all, the images don't really make sense to me. I can maybe see the photographs covered by dust and filtered that way, but I don't get the phrase 'eyelid haze' at all, mostly because of the word 'eyelid'. What did you mean by that? Consider revising so that you can get your intended message across.

Also, I agree with Demeter in that you need to go back to make sure you chose exactly the words you wanted when you said 'joy, fulfillment, memories'. They're all too vague for me and I think this poem is about personal things, and should end with personal things. Buttons? Jackets? Earlobes? Whatever you want, I think objects might work better here as well. >_< But I don't know, that might just be my personal taste.

Overall, this poem had a sweet tone to it and I enjoyed it, but I think you could go even further with the imagery to make it absolutely excellent.

Good work, and feel free to PM me if you have any questions at all!

-Hannah-

Thanks guys!

I realized when I found this poem again that I was going to need other peoples opinions to complete it. It just never seemed to be finished no matter how many times I rewrote it and rephrased it.

You both totally pointed out the spots that just didn't sit well with me and a few spots I had looked over.

Demeter: I'm glad the capital A caught you like I intended it too. I was kind of unsure about that but when ever I erased it and put a lowercase it just didn't make the point as well.

Shades of blue, I really like that suggestion. I think looking over it again I realize that bits of blue feels like I'm pushing the words at the reader instead of it just flowing. I'm gonna look at this whole sentence though and try and work it around, so we'll see what happens.

It's- Haha I did. You caught me. I still agree with you on the last part too.

moments in convenient cubes.. hmm, I might have to think about this part a little more.

Italics make every thing just a little softer

Thank you for catching that finely thing, I thought that no one would really get it, or if they did would think it was odd and out of place.

And finally yes these words made me cringe I just didn't know any other way to express what I wanted too.

Hannah:

Yeah, now that I read over the color part its annoying me. I'm gonna have to think about what I really want to put here, so we'll see where it ends up. I like your suggestion though.

Thank you, I think that the italicized stanza's are my favorite part. I just kind of threw them in one day and realized that they made the poem what I wanted it to be.

eyelid haze, I thought maybe that others wouldn't quite get this. Maybe sun burned haze? I don't know...

I love your suggestion about objects! I even love the items you came up with! Objects belong with the poem more then the words I put there ever could. When I wrote this poem oh so far back I was going through tons of boxes of old photos with my grandma and there were all these buttons and mismatched earrings bunched around in them. There was even an old jacket of my grampa's stuffed into the bottom of one of the boxes, haha. What inspired me to write this was how all these emotions and memories are attached to these photos and objects and we just shove them into boxes and kick them under the bed.


Getting a fresh look through both of your eyes was awesome and comfirmed the fact that to grow I need to get feed back on what I'm writing. So thank you both for taking the time to review!

you captured All
then it faded, twisted.

If you're using proper punctuation, why don't use capitalize the first letter in the sentence?

black, gray, bits of blue
there's yellow too.

Maybe adding "in" after yellow to add another syllable.

its been forgotten,

Should be "It's"

found and shifted around
in the boxes under the bed,
moments in convenient squares.

I think it should be "memories" instead of moments. The word has more charm to it.

eyes close,
breathe in, breathe out
wrapped up in warm arms,
click, shutter, snap.

Semi-colon after "warm arms"

sleep, quiet snores,
soft face, little hand,
grasp.
click, shutter, snap.

I'm not exactly sure what you're trying to say here @_@

---------

I think you're talking about memories, items that keep memories. But you need to be a little more clear on what you're saying and fix some punctuation.

-Shina

Heyro, Babs here.

This is such a cool bit of writing.

My interpretation:
In the beginning the person is looking to the past- symbolized by photographs- and there is a sense of defeat about them, as if they cannot overcome a painful memory. Then the last stanza depicts that person buttoning a jacket. The use of the word "All" emphasizes that they are whole again, while the jacket says they are going out, moving on.

Well... whether that was your intended message or not, I enjoyed reading and puzzling over this poem.

Here are the things I believe could be improved upon:

Even though I understand what you are attempting to do by only capitalizing the word "all," the use of proper punctuation and not capitalization was rather awkward. With poetry, I generally think it's best to have all or nothing.

Stanza two was my favorite. It has great rhythm and movement, and the imagery was totally appropriate. However, the last line wasn't quite... all there. I might suggest adding a verb- "moments (stored/placed/or hidden) in convenient squares."


The "click, shutter, snap" bit was excellent- hurray onomatopoeia!!

Your conclusion was strong- brilliant actually. (Conclusive, just like a conclusion should be. ) Good job bringing your poem full circle, using the word "all" like you did. Nothing like repetition to underline a poet's purpose!

Keep it up.

PEACE,
BABS

Hey!

I liked this poem. It tells a story of someone going back through old photos, each which brings a memory back from that hazy childhood. The imagery was great.

moments in convenient compartments.

I would agree with Shina. Memories has a better ring to it.

I would add in some punctuation to help let the poem flow a little more.

you captured All

then it faded, twisted.

shades of blue, old

borrowed and new.



it's been forgotten,

found and shifted around

in the boxes under the bed,

moments in convenient compartments.

I loved this whole bit.

All in all, I really liked this poem. Sorry, I'm not much of a help in this review because every thing's already been said.

Keep up the good work!

zOe