Exiting my little secured comfort zone,
I viewed the incomprehensible gigantic world
with spontaneous cries and giggles
along with undecipherable sounds.
To my parents I was a living canvas
waiting for them to paint me
with their brushes' forceful jabs,
demanding obedience and submission -
eager to see the destruction of my whites
by replacing them with their preferred colours.
But I breathed the air,
I moved my body,
I rode my thoughts.
I created my preferred colours
to fill my whites and
they kept wrestling
with my parents'.
Thousand years of colourful war saw
my parents' obedient robotic grey against
my defying brilliant scarlet;
their socially accepted pale yellow against
my controversial deep purple -
among the others.
Alas, it came to a happy ending
when the collision between them
erased all innocent fragile whites.
They blended with each other without consent
and created the purest darkness -
the result of disagreeing colours -
bringing destruction and fear to me and the others,
acting on its own -
unpredictable.
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139,751 Literary Works • 672,695 Reviews
I really like this! The overall comparison is really well thought out and vivid. The different capitalization and lowercase stand out in the whole piece of writing. Overall, it captures the reader and you did a really good job. I can see you as a writer! I think that about my parents sometimes too whenever they will not let me do things or be myself. I also likes the different tabs to emphasize your writing too.
Hey there, thanks for requesting a review in my review thread. Let's get right to it.
Theme
I really like the overall metaphor of the piece. I haven't seen anything like it, and I think it's a really neat idea to imagine yourself as a canvas that starts out blank and gets painted over the course of their life. Really, I only see two main issues here.
1. Style and Wording
Quite frankly, this piece doesn't sound pretty. It's a great idea, and I love the imagery you use here, but there isn't much flow.
I think the main problem is the lack of emotion. Because this has all already happened to the narrator, they are simply telling the story with the straight-up facts, and the reader doesn't feel anything. And if the reader doesn't feel anything, than your poem has failed.
You do have some emotion in there - like in this part:
There's a hint of pride and defiance here. I want more. Make your narrator's voice really strong. Bring out their emotions. And not just the pride and defiance. Take us through the times where they narrator wept because their parents just didn't understand. Take us from the time where the narrator thought they could still reconcile with their parents to the point where the narrator finally decided to break away, and describe what they felt throughout all of that.
Also, in general, you use rather complicated words to get across a simple idea. That's not a good thing to do in poetry, because it never flows well, and complicated words often don't carry a lot of emotion to them.
The most noticeable example of this was your first stanza. You spend the entire stanza - 1/6 of the poem - describing what the narrator did at birth in a way that doesn't tie in with the rest of the poem very well and doesn't include any references to color, like the rest of the poem.
Also, you say the narrator "giggles" and "cries" and makes other "incomprehensible sounds" when they come out of the womb, but this is simply not the case. When babies are born, the first thing they do is cry. Loudly. A lot. It clears out their lungs and helps them get accustomed to breathing. In fact, if the baby doesn't come out crying, the nurses will sort of pound on its back until it does. So really, you could cut out the last two lines of that stanza.
Here's just an example of how I would rewrite it, hopefully it will inspire you:
This is pretty rough, but it ties in the color, adds a bit of emotion, and is a lot simpler.
2. Confusion
There are some parts of this that are worded rather confusingly. I understood the story overall, but some of the stanzas didn't make sense.
This was probably the most difficult part to understand. I got it in the end - the parents' bad qualities rubbed off on each other until they were both a mess. (I also think it could be referencing them falling out of love with each other and getting divorced, but I'm not sure.) The point is, it took me a couple of read-throughs to get it. Again, simplicity is key. Simplicity is powerful.
I understood this fine, but I'm not so sure about the color choices. Grey is obviously the color of uniformity, so that's fine, but why would pale yellow be accepted, while purple is controversial? Also, having to specify which ones are acceptable doesn't make this stanza flow particularity well.
I think what you were trying to go for here is to have the parents wear the light, washed-out colors and have the narrator wear the deep, striking colors. That's a great idea, and I think it works, but you don't need to state which ones are the norm and which ones are defiant and which ones are acceptable. The reader can figure it out based on the context of the poem and the imagery associated with the colors.
Anyway, that's all I've got for you. I hope this review was helpful, and I'm sorry if I sounded a bit harsh. Like I said, I really like your idea - you've got a nice eye for imagery. It's just the execution that needs a bit of work to make this poem truly moving.
Good luck and keep writing!
Hi,
I just want to commend you on this piece, I found it relatable and powerful. My parents often try to enclose me with boundaries, but I am bold, which results in conflict. Your writing is absolutely wonderful- I can see you becoming a published writer. I can feel the urge you carry to be free from their restraints. Once again, great job!
Keep writing,
Mia
I once had a conversation with my aunt about how hard it is to remember that children are, in essence, little people. With their own thoughts and ideas that you need to respect. This poem reminded me of that.
It's a very vivid portrayal of growing up I think. I love the way you relate a child to a canvas, and how the character maintains its independence as he/she grows. The way you tell the story via the different colors is great - the reader can understand a lot of what's going on in the child's world and upbringing without specifics.
"Alas, it came to a happy ending
when the collision between them
erased all innocent fragile whites."
This stanza confused me a bit, considering what follows. Is the narrator being sarcastic about it being a happy ending? Or are they actually happy that they're not being forced into conforming after their parents disagree/split up?
I'm also curious about the colors that you used versus the ones you left out, if there's any significance to that.
"they kept wrestling
with my parents'."
For some reason this line felt a bit out of place to me, perhaps because you've already established that the narrator is wrestling against the will of their parents. That stanza is very much about independence and the narrator growing on his/her own. What if you stopped it at "to fill my whites" and either made the wrestling part a new stanza or just took it out?
Just a suggestion of course. The poem is quite good as it is.
Definitely enjoyed reading it, good job! It's very relatable.
-Cairo