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125,005 Literary Works • 672,804 Reviews
Hi Frinderman!
I'm following Hannah around, reviewing poetry, which turned out to be an excellent idea because I've never read your poetry before and it's so polished! It's so very wonderful to see a poet who has a voice already when you meet them!
I absolutely adore the tone of this poem, the accidental nostalgia creeps in for an oldie like me, thinking of younger summers and of all kinds of summers to come, and it keeps holding that tone from beginning to end. That's a skill that you should cultivate, because it's wonderful to read a poem with conviction in its first word to its last. Speaking of words, I don't think "doll" works in the second line - only because dolls don't usually have strings, puppets do. I know you're working with doll because of the porcelain angle and the idea of fragility and purity and the concept of being a momentary fancy in a world of raging activities, but I don't think that losing the line there would damage the force of your intent. This is also because some puppets have porcelain faces, though perhaps you may feel that puppets have a sinister feel (depending on your upbringing) and in that case I entirely understand not using the word. Think about it though. In fact I'd suggest losing "strings" as well, if you use puppets, because the string is implied with the puppet word.
After your first italics I'm not a fan of ending the line on "an" - this is a personal preference, I don't like pausing on connectors if you don't have to. I'd suggest losing "with" entirely and moving "an" down to the exchange line. It doesn't change your intent, and in fact would give it a heavier meaning in terms of the visual reading. I'm not fussed with the "We both knew well to be chipping..." it did take me three or four reads to parse it properly but now that I have I think it works really well. If you think that clarity is more important than creativity in expression (something I'd allow you for the skill you're already showing) then you can change the line, but I'd be happy if you didn't because by now I realise that they both know their smiles are chipping in the heat. Be aware that it does take time to understand it though - the danger of interesting syntax! (I'm a huge fan of unusual syntax as long as it parses well) "Imaginary text messages" is boring, serviceable but unattractive in this poem. You don't have to change this at all, and I'm not suggesting you should, but I definitely think you should consider if there is a way to communicate this same concept (one that is VERY clear in tone in this line, I'll admit) in a way that is less... mundane. Unless it is the mundane you're going for, and in that case please ignore me.
I really love how this ends. The repetition of polka dot girl is not noticeable or jarring and your use of italics flows nicely within the piece and doesn't seem awkward or out of place. I think you should reconsider some of your word choices for better impact but otherwise this seems to be a very well written poem.
I'm hectic impressed, thanks for sharing! If you change this at all or have questions about my comments, please let me know!
- Penguin
Thank you so much for the review, I really appreciate it. Your comment about "an" actually made me realize I made a mistake while editing. "Pastel bricks" and "heat" are suppose to be on the same line above while "with an" (like you mentioned) is suppose to be on the line below. Oops! Thank you for pointing that out, though I don't know if I can change that now.
Oh, hi again! I just read another poem of yours, and here we are again, haha.
The opening of this poem is really strong -- it has color, it sets up a scene, it has texture, it has movement in the air. I get stuck at the awkwardness of the phrase "blew... to embroider" -- how can you blow something to embroider something? And how can you embroider a silhouette? Maybe this is a very specific image you experienced in life, and I can't quite imagine it. I think a little bit of reworking -- not giving up the image -- might make this small part clearer! And keep the strong emotion from the first lines going!
Ugh, and you really want to keep the emotion going, because it's so CLEAR and GORGEOUS up through the end of the poem. There's only one other place where the language is a little awkward, so if you tighten it up, this is a gorgeous, sturdy poem. The other section I was a bit confused about was here:
"porcelain smiles we both knew well to be chipping in the heat" -- I'm just not sure what that means.
The rest is so golden, and this is such a strong emotional situation. I really love it, and your choice to make her "the polka dot girl" implies that there's a strong past connection between the speaker and the image of her, not necessarily with her as a person. Without having to tell us that. If they had had a relationship of any kind, it would be a name. But it's not. It's a label. That's a really smart choice.
I hope these thoughts help you out some. Thanks again so much for sharing!
Hannah
Thank you for both of your reviews, I can see you truly go in depth into poetry. I understand I might of said things a bit weird, and I could improve always. I am going to clarify what I did mean though, for you.
When I used "embroider", what I meant was that the colors defined her silhouette. The idea was that when something moves by quickly, your eyes may put together the details and shape, but almost always you notice the colors of something before you realize it's shape or what it is. In the line I was trying to depict a fast blur rush by, before quickly stopping as my eyes recognized what, or in this case who it was, all in a brief moment.
As for the part with porcelain smiles, I thought this part would be clearer. I referred to us both having fake smiles, and we both knew each other did. The cracking was more so literal going with the phrase "cracking under pressure".
No problem! I loooooove da poetry! haha.
See, yeah! That is a really specific visual phenomenon that I don't remember having -- I know that you can describe it because you felt it, but it's hard to describe it to someone who doesn't know it yet.
And I think your porcelain smiles line almost got there, but the grammar doesn't make sense -- "we both knew well" makes sense, but "we both knew well to be chipping in the heat" does not!
Oh now that Pingu posted it it suddenly does make sense lol.