Young Writers Society

You paint a door,
you paint a wall.
You paint a car,
you paint a toenail.

It all fades,
sooner or later.
Later or sooner.

So why isn't this
smile fading?
This painted,
"I'm fine" look.

Why do they see
this image, this figure
so beautifully painted?

Why do they not see
the ugliness behind that
perfect patina?

You paint a stone,
you paint a flower.
You paint a room,
you paint a pot.

It all fades,
sooner or later.
Later or sooner.

Why is the world
blind to all the black
beneath the beautiful paint?

Why can they not see
the pain behind that
unfading paint?
Can it not break once?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hi, guys. This is something I wrote after a kinda tough day, out of 364 other tough days. It kinda came to me while I was hiding in my tree. Comments, reviews, critiques... Are more than welcomed!!

Hey there, ongoeslife.

I'm going to be fairly quick with this and just give you a few pointers about style and effectiveness in poetry.

What you have going on here is a very simplistic style that gives a promise of a good future in writing poetry or prose, whichever. Now, while this is a decent style, it's not a great style to have because it lacks power. It needs a bit more umf if you get what I'm saying. Often times, we spice up our style with varying vocabulary and sentence structure. I suggest you try those things as a generic "How do I get better?" formula.

Another tip I can give you is to be sure that your punctuation is spot-on. Whenever I critique poetry more thoughtfully than I am now, I tell the author either to use no punctuation, or use it perfectly. I'll say the same to you--you're missing the target on punctuation and capitalization.

The deal with capitalization in poetry is that you do not need it at the beginning of every line. Write poetry like you'd write a paragraph, and then space the lines out as you'd so desire.

The message behind this poem is fantastic--so let's doctor it up and make it brilliant.

-Lumi

The thing that I don't understand is why some verses have three lines while others have four. They don't have a pattern to them in that one verse has four, the next three, then four, then three etc...

ongoeslife wrote:So why isn't this
smile fading?
This painted,
"I'm fine" look.

This was perhaps my favourite part. The title wraps itself around something we all wear everyday: A mask, to avoid people seeing our true states. This actually works really well

I don't really know. I guess you would call this free-form? Anyway, I'm glad you liked that part! It's just that everywhere I go, people are saying 'Look how sweet you are! You're such a good helper! You have a servant's heart' and yadda yadda yadda. I get sick of keeping my sorrows to myself, not letting anyone else know something's wrong because I'm supposed to be happy.

I don't know much about styles and techniques of poetry, but it sounded great! I love the way you used paint to get across that someone is hiding pain. I think the spacing and lines were just right - they were short and fit the style of the poem.

My favorite part was,
It all fades,
sooner or later.
Later or sooner.

and

So why isn't this
smile fading?
This painted,
"I'm fine" look.

It's like saying, everything fades. Except this smile. I dunno what I'm talking about. I just really enjoyed the poem!

This was very good. I liked the flow and the rythm of the words. I think that everyone, sooner or later, feels this way.

I liked how you started it.

You paint a door,
you paint a wall.
You paint a car,
you paint a toenail.

Very creative. The image I got was of a painter, the person, who is looking at a canvas and watching it fade. The canvas is symbolic of his/her life. I don't know if this was what you were aiming for but that's what I got.

It all fades,
sooner or later.
Later or sooner.

I like the backword play on the words. Effective.

This part reminded me of a painting of a sad clown with a smile but a tear running down his face. And of the facade people sometimes put on when they are sad or angry.

So why isn't this
smile fading?
This painted,
"I'm fine" look.

Why do they see
this image, this figure
so beautifully painted?

The clown. It also reminded me of a mask at a masquerade.

I liked this part. But, excuse me, what is a patina?

Why do they not see
the ugliness behind that
perfect patina?

You paint a stone,
you paint a flower.
You paint a room,
you paint a pot.

This was repetative and it was interesting. I enjoyed this part. (ya, I'm a weirdo)

Repetative.

It all fades,
sooner or later.
Later or sooner.

Why is the world
blind to all the black
beneath the beautiful paint?

I disagree with this. I don't think black is the color of bad. I just don't. Creative though.

Why can they not see
the pain behind that
unfading paint?
Can it not break once?

This reminded me of a breaking and like red seeping out. I liked this part most.

We all have bad days, just finished having one and onto the next. If we didn't have bad days, where would our inspiration come. Keep writing.

It's a nice simple poem: the idea is deep, clever and does ask an interesting question- i know i can relate to how you feel.

Indeed in: "It all fades,sooner or later.Later or sooner." the use of syballance does help very intelligently to create this idea of fading away.

Then similarly the later use of alliteration in "perfect patina" and "blind to all the blackbeneath the beautiful paint?" and "pain behind that unfading paint" is used well to emphasize the lines in each respective stanza.

Thanks, all!! (Sorry it took me this long to respond... I took a sabbatical from YWS for a while.)

No time to address the details now, but will get back to this later!

Thanks again!!

~The Scratt

Hi again, I'm back as requested. This is really great! I'm not gonna lie, I feel that way most of the time so I understand the emotions you were trying to bring up when you wrote this. Well you succedded! I love it, thanks for asking me to review it. I don't see how it can get any better. It's not too long and not too short, I didn't see anything misspelled, the wording works. Another job well done! If you need anything else, I'll be reviewing more of your work! Thanks for requesting this.

--Tabby

Thank you, Shadow! ^_^ Now, if only I could get my reading teacher to say that... Seriously, I appreciate it!

" Painting a toenail"
I believe personally your poem would be much better without this line. Its a bit unnessesary and up untill it, (and after it) the poem flows quite well.
-Hopeispeace

Hmm... What should I put in place of it? If I just took it out, it would mess up the rhythm of the poem

i thought this poem was very interesting and very odd at the same time for some reason. i like the flow you had going.

It all fades,
sooner or later.
Later or sooner.

i found that part particularly interesting. you kept repeating it over and over again and i assumed there was a reason for that. don't think i'm trying to point mistakes in this poem, because honestly i don't thin there are any.

So why isn't this
smile fading?
This painted,
"I'm fine" look.

this was my favorite part. people walk around with this look painted on their all the time. over all this was a good poem and i'm like to read more of your work some time.