Hi there JoyDark! I'm here for a quick review on this lovely poem of yours! ^^
I agree with Lavvie that you do a great job of showing how the narrator's attitude towards makeup shifts as the poem progresses - first contempt, then curiosity, then desire. Your words choice helps to convey the shift in tone; at the start, you use negative descriptions like "bleeding", then in the middle the descriptions are more neutral and matter of fact ("covering up pimples"), and finally they're more positive -> "shimmer and color and powder".
I do feel that you also seem to shift style ever so slightly from start to finish. In the opening stanza you have some poetic descriptions of makeup, describing it like berries and bleeding. But by the final stanza, the language seems significantly more matter of fact? Even while "shimmer and color and powder" is a lovely description, there's nothing figurative about it, per se. I don't actually think this change in style is a bad thing; in fact, I think it complements the shift in perspective nicely. However, I think it'd be even more effective if you made the poetic descriptions at the start even more obviously poetic. For example:
Could become:It looks like my lips are
Bleeding.
It looks like my lips are
crushed pomegranate seeds
bleeding crimson juice.
Similarly, in the third stanza, you could make the descriptions a little more extreme; dig into the "baring my lips" image a bit more -> what's the narrator baring them like? a snarling lion? And maybe consider a more negative verb instead of "placed" -> something like "stained" would work well, I think, to show the narrator's feelings towards makeup.
If you make the starting descriptions more "extravagant", for lack of a better term, it will make the shift from figurative to literal image more stark and dramatic, which I think would be fabulous! <3
I really enjoyed the subtle rhyming scheme you employed throughout the poem. It wasn't super consistent, but it obviously wasn't meant to be, so I didn't mind that at all! You used it where it made sense, and sounded natural, and complimented the flow, instead of contorting lines to make a forced rhyme fit. I especially liked the "grace / face / haste" rhyme in the fifth stanza, and the fact that "grace" was in the middle of a line instead of at the end. It makes the rhyming feel less noisy and more natural, if that makes sense! :)
Altogether, this was a really strong poem and a really enjoyable read <3 I hope this review is helpful, and if you have any questions about anything I've said, feel free to ask ^^
Keep writing!
whatcha
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