Let's raft to a merry wonderland and paint all these asteroids blue so they're indistinguishable from the garbled cries that wreck my soul. I'm not trying to be cruel but I left a pile of ash sitting on my doorstep, and apartment complexes and lofty hotel rooms just don't appeal to me right now. My tent is made of parchment-canvas but the winds are like bronzed wood-chips that strike it down every time. I tear the clouds to pieces and stand alone on a dusty path, a parched roll of bedrock that desert sands abandoned a long time ago. I search for elegant words to trail off my lips but just one spark and I'm left looking at a corpse of rhyme. Arching my back, I drive a dagger through imagery's misty embrace, and then when I realize what I've done - I hate myself. Because I just killed myself off and I never even knew. My brain's clogged up and I feel as though my thoughts have swamped half-way up somebody's chimney. It's like they're stubborn little pieces of corrugated cardboard, and it strikes me as enigmatic how they can manage to waver and yet be so strong at the same time.
I can't discern this steady patter of my feet on the sidewalk because all sense of proportion mocks me, jeers at me and punches me in the gut like relentless tidal waves. The lifeless tears of a broken streetlight in the night's moonlit glance do nothing to calm my nerves, because they're as decayed as I am; a bright blue bleached gray by depression. And if anything, standing here only makes me feel sadder. The world's so drained, and I'm the last jagged jigsaw piece, the last dreary panel being pressed into the wall. I'm a burnt-up ruin and my words forgot how to dance to my fancies so long ago, I can't even remember. But I couldn't bring myself to accept the bitter truth until now. I used to think the truth was like oranges - with a spicy, sour tang: simply bursting with life. But now I realize that the truth's nothing more than sour lemons and I'm in no mood to make lemonade.
Some people keep their walls standing firm with plaster, but I foolishly chose to line my walls with words; tying them up in intricate knots and weaving symbolic patterns through them. And I held the world in a mesmerised trance - at least, for a little while. I was proud of my walls and how they stood out so beautifully. But now they touch the floor like hunchbacked castles, and I can feel them collapse around me. The words are withering, corroding in an incessant stream of acid rain and drip-dripping off my ceiling. They leave inky tears of blood wherever they go. I watch them cry, and I'm trying so hard not to cry too. I draw in long hard breaths as I watch the walls crumble before me, and I stare up at the empty beet-root sky as though it will help me convalesce. But for now, I am a vacuum, an atom-less electron.
My walls have finally fallen, and so have I.
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141,247 Literary Works • 674,328 Reviews
Note: this is one of my entries for the Big Review. Hope you enjoy!
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Introduction:
Hey there, Pompadour! First of all, I'm sorry this is so short. I try to tailor my review around the length of a piece, and this is a bit shorter than what I normally review. (But I'm compelled to write about it... I mean, this piece is awesome.
In this review, I'm mostly going to focus on individual sentences. I'll also stop to make a few observations about plot along the way. If you'd rather I focus more on the events of the piece, that's awesome too! Just shoot me a PM and I'd be happy to help. Anyhow, let's get started...
Ready? Set? Go!
Content:
Whoa! I love how evocative this first line is. The effect of starting with a first-person-plural (let us) makes the reader feel, on some level, included. First would have felt a bit like navel-gazing and third seems too passive for a piece like this. One suggestion: I'm wondering what would happen if you broke this up into smaller pieces. This is a beautiful infodump, but it's still an infodump. You can toy around with it like I was earlier, cutting out and adding small stuff here and there. An example: "Let's raft to wonderland and paint all those asteroids blue. Then they'll be identical to the garbled cries wrecking my soul." That's just one combination, anyhow. There are a lot more that you can play around with!
Again, a beautiful, wonderful infodump. I was trying to play around with this one, too, but I realized that your prose, in lots of cases, is just too beautiful to break up. I don't want to make any misinformed edits here--you're an advanced poet, and I don't want to overstep my boundaries. Instead, I'll just tell you about one exercise that I love to do while writing poetry: saying the words out loud. One example, in this piece is included in this quote: "...bronzed wood-chips that strike it down every time." I love this, but there's one word that just doesn't roll off the tongue. Bronzed. For me, "bronzed" has a soft, metallic luster. It doesn't fit with a phrase like "strike it down". Maybe you want to eliminate the word altogether or replace it or maybe you think it fits. This is your decision to make freely and well.
Every writer's struggle, eh?
This personification of imagery is unbelievable. First of all--you pulled it off. You actually did it. You managed to write about writing without actually having to, y'know, write about writing. Masterful. Anyway, here's one thing that I'd love to hear more about. It seems that imagery isn't really tangible (a ghost, perhaps?), but give us the gory details! Does silvery blood gush out, coating your hands and the weapon? Or do you just fall forward, onto the ground? I can't wait to hear!
Okay. A billion high fives for that use of "corrugated". Really awesome. One idea: I'm wondering what would happen if you made this simile a metaphor. Clearing away "like" would de-clutter the sentence and really put emphasis on the elegance of your language.
As much as I love this sentence, I think that one or two things could be eliminated here. For instance--"in the night's moonlit glance" is an awkward preposition. It seems like you would need to take a quick breath in before it and choke the words out. To really let readers picture the scene, you could eliminate it or opt to break up the sentences, like, "The lifeless tears of a broken streetlight in the night's moonlit glance do nothing to calm my nerves. They're as decayed as I am; a bright blue bleached gray by depression", eliminating "because".
