z

Young Writers Society


E - Everyone

Cornerstone

by Hijinks


Mom has always been there when I needed her most
a
  c
  o
  r  n  e r
              stone for my foundation,
she keeps my flag flying, the post.
My rock, an anchor, from waves that rock me rough,
the roots for my tree, when the going is tough.

Rocking me to sleep when I was little,            helpless,        sad;
my mother hen was patient when I was seething,    angry,        mad.
Kissing my boo-boos when I hurt my knee.
Pointing out the good stuff when bad was all I could see.

When my lifetime ship took in gallons of water
my bucket and mother came to the rescue, literally 'alma mater'.
Nurturing mother was she, indeed
teaching me how to succeed.

"When life is tough, you've got to keep walking,
while others seeing this, quit all their mocking."
I followed her words, verse for verse
and I don't think my life has treated me any worse.

There's another to mention, by the name of Dad;
when I was grumpy he would make me feel glad.
Songs and games that he secretly hated playing
and shoes and dresses, for which he was the one paying.

We'd colour in adult colouring books;
secretly, I though my stuff had the better looks.
There'd be mountains of 'Franklin' waiting to be read
pile of conversations, still to this day unsaid.

When it was sunny, we mulched the gardens together
in fact, we did - and do - it in just about any weather.
We would pull weeds, but it'd be a lot of fun.
We'd laugh and joke - Mr. gardener, Daddy, would tell us a pun.

Yet others I might tell of, of siblings that tease -
big sister read stories at bedtime about huge, giant peas.
When I got older, she painted my nails,
and removed the smudged paint when all else failed.

Big brother one, he played a role
in teasing and pinching and all that stuff he found so droll.
But he taught me basketball, and how to shoot with the balls
so that every time into the net, it falls!

Big brother two, he's a different story
talk of Jadeland, and wars oh so gory
took place in our fantasy conversations:
he was bad, I good, fighting for our made-up nations!

Friends must be mentioned,
faithful and fun, great fort lines we've tensioned
before they fell on our heads - oh well, another time.
And at sleepovers, we went to bed so late - half-past nine!

We've argued over which colour is indigo -
I was wrong, in the end. Apparently it was the colour of a crow?
They were there to help me, branches from my trunk.
And a tree doesn't flourish without those, like taking from a painting a big chunk.

Cornerstones come in every size
when they try to be helpful, but fail; it didn't hurt, so don't reprise.
They anchor us through the storms and the waves
they aren't scared to help us - that makes them the bravest of the brave.


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Sun Jul 30, 2017 11:03 pm
alliyah wrote a review...



Hi Pearl,

this was such a sweet little piece about your family and friends. I liked the concept! For the most part I think you also did a nice job with the rhyming, which can be pretty difficult to do especially in a piece of this size.

One suggestion I have is to work a bit on consistency in formatting and evaluate whether changes in formatting benefit the piece as a whole. For instance the line sizes varied drastically in this piece, and there didn't seem to be a reason why except to fit in more information.

Your shortest line is literally one letter: "a"

and then your longest line is triple the average length of your other lines:
"when they try to be helpful, end up being in the wrong place. . . it didn't hurt, so don't reprise."
you might want to break the last stanza up into two stanzas to fit all that information, because as it is the last few stanzas just look a bit out of place.

While I thought the "corner" visual aspect was neat in the first stanza, the fact that white-spacing or shapes didn't play a part in any of your other stanzas made it seem a bit odd an out of place.

Those are just my opinions of course and thank you for sharing your piece!

Please let me know if you have any more questions about my review!

Best,
~alliyah




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Fri Jul 14, 2017 5:46 am
midnightdreary wrote a review...



Hi! This is such a sweet poem, it's honestly so adorable. I can tell how much you love all these people! I like you you styled the "corner" of cornerstone. That was clever. That being said, let's get into the review!

The first thing I'd say is that some of your rhymes are kind of predictable. Like with rhyming sad with mad in the second stanza. When you rhyme, try thinking of multiple things that could rhyme and choose the one that sounds strongest, instead of just thinking of one. Obviously that's much harder done than said.

Next is that a few times, you used some weak adjectives. Adjectives can either make or break a poem, so think beyond words like "sad" or "mad".

Next I'd say is that the stanzas about you dad, brothers as friends seem quite rushed. You spent three stanzas on your mom, and barely gave anything to your friends. It's like you were trying to squeeze everything into your poem, except you were crunched on time. In any case, I'd say expand the part about your friends. It seemed like you just threw them in there at the last minute.
There are three ways I'd go about this. One is shortening the part about your mom. Second is lengthening everyone else's stanzas. Third would be just talking about your mom. There's no best one to do in my opinion, choose whichever suggestion suits you best, if any at all.

Last thing is the part about being snoopy in the last stanza. It seems out of place there, so I feel like you should just take it out, or put it somewhere else.

That's all! I hope this review was helpful!




Hijinks says...


It was! Any better?





Yeah definitely! It especially seemed much less rushed in the end!



Hijinks says...


Thanks for the input!



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Thu Jul 13, 2017 5:25 pm
GinaERufo wrote a review...



Hi Pearl! :)

First of all I wanted to let you know that this poem really made me stop for a second and think about all of the corner stones in my own life; which is good! A good author, and a great poet always makes their audience think and analyze, so I can see your going far with your writing.
Also, I don't really like to review poetry because I think it's very subjective and personal to the person, so any grammatical errors or mess up in the rhyme scheme, or lack of, could be a person choice. With that being said, I do have to suggestions that I would like you to look over and try, and see if it makes a difference in the flow of your poem:

" when going is tough."-- maybe try when the going gets tough or when the going is tough. Unless it effects your rhyme scheme.

"so that every time into the net it falls!" I would write "so that every time into the net, it falls!"

Overall, I loved this. It was personal, but full of things that most people can relate to. You've done it again! A great poem :) continue to write these because you've got real talent that can not be wasted!

With love,
Gina




Hijinks says...


Thanks! I'm glad you like it :) I'll check some of the stuff you recommended.




Edna began to feel like one who awakens gradually out of a dream, a delicious, grotesque, impossible dream, to feel again the realities pressing into her soul.
— Kate Chopin, The Awakening