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125,022 Literary Works • 672,759 Reviews
Sparkles <3
I'm going to need to look at these three poems of yours, though with probably a bit of a break inbetween, if you can excuse me. This is going to be my last poem of the day, and if you excuse me to be selfish for just a moment, I am basking and loving the title (it just so happens there's this big reviewrace/reviewcup thing, and this is just a great ender of the dayomg!that title :3 so much love)
Hehe, this poem has a bit of a humorous side, methinks. At first, I wasn't all too sure about the repetitive of kind man/old chap/sweet gentleman kind of thing, because it's pretty obvious that it's just the same thing being repeated using different words - but I did like how you thought of us - the reader - and did in fact change it up instead of keeping it so stale. Anyway, yeah I didn't like it at first, but you know, there's this kind of tone to this, where you can almost feel a passive-aggressiveness in the speaker, and almost a condescending use of the endearments, and I do like that too much :3 I get this image of these two gentlemen shaking hands - and they're trying to squeeze the life out of the other person XD And that is amusing. I always say poetry is all about playing with words and the ironic uses of endearments is certainly playful and I get a lot of laffs with.
That said though - your imagery - it is lacking here, and even though this is more lyricy- experimental - kind of on the ball, I would love if in later revisions you can salvage this piece and add some imagery/metaphor. It would really keep us grounded and invested in the piece, me thinks.
One thing I wanted to comment about though was your breaks.
Especially the breaks above, it kind of ruined the flow for me
What you're doing, is you're breaking it softly - you're breaking it at a spot where there's a natural pause or inclination to breathe - you're breaking it at a phrase, or where we would naturally put a comma. This is a "soft break" and while it's playing it safe in many ways - it's not working here- it's not doing what a soft break does - and that is it makes the readers /not notice/ the break. Soft breaks are subtle. What you want here then, is a HARD break. Break that sucker of a line at a place you wouldn't normally break it - inbetween a noun/verb or an adjective/noun. I dare you. Go on. Break that sucker.
Experiment. See what it sounds like. Hope this helps.
~ as always, Audy
Hey Sparkleponii,
So I like what you're doing here. I like the back and forth and the image of subservience that you're using to keep the poem in line. I do not, however, like the way you've set this out. There is a bunch of space inbetween the lines. I know there isn't actually all that much space, but it feels like it. The short stabs of information are just filling me in with "I'm filling up space!" Some of that is because the lines are so short that the space around it looks bizarrely large. I think this is now a lesson in how aesthetics can change how we read the text. Looking at all that space I feel like your narrator is a little bit lost, she's just trying to work out what his game is. Then she knows it and it isn't enough.
There isn't enough here, enough emotion, I think. There should be, because this is a very directly opinionated poem, but I'm missing the emotional connection that I rely on with poetry. I need to feel for your narrator the same way I need to feel for a main character. Right here I feel like she's just... empty. I know she says thoughts and feelings aren't her strong suit, but it's really just... I don't know. Not working. We need more from her than some contradictory lines and a salute to his pathetic attempts at the end.
I want more grit and more grime, show me some of his ridiculous lies or show me a bit of him and her, the way her hand cups his cheek at the end or something, because right now it's a monologue of text. I don't mind the minimalism so much but I do miss having something concrete to hold on to, from an imagery perspective - can you tell I love imagery?! This is good though, don't think otherwise. The voice is strong and you have an excellent tone here. We know what she means when she says it, no worries about that at all. I do think it needs to spread over some more of that space, but if you love it how it is, don't mind me.
Thank you for writing this and thank you for posting it. I'm sorry no one got to it until now! It deserves a closer look, and your writing is steadily improving which is always excellent to see.
~ Pen.