Chasing Neon Stars

Hey. Sorry it took me so long to do this one.

Ok, so I'm not digging it much. With the exception of a very small number of masters of the art, rhyming poetry is inefficient, and poetry is all about efficiency of language. You want to set the scene? Write a novel. There are all sorts of bits in this one that could be cut out to streamline the whole thing, but that would wreck the rhyming. So then you have to make a choice; good rhymes or a good poem? Such is the mire of rhyming or 'structured' poetry. This one is so close. It almost has the sort of punch that makes a memorable poem. But then I hit lines like "They all tied up their shoelaces" and it's gone, sacrificed on the altar of a line slipped in to keep the flow going. It all seems like a cardboard cutout - looks good from one angle but has no depth, no real life. Read some 20th and 21st century masters to see what you're lacking here.

K.

Hey there! Let me start by saying that this poem was really good! I know, I give such great reviews.
Like everyone else I'd start off by acknowledging that the rhyming in this piece was really well done. I really like this part:

"I saw the bright green stars

Once bold above my head

Fade first to sickly yellow

Then jarringly to red."

The last two lines in particular just flow exceptionally well and give me a great visual. Jarringly is also a word that I don't see enough of so kudos on that.
Okay, and so I realize that I'm not the brightest bulb on the Christmas tree so I'm just going to ask: Did you get hit by a car? If so, then another kudos on turning an awful experience into a work of art! If not, then I apologize for reading this wrong. I'm just a little confused at the ending- the references to death and the colors of the stars being like streetlights made me think that you were referring to an auto collision.
Anyway, this was really well done. The only line that I didn't quite understand was:

"Snakes of concrete always die"

Don't get me wrong, this was a really interesting line. I love the wording but am a little confused as to what exactly it means. But hey, as I said, I am soo not the brightest bulb on the tree.
Anyway, congrats on a job well done. I really enjoyed reading this and I could totally relate to the "job behind a mask" and the unbuttoning of the shirt to get better tips. Haha! I may be a dude but that little trick even works for me. Keep up the good work!

Hi there! Blue here to honor your review request.

First of all, I'd like to say job well done as far as the rhyming goes. A lot of the time in rhyming poetry there are awkward spots because you really have to fish for a word that rhymes, but you don't have any of those.

I would mention the punctuation at the end of the lines, but I see someone already covered that. If you have trouble figuring out what kind of punctuation should go at the end of each line, try rewriting the stanzas in paragraph form. If your punctuation is still correct, keep it. If not, change it.

I liked the "street-streaked eyes," because it was unusual and still gave me a good visual. On the other hand I'm not at all sure about "snakes of concrete." The image isn't as clear, I think just because concrete is not wriggly and stuff unless maybe you're on drugs.

I like the overall message too, but there's one spot that's really confusing, which is this bit:

From my job behind a mask
Where I undid one more shirt button
For more fives to fill my flask,

Oh nice. I am always so happy when I read rhyming poetry that doesn't throw me into frustration because of forced rhymes that take over the message. For the most part you are definitely in charge of this poem and you use the rhymes to keep us moving through it rather than making us skip a beat when we feel something out of place. I'm so happy to see that, and especially impressed because you kept your narrative solid, clear, and the rhyme did not take away from the seriousness of the topic.

Now, although I feel, at the end, like I got the general meaning of your poem, I think that it could still benefit from just a little clarification. Why? Because your language is so crisp and precise that it's weird that you don't have crisp or precise imagery or a crisp or precise hint at a real character. Right now, it feels like a cardboard person you drew and are directing around with your actions. It has the makings of emotion. It just doesn't quite ring through to me. An ending line like "my eternity undone" sounds like I should be feeling a hit in my heart right about then -- and though I get the most emotion out of "snakes of concrete always die", it's not quite the big punch I'd want to go out on. Hope this is making sense.

Like I said, super impressive.
Please PM me or leave a reply to my review if you have any questions or comments.
Good luck and keep writing!

The plague has reached you.

I'd just like to say, great work with rhyming, you have successfully done a good job here.

However again you have forgotten punctuation at the end of many of your lines even though you remembered a few. For example in this bit:

On the way home from work,
From my job behind a mask;
Where I undid one more shirt button
For more fives to fill my flask.

I saw the bright green stars,
Once bold above my head.
Fade first to sickly yellow,
Then jarringly to red.

Hi Dmytra! Here to review as promised,

So what I liked about this poem was the imagery and descriptions you've used. They sounded really nice and were really good at helping me picture what was happening in the poem. I also particularly liked the fact you've used colours to describe stuff because even though it might sound a bit baby-ish I personally think colours are one of the best things to use in imagery because they help create really vivid descriptions.

Usually when someone uses rhyme in poetry everyone's like 'oh you don't need to use rhyme!', I usually disagree with this. Here though, I too don't think the rhyming is really needed because I mean you've got such nice imagery and it messes up the flow a lot. When I was reading it I find myself having to stop and start the flow to get in time with the rhymes, and it's just a bit distracting really. So yeah, don't feel forced to use rhyme!

My main issue with this poem was that I really didn't get the subject or theme of it. i mean it's great to have all these beautiful descriptions, but if I don't actually know what you're describing. This might be to do with the fact I'm quite bad at interpreting poems, but I still think that you should really try and project your message across as a poet and right now I'm not really feeling that. It's all a bit floaty and left hanging in the air, so I'd like to see a clearer message next time.

Lastly, I'll try not to repeat myself, but this is about the flow again. This time not really to do with the writing but more about the line breaks and punctuation. Right now all the commas and full stops are at the end of the lines which just means when I read it there's a pause at the end of each line which isn't very exciting, it almost makes me feel as if I'm reading prose. I think you should try experimenting with putting periods (of course where it feels natural) in the beginnings of lines so it eases up the flow a bit so it's not all start-stop.

Overall, this is good! You have a lovely way of describing things. Next steps would be to try and put forward a clearer message, and touch up on the flow a bit. Well I hope this review helped, feel free to PM me with any questions you have or if you'd like another review on anything.

Keep writing!
~ArcticMonkey

Hi there!

I totally love this poem. It reminded me of a cross-country road trip I took a few years ago. We were about halfway through the two-day drive, and we passed through a city at night and I remember looking up at all the lights of the city and noticing how beautiful all of it was. Your message is really clear, but I think you can make it even better than it is now.

First, I think you can break it up into stanzas to make it less intimidating and more readable. Secondly, there's a lot of really vague imagery in the first paragraph, and I'm not really sure what's going on until about halfway through. I also think that you can make the message a little more subtle. While I love how clear it is now, I think you can try to incorporate it in the story, make it less overt.

But I love the message, I love the imagery. Great work! Feel free to shoot me a PM if you have any questions.