Hola December Nights! I've seen you around, but I think this is the first thing I get to critique of yours, so I'll make it good!
This is a pretty cool poem. The best part is the last part where it talks about the broken child and the bringing of joy in her life. I mean, that sort of imagery is some really good, sophisticated work, so hooray! Now! You're going to want to take this lovely imagery and craft it into something a little bit more poetically solid. Ready?
First of all, you're going to want to take out "the" in the first line because it'll make it sooooo much cleaner and prettier and easier to say off the tip of your tongue. Try it. Doesn't it sound better? And maybe I'm slightly crazy, but I love it when poetry just slides off the tip of my tongue. So what I'll do when I write poetry is just say it and whatever sounds good to me will be what I write.
Anyway! Back to your poem.
I like it when you say "the memory of your smiling voice" because that brings a nice image to mind. But... the third line just trips my tongue and I don't like that. I think it's too long and too rambly. So maybe you can narrow it down to a specific idea? I think it will be a lot better, plus it'll make a bit more sense and be less hazy.
For the fourth line, consider putting a question mark at the end. By doing this, it'll slow down the poem and give it more of a dramatic flair. And in poetry, the more drama you can have in your poem, the better it'll be.
Then you bring out the awesome imagery of the broken child, which is so awesome. I love the "bring back ... / ... veins again" lines. In fact, that's my favorite part. It's just so cool because you can see joy tickling down her veins, and you imagine her as very somber and serious at first and then she becomes full of joy. And that's just lovely.
Now! You have to dramatize the rest! So instead of saying:
Watch her walk home.
Somber steps vibrate an emotional ground,
and you can feel the tears not yet falling from her eyes.
... punctuate this and do other stylistic changes to give it more oomph and flavor! I might do this:
Watch her walk home:
Somber steps vibrate an emotional ground,
and you can feel the tears not (yet) falling from her eyes.
I don't know! And that's the awesome part about poetry. Right now, it's not quite poetic enough, but that can be easily fixed, so no worries. You just need to play around more with the language and have fun with the poem. The biggest issue, as I see it, is the third line, but that can be easily fixed. Anyway, you're a remarkable poet for your age. So take some time, play around with the language some more, and see what you can do with it.
Good luck editing!
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