1,000 lilies

(This is kind of experimental, so let me know what you think...)

1,000 lilies
Red. White. Blue. Purple. Red.
A cat ate a purple lily
A mouse ate a red lily
A cat ate a mouse
The cat ate the mouse
A bird ate 998 lilies
I ate a strawberry
I liked eating the strawberry
The strawberry did not like being eaten
But it did not know that
Because it does not have a brain
Because it doesn’t think
Because it doesn’t feel
I have a brain
I think
I feel
I know

Hi-ya! This is for sure interesting!

p.s. in your signature, the poem Invictus by Ernest Henley is actually : "....mater of my fate.....captain of my soul"

I have to say, this is definately pushing the boundies on modern poetry. I have to be honest: it wasn't my cup of tea. It was random, hard to keep up with, confusing, boggling, franticly paced...I'm afraid the list goes on. I don't 'get' the concept at all - where did you find inspiration for this piece??? PM me...I'd be interested to find out...Anyways, sorry I couldn't be of much help...and remember, this ^^^ was just my opinion!
~ Amelia

Hey there, HaydenMacaw; when you said this was experimental, you weren’t kidding. Hehe!

So, I have one little nitpick and that’s with the second line. It’s such a list that it really reads as a list. And it has a way of removing the poetic quality of any poem because, well, lists just stink. Consider changing it to something less list-like, like: “in a multitude of color” but less lame than that.

Another thing to be careful of is repetition. You’re getting close to something that could be very unique but also very powerful. Except for the fact that a lot of it reads very repetitiously like:

A cat ate a purple lily
A mouse ate a red lily
A cat ate a mouse
The cat ate the mouth

It’s very “______ ate _______” and it’s not very interesting. Even if you did something like changing the word ate in every line could make a huge difference in this piece as a whole. The same could be said for a good deal of this piece.


But I have to really applaud you for attempting to do something different! *applauds*
If you have any questions or need anything, feel free to PM me or drop a line on my wall!

~lilymoore

This is very....different. I'm really liking your work so far, but this is quite.. confusing. I'm drawing a blank on this one. This sort of sounds like something I would read to a child, and maybe a child would perfectly understand the meaning of this poem. Its sort of opened my mind to weird things. I don't really have any critique, I weirdly enjoyed reading this.

That was....yeah.....experimental. You lost me at strawberries.

Insert famous quote from Tomas Edison here >( )

Keep trying,
~FW~

This was....interesting. I liked the ending part, and I kind of understood most of it, but, yeah, it was confusing. Also, how does a bird eat 998 lilies? I know this is poetry, and all, but still....

Hi there, Hayden. Lavvi in to review.

So:

A) Use of periods in poetry. If you haven't read some other poetry reviews of mine, you must be unaware that punctuation and periods in poetry is a big deal for me, because:

i) It affects the poem's fluidity,
ii) Which also affects the meter (poetic rhythm),
iii) As well as the poem's atmosphere because
iv) It affects the way the audience reads the poem.

In poetry, I refer to periods with a sort of nickname: full-stops. I speak of it like this because, in poetry, a period does indicate a full stop, just like in fiction/non-fiction writing. But unlike prose, a full-stop in poetry does assume a sudden halt in the writing. In prose, however, a period stops, but may continue on a little more smoothly. I don't know why, but it reads differently and this is due to the large gap of difference between prose and poetry. I don't have explanations for everything, but I'd honestly like you to be aware when using periods in poetry. In the following quoted line, the use of periods is to an excess and it breaks the poem up a wee bit too much. It bothers me:

Red. White. Blue. Purple. Red.

It may be more useful to do away with these "full-stops" and insert commas instead. It's all up to you, naturally, but I highly suggest this. But, nonetheless, please don't feel at all obliged to do so.

B) Randomness in moderation. I very much felt like you took words and lines and slapped them together. I couldn't fully comprehend what you were trying to convey to the audience through this poem, or was it intentionally meant to be some nonsense? Personally, if you expanded the poem a bit, perhaps incorporated some deeper meanings or a better vocabulary, it would be read and received a lot better. I sense little emotion woven into the threads of the poem and, frankly, the audience wants to feel an emotion. It's not something the reader can feel attached to quite yet. But with some elaboration, it could succeed in that case.

It's a good start, and, like lilymoore already stated, it's an interesting take on poetry. However, it needs to be refined a little more.

Yours,
Lavvi

Hi HaydenMacaw!

Hmmm... I'm not sure whether I like this or hate this, so I am leaning towards like at the moment! The thing is, this is very, very different from what I was expecting. However, I like the fact that it displays a kind of circularity and roundedness, but every time it seems to be following the circular path, it juts off into this tangent (I mean that in the literal sense!) so it seems so strange.

Now, let's look a little deeper, shall we?

1,000 lilies <-- Why 1000? Why so specific?
Red. White. Blue. Purple. Red. <-- Why are the colors important?
A cat ate a purple lily <-- Why would a cat eat a lily?
A mouse ate a red lily
A cat ate a mouse
The cat ate the mouse
A bird ate 998 lilies <-- Why?

Also, why don't you have a cat eating a bird?

Then you go off on a tangent that is very random.

I ate a strawberry
I liked eating the strawberry <-- This is the one line that I kind of squinted at, because I wondered why it was important that she was eating a strawberry and liked it. Maybe because that's a feeling, which you pointed out later? But I didn't really like how this line was set up.
The strawberry did not like being eaten
But it did not know that
Because it does not have a brain <-- This is the science dork coming out, but strawberries do know things and are able to respond to stresses from their outside environment... and yes, I've been working with plant biologists too much, lol.
Because it doesn’t think
Because it doesn’t feel
I have a brain
I think
I feel
I know

Anyway, those were my thoughts! Interesting experiment though... keep on experimenting!

This is really odd. And funny/cool.

Here are the things that are kind of odd:

A cat ate a purple lily (You probably could just say, 'A cat ate a purple')
A mouse ate a red lily (Same thing as above except with a mouse and red)
A cat ate a mouse
The cat ate the mouse (And then you have a line and then a line that is exactly the same. What is up with that?)

Besides those you also need some punctuation.
But other than that this is a really interesting poem and I love the strawberry part. It's cute

Keep writing,
Alzora