Published June 6, 2008
True Love
A large, rotund woman,
fat rolling over her khakis,
gets the bread dough, which
is the color of her skin and
beats it.
Her squat, chubby knuckles
squeeze into the dough, pushing,
pulling, kneading, squishing, tugging.
All her frustrations of the day
go into that beating.
Her kitchen is small and yellow,
with grand windows and a gas stove,
but no microwave-
this woman likes to bake.
"Don't you use those crap machines.
Turns food into slop. Pig slop.
Food is s'posed to taste like food.
Like heaven," she says, shoving her giant fingers
into the dough.
She wipes her hands on a dirty
apron, and leans all her heavy self against
the counter.
A small, mousy man comes in from the garden.
Tries to wrap his arms around her, but can't.
He reaches up, on tiptoes and whispers,
"Darling, you're so beautiful."
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139,430 Literary Works • 672,563 Reviews
[quote]A large, rotund woman,
fat rolling over her khakis,
gets the bread dough, which
is the color of her skin and
beats it.[quote]
I agree. I don't like the word gets there. And the part where her skin is the color of the bread dough. Well maybe you could specify what part like her hands or face or so on. When you say it there it makes me think that you can see the midrif skin. But maybe thats me.
I love the way that its not cliched and not the beautiful woman and handsome man who are unrealistically perfect. Its sweet and well written. Although I agree with whats been said before. You could show some more instead of throwing a truckful of adjetives in there. Written with style. Good job and definately a gold star from me.(and thats rare from me) Keep it up.
Oo, this is so sweet! I really like this. I can imagine the lady and the man perfectly. (Actually, it reminded me of someone, but that's just rude.)
I really can't see anything wrong with this, so I'll just shut up now.
-Emily
Hehe,
it's a really sweet piece.
Some colorful word choice and nice use of grammar.
Great story, made me chuckle.
Really sweet ending too.
You nailed it.
9/10
This intro presupposes the genuinity of the concept of your title. It doesn't jump right away to the usually cliched words that makes me want to barf it all up and forget the next stanzas. However the 4th line doesn't seem the least bit connected with the idea of seaparating the 5th from it. I see you got some my-own-style pattern of writing your poem but you also have to READ it while you WRITE it. Get what i mean?
Spare logical reasons and artistic whatnots but THIS made me smile. Like the poem was made perfect by stating THIS WOMAN LIKES TO BAKE.
PERFECT.
Awww this just pulled out a heartstring. X) So magical. whilst this.......
Is just awesome.
OVERALL:
I do not see any wrong grammars, wrong spellings or at least to my conscious self...but i tell you, this simple folky tune of love made the poem readable.
On with more of those please?
Kudos Yo, Parecokes.
G'Bless
Hello there!
This was a real cute idea. I second Eimear -- show more than you tell. Use less adjectives, and instead describe vividly. Keep in mind poetic elements like metaphor and imagery and sound devices.
Your first stanza is a bit messy:
"fat rolling over her khakis" The line makes sense, but at the same time it doesn't. I'm not sure what I'm supposed to see. Is the fat at her waist, or at her knees? The next line "gets the bread dough", I've always found get to be an incredebly ugly word, but keep it. Just in general, though, the line is boring. You want to make your language sparkle. "Which is the color of her skin", Eimear mentioned it, it's just a weak description. Be as vivid and exact as you possibly can. "Her skin is more gray and lumpy than the dough she kneads her chubby fingers into."
What I think you need to focus on most is making your language more powerful, and making it so that the beginning of the power shows her ugly nature, and then contrast it by making the ending of the poem use more beautiful language, and show how her husband feels about her, not just through dialogue. A hug and a few words doesn't convince us that he actually believe what he is saying. Show it through how you use language. Something you might want to look at is your choice of diction, and here is a great article for that: Right Word, Right Time by Cade.
I hope this helps! Good luck.
Aww this is awesome, nice job! I feel like such a horrible, narrow-minded person trying to nit-pick this, but it's only because I do it out of 'True Love' for advances in your poetry. Wow, that was an awful joke on my part. Apologies.
Okay, so I would just try showing just a little less. You did quite well for the most part of it, but this bit here just didn't seem necessary, so I would suggest cutting it out:
But other than that, I can't really fault you. I really saw the woman and man, in the kitchen, and you did very well with the senses, especially touch in regards to the woman preparing and baking the food. Loved loved the end!
*Clicks gold star
Eimear xx
Unusual romance. It is different from romance cliches like: "I need you", "I don't know what to say to you". The no problems in this poem for me. I liked it, great job.
So amazing! I love the honesty and how romantic it is! The discriptions are awesome and so is the imagery you create! I love the unexpected ending, like the person above me stated. =]
What a genuinely sincere poem! I love the iconography and your rhythm.
But what I love most of all is the unexpectedness of it all! Very romantic ^^ I’d like to see more poems that aren’t about Adonis-like men and Venus-like women. LOVELY!