She carried a piece of the universe on her back.
She smiled at sunshine and laughed in the rain.
She painted over every visible crack.
She loved the color gray and delighted in black.
"The stars," she said, "look like scattered grain."
She carried a piece of the universe on her back.
She always smiled, but her eyes seemed to lack;
they seemed to show signs of the uttermost pain.
She painted over every visible crack.
For singing and dancing she had quite a knack:
if you asked why she danced, she'd never explain.
She carried a piece of the universe on her back.
Her heart would soar, but her mind would slack;
that isn't to say something was wrong with her brain.
She painted over every visible crack.
She carried the universe till her very bones bruised black,
and perhaps she wasn't entirely sane.
She carried a piece of the universe on her back,
but she painted over every visible crack.
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141,249 Literary Works • 674,330 Reviews
Um what? I'm sorry but i really don't get it. This story sounds like it should have meaning but...well i don't see any. I don't get the part about her knack for dancing and i really don't get the ending. And the title? What does it mean? Anyway sorry but i think you gotta make this clear.
Hi there!
This was mostly good, and I loved the chorus of "she carried a piece of the universe on her back" (particularly the variation of this in the last stanza, which is a beautiful piece of imagery). There are just a couple of lines that I think read awkwardly:
This line is awkward not so much because of the word-order, but because usually when we use the word "lack" we say "it lacked x," where "x" is the object of the sentence. I understand why you want "lack" at the end of the line--because of the rhyme pattern of the villanelle structure--but you could probably fix the awkwardness of this bit by revising the following line to say something more like "but her eyes seemed to lack/x thing that her eyes lacked."
(Except obviously your revised line would actually say what her eyes lack...I'm just feeling too uncreative at the moment to offer a real example.)
I think the other thing that bugs me about this line and the following line is the use of the word "seemed." Again, I realize you said "her eyes seemed to lack" and "they seemed to show signs" rather than "her eyes lacked" and "they showed signs" because you're trying to fit the villanelle structure with the proper rhythm--but in general words like "seem" distance the reader from the narrative and are supposed to be avoided (unless a narrating-MC is taking a stab at the possible motivations or emotions of another character).
The only other line that bugs me is this one:
This one might be more difficult to fix--it reads awkwardly because usually we would say "she had a knack for x" rather than "for x she had a knack," but again I know you put "knack" at the end to maintain the rhyme scheme. If the whole poem was this way the line would be fine, but since the rest of the poem reads normally this line stands out.
But those are the only two fixes I have for you. You had some lovely imagery in here, especially as I said the variation on the "universe on her back" line in the last stanza.
Blue
Hello! Cirute here to review your poem.
I'll start by saying that I really, really liked this. The analogy you used here was awesome! The fact that you used elements of insanity, the stresses of day to day life, and trying to cover it all up gives the poem a great eerie undertone. It reminds me of a Pink Floyd song in some ways, albeit, a lot of poems do! I'm also quite impressed with the amount of flow/rhyming you had here. Most poems I read can be quite choppy and not rhyme very well, but this one pulls it off flawlessly!
Now, some nitpicks.
"and perhaps sh wan't entirely sane."
I think you meant to say "and perhaps she wasn't entirely sane."
"For singing and dancing she had quite a knack:
if you asked why she danced, she'd never explain."
I'd take out the colon, instead adding a period. I'm not very good at punctuation though, so don't take my word for it.
All in all, this is a great poem. As I have said before, the rhyming was great, the flow was great, and the overall theme was great. That's it. Perfect.
~Cirute