to be a good student
and carry an “exemplary” in our backpacks
at all times we leave our houses. to be
the shades of pink in the evening
that soothes my best friend as we walk
back from the fields, after our first game
to hopefully celebrate a personal victory.
to be sitting on a torn up carpet,
4th grade storytime, you could hear a pin drop.
to be capturing their eyes on camera
and one last picture with you, and one last picture of me,
before leaving, to remember all the moments not on a lens.
to be the silver of my first car at night,
to drive around far too late. to be
a writer, an artist, an athlete, an actor, a musician
convey how our lives were impacted
by souls we’ve met, people who’ve helped,
we secretly dream that maybe we’ll help others.
to be the scooters we rode around on in gym,
pushing and pulling ourselves with the soles of our feet.
to be the blue backs of our chairs,
for 129, 600 minutes, with sticking shirts. to be a
yellow lunch box from 5th grade,
with dirt smeared, like on our knees from
falling on the playground.
to be everything important to you,
the evening shades of pink, the silver car,
the blue chairs, the yellow lunch box.
to be the pink, and the silver,
the blue, and the yellow.
Points:
Time spent:
Canary word: Present
Possible AI signals:
Original Text:
Are you sure you want to delete this comment? This cannot be undone.
Mark this comment as a review? Points will be awarded to the poster.
Your comment was posted, but it wasn’t long enough to count as a review. Reviews need about four complete sentences (at least 250 characters). Try writing another review that explains your thoughts in more detail — the author will appreciate it, and you’ll earn points for it.
125,005 Literary Works • 672,796 Reviews
Hi Ekk15 - lovely reflection on graduation, some of the stanzas and thoughts read as quite chopped apart where there doesn't seem to be continuous meaning going through each sentence or phrase. I'd suggest trying to read each sentence separately and see if it makes sense at that level.
For instance, these lines: " to be
the shades of pink in the evening
that soothes my best friend as we walk" don't quite make sense to me. Like there's some words missing.
I did like that you captured specific moments though! This made your poem feel more concrete.
While I wouldn't normally comment on capitalization, I'd suggest in a poem that starts out as being about "getting good grades" that it seems like a good one to use capital letters in, since the lower cased letters don't really add much, though the capital ones might make the individual sentences divide a bit more clearly.
The colors at the end were an interesting point of continuity, though the colors were a bit random, so I'm not sure if there was extra symbolism there that I missed or if they were really just random colors that went with the earlier points of the poem.
Overall, I took the meaning of the poem to be that the speaker is feeling nostalgic about their younger years as they approach graduation and are trying to assign meaning to their different memories.
Best of luck in editing! You've chosen a subject that many people can certainly relate to.
~alliyah
Hi! Manilla here for a review.
It's unique that you capture the essence of school through colors, but the overall meaning is hard to decipher. To be an exemplary student, do you have to pass with flying colors? And by flying colors, do you mean these experiences in pink, silver, blue, and yellow too? After you graduate, do you have to carry these experiences with you throughout life?
"Exemplary" as a certificate from a teacher? I'm not quite sure what you mean by that.
A personal victory? The speaker just won a game or something like that, but I'm sure you mean something beyond that. How I interpret the introduction of the torn-up carpet (add a hyphen in between them) relates to the fourth grade story time scene that follows.
Youth can only come for so long before it goes. These lines make me think of the childhood friends I had when I was in elementary and how much they meant to me.
The flow breaks of your stanzas are only necessary after a certain point. Flow keeps your meaning moving along smoothly.
129? 600 minutes?
So colors are important to this..."You"? Or graduation, like in the title? This is what I mean by how everything builds up to the general meaning and message of the poem.
This read was promising!
-Manilla out
(Feel free to disregard any comment you deem unhelpful or rude. That was not my intention.)
I think you should capitalize at the start, but this is great. I think it pictures school very well.
This is an excellent poem, but could you capitalize the beginning of the sentences. It feels like a long, run-on sentence. Another suggestion is to make the stanzas longer (or connect some of the ones you already made.)
Hewo, its Jade coming back with another review!
So, I like what your doing here but there are some problems that maybe you could help with. I can tell that your trying to put in lots of imagery and I like that, but none of it really connects.
Also, when you say, "carry an “exemplary” in our backpacks." Could you help me understand here? The definition of 'exemplary' is "serving as a desirable model; representing the best of its kind"
I think I get what you are trying to say but, it doesn't fit well. Perhaps you should say, "to be a good student and trying to be an exemplary student."? It is just a mere suggestion.
Also, when you say, "at all times we leave our houses. to be
the shades of pink in the evening." It's a suggestion but I believe you should possibly change it to, "Always leaving our houses to emerge into pink shades of evening."
On the next line, perhaps to make it run smoother, say "Soothing my best friend as we walk back from the fields."
On the 6th stanza say, " One last picture of you and one last picture of me, before leaving so we might remember moments not captured on a lens."
One last thing, on each stanza, you have a piece of the next section and then you separate. Is this for a particular purpose?
I'm sorry if you feel as though I'm attacking your poem,, I really do like it.
I would love to see more writing from you!