Published August 5, 2013
The line is busy,
as is often the case.
But who even has landlines anymore,
besides me?
Calls come often,
so I manage to pick up the phone
until suddenly it seems
there’s no one’s on the other end anymore.
I hang onto the phone,
almost always waiting around,
and supposing the best.
Pleasant, perfect, and unsuspecting.
I never anticipate the ending
because the talk seemed so nice
until it stopped.
There must be a nice enough reason.
But the reason, it seems,
is always me,
and my inability to assume
a person might just hang up.
I call them all back,
every time, the same unsuspecting case.
After a few times,
the line is busy.
I often disconnect myself,
until someone else calls.
And for some reason, after the mess of it,
I answer the call again.
Points:
Time spent:
IP address:
Canary word: Present
Possible AI signals:
Original Text:
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137,435 Literary Works • 672,020 Reviews
Wow, this is great. The flow is nice, but for some reason "I hang onto the phone" feels too wordy, so i'd suggest shortening that line a bit.
I love this extended metaphor but I feel like you use the word 'phone' too often, so I'd suggest replacing phone with it a bit more often.
I'd also might consider if I were you breaking it into a few stanzas, but I don't think it's that big of a deal; it might just be me who likes short stanzas, and this one didn't feel like the stanza was too long since the lines were short and it flowed very well.
I love the sort of casual feel of the poem.
Great job here.
Hope this review helped!
Happy Review Day! : )
-tgirly
Spinelli! I love you! I've missed your sharpness! Let's start with what i like about this poem:
I love the simple beginning. I love the simplicity of the statement that the line is always busy and it's usually like that. Since that's the very beginning of your piece, you open it up to let people think about what a busy line means to them. For most, it evokes disappointment or nervous waiting, and you're already right into the tone that you want without over reaching or really saying anything toward any opinion.
I also love this:
Because it's so unexpected -- it reaches not only to the telephone theme but way into a society theme, which brings a lovely depth to this attempt.
I think, however, that most of the rest of this poem lacks your signature sharpness and newness. This topic has not only been done before, but you attack it pretty head on, just stating lines that sound like journal entries. Poetry's gotta be more than that. And if you meant for the reader to try to follow some deeper extended metaphor, you've gotta give us a solid launching pad and make sure we can get through it. For me, there was never a launching pad or a cue as to where to start, so it was all pretty much journal entry. >_<
I'd love to see you try this from the same new, sharp angle that you write your prose. Keep the simplicity, but not the narrative simplicity of a diary. State things. Give us facts and images the way you powerfully can, and build the story in the implications? Maybe? See what you can do.
Let me know if you have any questions about this review. I hope it will be helpful!
Good luck and keep writing~
I gatchoo, gurl. Definitely something I could of left in the oven a bit longer, just something I kinda whipped together.
Another helpful review, as usual 
Thanks for the read.
Hi there!
It is about nostalgia, after all. Drink in each moment, as it might not last that long!
Keep writing—this is great!
A quick review for a short work
Right, let's look at the punctuation. You have lots of commas. Some don't even need to be there. Write out the entire work, prose style, then delete all unnecessary commas. Put it back together. Also, you only have commas and full stops. Go for the dash! Go for the colon, the beautiful semi-colon, because careful use of colorful punctuation can do so much more! Using different punctuation at important points adds a dimension to the poem and really helps the reader understand the work better.
I think you have a lot of depth to this poem, but you need to release it with a few lovely poetic devices. Try some assonance and alliteration, metaphors and more concrete imagery. Don't make it just another poem—feed it with anything that will take it a level up and give the reader more insight and more visuals. Don't just talk about calling, talk about turning the dusty dial and listening to it whirring back into place. (My sister still has one of those oooold phones that you have to do that with.) Talk about the dirty cream color of the receiver, that never gets any brighter no matter how you clean it. Talk about the huge back copies of district phone books in the cupboard, stacked haphazardly, stained and dog-eared. Make it special
So that's it with my quick tips today
barefootrunner
I'll agree with you on the commas because I can flat out say I didn't do any editing to this and in hind sight, I'm getting really annoyed by those commas. I can't use semicolons though, unless it's prose, because they're annoying.
In poetry, I kinda have this thing with "poetic devices" because I think people tend to over salt everything instead of just cooking it right. I strayed from tangible imagery in this one because I didn't want it to feel real, considering it's not actually about telephones at all. [Or nostalgia...?] I need to take an abstract idea and personify, but not too much to the point where people actually thought it was about telephones. Unfortunately, I think I already managed to miss that mark so... :B
Formatting:
Use Shift-enter to miss one line
like I just did.
Otherwise using enter misses
a gap like so.
I like this about telephones, and how landlines are becoming redundant. You get across multiple messages in this poem, the first about what I just mentioned, and the second about the seemingly lonely person.
From this poem I imagine and older person who is still in with the phones, and everyone around them is ditching the land-lines so the calls get more rare and precious.
A suggestions would be-
In this line
don't use the word anymore, because you just used it a couple of lines back, unless of course it was consciously intentional, in which I think you should use the word more often to establish the pattern.
I like your structure. It isn't boring and free enough, however it is structured enough to give the poem an anchor, especially when you get your formatting right.
Good job.
Hm. That's not what the poem's about at all actually, but as long as you liked it I guess.... haha
um ok i can't figure out the formatting, just imagine four-line stanzas. yay ok.