I love the way you incorporate the saying here. "When life gives you lemons..." is normally a cliche, and you're acknowledging that, but in your bitter, subtle way. This, combined with the angrily regretful tone of your narrator, is simply perfect.
This is an extraordinary, extraordinary analogy. Its elegance and importance is simply unmatched on this site and beyond. But I feel as if it trails off at the end. What I mean is, it's difficult for me, as a reader, to picture your last phrase ("tying them up...symbolic patterns through them"). Instead, you could try something more similar to what plaster does. Maybe you want to think of the words as sticky, for example: "...mashing the syllables into cracks and molding crackly letters to the bricks". Just an idea. I'd love to see this metaphor go even further!
I love this sentence so much. It's almost 100% on point and not only helps to advance the plot, but is also unbelievably beautiful! Anyhow--one thing. The phrase "as though it will help me convalesce" is expressive and lovely, but seems to clutter up the sentence a bit. I'd try to eliminate it altogether and let the reader decide why the narrator is staring up at the "empty beet-root sky". Also--high five for "the empty beet-root sky". Amazing.
This piece in one word? Jaw-dropping. Really. I love it and your voice as a writer. This is one of the best writings I've read all year... and that's not just counting YWS. I mean this is one of the best writings I've read all year.
Resources:
Below, I'll include ~3 resources for your enjoyment! I hope some are helpful, as well. These people know their stuff better than I do, anyway...
- An awesome piece by Rydia on sentence structure: Sentence Structure.
- Rosendorn is fascinating! Pacing, and why it is important
- Just an interesting "what not to do" article by Mia Paramore: Not Getting Carried Away with Descriptions.
Keep writing, and--as we say in my hometown--don't forget to be awesome.
IronSpark
Man, this is an old work. XD But still a helpful review! Thank you so much!
Man, this is an old work. XD But still a helpful review! Thank you so much!
Man, this is an old work. XD But still a helpful review! Thank you so much!
You're welcome!
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You're welcome!
You're welcome!
(See what I did there?
Owch. And this is what happens when my internet refuses to cooperate with me. XD
Despite the fact that this would appear to be nonsensical, and indeed each sentence, taken by itself, would be definitely so, together and in hindsight it all starts to make a weird sense. One of my favorite lines was "now I realize life is nothing but sour lemons and I am in no mood to make lemonade." This line starts by extending a previous metaphor and then goes on to twist this metaphor, leading the reader on until you hit them with a final word, whose literal meaning is so far removed from the situation that it really makes the reader step back and think.
Overall very well done, keep up the strange work!
Take That You Fiend!
Hi there! Because I'm not sure where I want to start and how to review on it, I will start by saying that I will giving what I like and vice versa. From some clues on the author's notes, it is about writer's block and how bad the situation was when it hit a writer. I can see from the title of the poem, it is really quite 'horrible'.
I was actually quite impressed with your ability to play the words in figurative language. Well, I see that you use a lot of simile and metaphor in your poem.
Though it's like a bombastic element, the aesthetic value of the language style can still be seen.
The first part of the poem into something difficult to understand the purpose behind it. You created some conflict in this paragraph where you say you hate each less sensible behavior, where you try to kill your imagery (according to my understanding). Actually a symbolic that it is difficult every time the writer loses the idea while trying to write something.
Once readers chance upon a mixed metaphor, the instant reaction is almost always to pause. Even if it makes sense, the two images thrust upon them under the same utterance just requires additional thought that, for the most part, destroys the flow as they’re reading your piece.
I personally having difficulty to understand a poem that was written with a lot of figurative language. It often confuses me. So I think the writing style with a simple language, sometimes actually better to use. Because not all poetic verse can make the work stand out.
However, I liked the last paragraph. I think I know what you're trying to convey here. Keep it up!
Kudos, cheers.
Hi Pompadour! GriffinClaw, here to review this lovely work of yours!
Wow. This is really good. The imagery, the descriptive wording, the similes and metaphors are all fantastic. My favorite lines...well, this whole thing, really. As soon as I started reading this, I was drawn right it. A giant metaphor for writer's block...what I needed right now. How clever of you, to squeeze such a lovely work about the very thing that prevents works like these from happening! If I have to pick my favorite line...I would say,
Because it shows hopelessness expressed in such a great way, really. When I read it, I just sighed at the poetic-ness. Or, another favorite is,
When I read this, I imagined an angry soul flying around aimlessly, trying to find something to grasp onto. Not sure if you meant for this, but that's what I got.
The only thing I would suggest changed would be maybe the format. Every sentence has so much thought put into it, obviously, and I feel that condensing it all into three paragraphs made it hard to get through. At the first paragraph, I was like, Wow this is really good. Second paragraph got a little harder to slog through, despite great context. I'm not saying you should put it in complete poem format, just more...separation? If you get what I mean.
Overall, this piece is great, written like a true genius. Just the format, otherwise, I saw no grammatical or spelling errors. Your vocabulary is exceptional, and I really enjoyed it. Great job.
Keep writing and being amazing! Go Beasts!
~GC