summer beats down on my chest,
her arms outstretched,
my head chin up and face bare.
she has a jar in her
ember-like hands,
a small container
she filled with papers
of reminiscence and
pictures of our class.
summer beats down on my chest,
and heavier it gets -
she kisses my cheeks ever so gently,
and passes by like
the evanescent memories of our
highschool life.
--
One question: is it better with proper capitalization?
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140,293 Literary Works • 673,080 Reviews
If its the begginging of a sentence, yes. You do need capitalization. Me hope you no is confused anymore.
me thankful you give suggestion ^-^
Hello, Pomp here for a quick review.
I haven't read any of your poetry before, but the last few lines in this poem are absolutely lovely and carry this nostalgic feel that I'm really digging. Your word choice, too, is good for the most part.
What do you mean by 'proper' capitalisation? In poetry, you can either capitalise the beginning of every line, have sentence-by-sentence capitalisation, or not capitalise at all. 'Proper' capitalisation ought to be, technically, whatever form of capitalisation suits your poem--but I think here you're referring to the convention of capitalising every line, yes? Because you've specifically asked for an opinion on the capitalisation in this poem, I think you're better off leaving this uncapitalised--it creates a flow-of-consciousness, laidback feel, and it really suits the tone the piece is written in. Ultimately, capitalisation choices are best left to the writer's discretion. If you're still confused, though, this article might prove useful to you.
Onwards with the critique:
1] Your opening is not strong. It's rambling and the images are weaker as opposed to later on in the piece, where they gather strength. This is mostly because there are a series of actions Summer is carrying out, and none of them tie in with the others. Summer is: A] 'beating down' on the narrator's chest; and B] has her arms 'outstretched' which brings to mind an embrace, or just creates the image of her arms being above her head, which is not a good position with which to strike someone/'beat' them--the two images are very much in contrast with one another.
2]
Head or chin? Which is it? Why is it important for us to know that the narrator's face is 'bare'? Bare of what? Emotion? Happiness? ...Make-up? If you're trying to convey the emotion of a burning face, words like 'skinned' and 'scalped' could be fitted into the verse.
3]
~ Repetition: 'jar' and 'container'--state it once, state it firmly. Try going for something like: 'she has a jar in her hands//...//and it is filled... [with papers]' instead of lengthening the sentiment out with repetition.
~ I'm not fond of 'ember-like', mostly because embers are very hot and don't suit the vapour-like character summer possesses in the last stanza. Embers are hot, glowing coals--not fire itself--and I think it would be extremely painful for the narrator to be in that situation. In that case, living through their summer would hardly be 'evanescent'; it would be a pain that would stay with them, a pain that would burn and torture and not go away all that easily. 'paper' and embers are also at odds with one another--is she burning everything down? The narrator doesn't say.
4] 'papers' and 'pictures' are clunky. They're very solid for a poem that relies on indistinctness to back up the sensation of flitting memories; they stick out. I'd prefer something foggier--something that is as impossible to fit in the jar as it is for summer to torture the narrator with them, physically, in the first place. What do you mean by 'papers of reminiscence'? Reminiscence is an apt word, but it doesn't really make sense to be how papers can carry this feeling until you spell it out for us. Does the reminiscence take the form of laughter? Of friendship? Of hurt, loss, and change? Does it carry frustration and blinding happiness? Tell us. The middle of your poem is weak, because it is not as emotionally powerful as the end.
5]
~ The pronoun 'she' has been used for summer throughout the piece, so for the sake of consistency, 'it' ought to be 'she', too.
6]
Suggestion: switch from active to passive voice after the hyphen (which should be a dash, by the way), just so the 'heaviness' and 'evanescence' are more strongly juxtaposed. Another suggestion I have is for the line breaks--I find that line breaks are weaker when you end on a 'point of comparison' (words like 'like'), because it creates a kind of disconnect.
Here's how I'd edit this:
Although, of course, you may edit this as it pleases you!
That's all the criticism I have. I enjoyed reading this, and I hope this review helped~
PM me if you have any questions.
~Pomp
Thank you for your review! It was really helpful and I think I may have gained a bucket load of knowledge now. As for the capitalization part, I meant not capitalizing at all, since many people comment on my poetry saying that I should capitalize my i's, etc. when I intentionally didn't do so. Again, thank you for this review and I will improve my work!
Hey Mr Hunter,
It was good but certainly not the best of your works.
I've got a few suggestions for this piece of work of your.
1)"Summer beats down my chest
her arms outstretched," I guess if you and "are " after arms it would flow better.
2)"my head chin up and face bare." this line sounded a bit strange to me. Maybe if you remove head from the line it would make more sense.
3)"she has a jar in her
ember-like hands, " make it one.
4)"summer beats down on my chest,
and heavier it gets -
she kisses my cheeks ever so gently,
and passes by like
the evanescent memories of our
highschool life." I liked this part of your work.
These are just suggestions. But this is your poem and if you like it this way then be it.
Anyway I like it but of course it could use improvement.
Keep on writing
Fangirl~
P.S.- you could certainly use some capitalization.
Thank you for your review! Some say I do, some say I don't. Well, I would like to think about it for a while. My poems matter a lot and I don't want to lose their meaning when I go for the common capitalization scheme. Hm... anyways, again, thank you for your review! You don't know how much the reviews mean to me because I'm going to pass this for our school's newspaper and at the moment it is really terrible.
Hey!
I don't think i an give you a long review but surely give you a few suggestions to improve your poem. Currently its "okay" but i believe that with a bit of corrections here and there it can become "perfect".
1)Yes, please insert proper capitalization to make this poem like a poem.
2)If its a graduation poem then make it more related to your theme. More of memories. (this is just a suggestion from a reader)
3) You can add a refrain. In such poems refrains actually do a lot good by reducing the need of a rhyme scheme and still making it kind of "song-type".
That's it from my side, hope you like the suggestions and even if you don't our poem is good enough but there is always a chance to make it better..
looking forward to a better version..
To improvise is to "create and perform (music, drama, or verse) spontaneously or without preparation," I think you meant improve.
thanks for telling..honestly my vocabulary is just gross!
Thank you! I believe that this is definitely not one of my good works. I can't really write that well when somebody gives me a deadline. It can be nerve-wracking at times so I can't really express words well. As for the capitalization, I guess I'll think about it more. Thank you for your suggestions!