Valentine's Innocence (For Teardrop's Contest)

I wish I hadn't offered to review this now... I suck at poetry reviews. xD

Hehe, I'll give it a try though! But I can guarantee that it may be a little short and useless... I hope you won't mind. Like usual, if you have any questions about this review when I'm done, just let me know.

As a whole, I do like this, Jas. It's really cute and sweet. I get the impression that the guy was going to try and have sex with the girl, but then decided against it, right? If so, I think that's a cool idea. Something I actually liked quite a lot were your characters... which is seriously weird considering this is a poem. Obviously, poems can have characters, but for me anyway, they don't normally stand out. I kind of liked the couple in this though. The way you described them made them sound interesting and realistic, so yeah, that's good.

Okay... Critiques. I'm not sure if this is just because of me and my lack of poetry knowledge, but I found that some parts of this didn't really... fit... Maybe? I'm not sure how to explain it. Some parts felt a bit pointless, I guess. For example, when you told us that the girl used a HelloKitty bandage. It seemed awfully... random, I guess. I mean, does it really add to the story of the poem? You could argue that you want it to portray part of the innocence or something, but my brain doesn't tend to work like that, so it isn't what I immediately assumed after reading this.

I don't think I explained that all too well, so I'm sorry about that, but I hope you can at least kind of make sense of it. To be honest though, that critique's more of a personal thing really. You probably will have quite a few people disagreeing with me on that, but hey, that's just my opinion. You seem to have had some trouble with the flow of this in the past, and I have to say that I think the flow is pretty good now, so you've clearly managed to improve it. There are still some lines that are a bit awkward because of length and what not, but seriously, no real problems.

Keep writing,

xoxo Skins

Oh and the 'everything and nothing' was done purposely.

Thanks Horus! Yeah, I have to fiddle with the rhythm a bit.

So apparently you must like my reviews Thanks!

Maroon = Likes
Red = Corrections
Purple = Suggestions/Questions
Random Color = Overall

Your hands are entangled,
her fingers sticky, dried ketchup from the McDonald's lunch earlier.
You laughed and talked about everything and nothing,
pondering life over cheeseburgers and fries. The tense is changed. Starts with ARE then goes to past and changes back to present with pondering.

You gave her the roses earlier,
it was sortakinda awkward, <-- I'm guessing that was on purpose?
she didn't know where to put them and neither did you.
You didn't think past, 'Kiss her hello, give her the flowers, stay calm." I don't know about this line, it just seems a little awkward.

Thorns pinched her palm
and a thin line of blood danced down her arm.
Your face dropped andyour fingers fumbled to get a napkin or tissue or something but Seems rambling with the or or or or.
she gave you a shy grin, took out a Hello-Kitty bandadge and covered the cut.

Those roses that you regretted bringing?
You left them in your Dad's beat up Corolla,
under the semi-cold February light,
to sit and wait for you to return.

Now you're strolling through the park,
and your heart is thudded thudded or thudding? ever so slowly
and no need for the and here.your mind goes back to what your older brother said in his sophisticated, experienced voice;
'When you do this, don't get stupid, be nice and gentle or she'll say no'

But you don't even want to
and by the way her hands are shaking as you reach the abandoned old barn house,
you can tell,
neither does she. this stanza feels a little awkward.

So you crack some jokes,
make her laugh
and lead her away from the barn,
where the floor is littered with yellowing cigaretee butts, empty beer cans and lost purity.

Good boy

You take her to the kiddie park instead
and swing her high and strong.
You laugh and talk about everything and nothing. This was repeated earlier....
You two keep your Valentine's Day innocence
and return to puppy love once more.
By far the best stanza!

I like it. People should keep the innocence. Keep writing.

Hey Jasmine!

The thing about this poem was that it wasn't sure what it wanted to be. So it was very unsure sounding! When I think of innocence, I think of a certain joy and freedom inherent to that sort of thing. An easiness and peace, if you will. But I didn't really get that feeling from this poem, even in the last stanza where the "victory" is finally allowing themselves to be innocent of sex. So it was a bit odd how miserable this poem seemed to be.

Mind you, if you think innocence is akin to misery and confusion, this poem is all right! But it just seems a bit odd to me.

Hi! Teardrop here! Anyway, I thought this was really sweet. I liked the whole theme of it. I agree, this does belong on an Above The Influence commercial. XD ( That's definatly a good thing : )

I thought you could have made the poem flow a bit more. Try not to have a certain line that makes the reader have to stop and think about what's going on, if that makes a little bit of sense.

Anyhow, I loved the message you put out. Thanks a bunch for entering! I enjoyed your poem a lot!

~Teardrop

Thanks for the reviews!

Hey I'm Amie and I'll be your reviewer

Firstly, this isn't bad like you said so don't sell yourself short. It does need work, particularly with the structure. I'm all for playing with poetry structures, I don't really like keeping to them myself but to a certain extent we do have to have some resemblance of one. Even if it's as simple as keeping the length of the lines similar, or having the same amount of lines in each stanza or alternating them in a pattern. Right now, it looks kind of messy and the irregularity of the line length and such makes it impossible to get a rhythm going when you're reading it.

NIT PICKS
'give her the flowers, try not to throw up from nerves' - I think this is too much to be a thought. Wouldn't he be thinking more like 'give flowers, stay calm' I think that makes it sound more real, and the reader can imagine him constantly repeating that over in his head.

For ten minutes work, well done, you obviously have a knack for writing. This really is lovely, some nice details in there

I loved this! This was my kind of love poetry. It was sweet and charming, and although you made the comments insinuating sex, I feel it only made it all the more innocent. I loved the sophisticated experienced older brother bit. That was an even sweeter touch. You should definitely continue to write more things like this! This belongs in an Above the Influence commercial. The meaning behind it, the message, it was lovely. Great job. Keep writing more stuff like this. Non-cliche things!