a television babbles to the world, unwatched.
I'm crunching cucumbers that taste like
the spring rain fell,
diamonds pounding onto your
head to the psychiatrist:
changes in eating & sleeping patterns are
signs of depression litter the sides
of a highway that is heading straight to
Helena is the last city of my dreams,
but here I am, feeling lost and
a lonely woman walks, head down,
pulling at her dirty gloves that used to
fit a cobblestone into the space
left over from when my heart
broke, starving, dirty, it seems
the last thing we have is our
dignity, with all her tendencies to float,
has never made much of a sea-worthy
vessels stand out on your forehead
and I find it hard to concentrate on your
voices calling me home, to a bright place
we all used to call
home is nothing more than a fairy tale,
a sentence blotted out from my future
goals on the blaring television, celebrated
by Brazil as I continue to crunch these cucumbers.
---
A/N: Didn't inspire this, but relevant: Deacon Blue-- Dignity
Points:
Time spent:
Canary word: Present
Possible AI signals:
Original Text:
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125,005 Literary Works • 672,797 Reviews
Fruit4you here for a review
Ok so capitalize the beginning of each line. Also you separate your lines at weird places, and your stanzas are not separated well. Your writing is great, but your structure isn't. I pause at the wrong times, and it is awkward to read without the proper structure. It takes away rhythm and flow from your poem. "the spring rain fell" I think "fell" should be "fall" It sounds better as "I'm crunching cucumbers that taste like
the spring rain fall,"
Rather than
"I'm crunching cucumbers that taste like
the spring rain fell, "
Keep Writing, Fruit4you
First of all, whoever told you that every line in poetry has to be capitalized is wrong. I'm sorry they decieved you, but I'm here to set things right. Not every line (or any word at all!) has to be capitalized.
Secondly, I have the line breaks the way I do because that's the gimmick of the poem. Each line flows into the next line with a different meaning than that line uses it for. For example:
"a television babbles to the world, unwatched.
I'm crunching cucumbers that taste like (the spring rain.) (because to me, cucumbers taste like rain)
the spring rain falls,
diamonds pounding onto your (head.)
head to the psychiatrist:
changes in eating & sleeping patterns are (signs of depression.)
signs of depression litter the sides
of a highway that is heading straight to (hell.)
..."
See what I mean?
And you're probably right that it should be falls instead of fell. ^^
Okay, so you were going for an enjamblement I assume? If you were here is a website to look at about enjamblements. It's very helpful. http://www.haverford.edu/engl/chaucer/a ... mbment.htm Also the reason capitalizing the first word of each line is it is ascetically pleasing. No one NEEDS to capitalize any words, but as a reader I was distracted by it on a more subconscious level. I really love your poem. Honest. But truthfully I dislike the way you separated your stanzas even if that's how it's supposed to be. You have a wonderful way with words, but I'm a kind of person who likes to read smooth poetry, and when I had to pause mid thought to go to the next stanza I was a bit annoyed. But just because it's not my style doesn't mean it's bad. As you can see from your reviewers many people like your stanza thing. Perhaps I'm just a tad bit too picky?
Good day.
Yes, it's enjambment, but it's more than that because of the expectation for what the word means, but it actually means something else in the context. I'm glad you know that not all poetry lines have to be capitalized. ^^ It seems that teachers are teaching that they do in school, so that's a bit of a sore subject for me. Usually I capitalize words at the beginning of sentences, but because this poem had like, zero complete sentences, I decided to drop capitalization all together so that it looked more cohesive.
I did the thing with the two line stanzas (and also how the title flows right into the poem) because I was experimenting with a style that I see a lot of modern poets using.
(for some really good examples, look at these poems (I really like them): http://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/when ... ll-we-have
http://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/what
http://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/never-ever )
Have you ever heard that song "sweet violets?"
It uses rhyming to make the listener expect something else at the end of the line
http://www.oldielyrics.com/lyrics/dinah ... olets.html
(for example "There once was a farmer who took a young miss
In back of the barn where he gave her a" you'd expect the next word to be "kiss," but instead, it's "lecture," so it plays off of the audience's expectations. I was trying to do the same thing. ^^)
It's good that you're picky! It makes the writer know that you're paying attention, and if I hadn't had a reason for doing everything I did, your advice would've been very, very helpful to me.
Thanks again~
I totally understand what you're trying to do now! Okay, in the examples you sent me they all flow to the next stanza without an awkward pause. I don't really know how to explain it. But when you go to the next stanza it feels like you are continuing the line before it and in between there is a pause that should be fluid.
"diamonds pounding onto your
head to the psychiatrist: " I really love the way it is written, but I pause after "you" and then I read "Head" So I read it as
"diamonds pounding onto your."
"head to the psychiatrist."
But this is a good start! Definitely with more practice you will master that type of poetry! It's always good to experiment!
This isn't a review because I don't feel as if I can review it. I just want to say that it is wonderful, and I'm going to need to read it again and again! Good job.
Forticuno,
OMNOMNOM. Like, hella noms for this piece playing with enjambment and our expectations of poetry, reading poetry and visual poetry. It's wonderful to see you experimenting and I think this is a very strong attempt, definitely if it's a first attempt. You've managed to capture that sense of endless, empty distraction hooked into tuning out when the telly is on near you. Your mind wanders and loses focus and you've created an excellent stream of consciousness to match it.
I think you could lose this:
dignity, with all her tendencies to float,
has never made much of a sea-worthy
vessels stand out on your forehead
and I find it hard to concentrate on your
But I think I'm feeling that way because I REALLY LIKE the sound of "the last thing we have is our/voices calling me home" because it is smooth and warm and utterly delicious. The vessels on the forehead is a little bit of an odd image - it makes me think of pimples O.O
I know what you're doing is only slight enjambment and more couplets which connect thematically and not necessarily in words, but I'd actually really love to see a little more smooth enjambment because it's a skill I'm very into and I think you've shown us here that you can do it, and do it well.
I love love love your images, I think they're solid and a little odd and that works so well with what you're doing. I actually really like the gloves because I feel that the cobble stones fill the space inside the glove? And that works as an image for me, as though she is being pulled down by these heavy gloves she is trying to remove.
Very seriously omnom on this, I love it.
- ♥♥
Hi darling.
These are my favorite lines, to be quite honest. They stand strong on their own, and together, which is hard to do in this sort of a situation.
I don't feel as if these two stanzas go together so well. The image of dirty gloves fitting into cobblestones, and then the cobblestones being the space left over from when my heart broke just is way too much for me. While the other lines have a clean balance between metaphors and lines, this one image gets mixed up and muddled.
vessels on my forehead? Nahhhhh bro.
thumbs up
The stanza before this is such a clean finish, I'd delete this all together.
I liked it. It went very well and was very interesting to read. Sure, there were a few hiccups, but overall, I liked the feel this poem gives me, that there's never an end or a beginning. I appreciate what you're trying to do here and it WORKS. yay for you <3
Thanks for your review~
There are a few things I don't understand though.
Why did you put a "that" in the first quoted part?
What's wrong with the vessels?
I see what you mean about everything else. Originally, the poem had a little bit more to do with gloves, earlier in the poem, but I took that part out, so now this other gloves part doesn't work as well. I will ponder on your suggestions.
opps it was supposed to be 'spring rain that fell' simply because it flowed better, but apparently the 'that' got put in the wrong spot. As for the vessels thing, it simply /doesn't make sense/ to some degree in poetry, you can not make sense and no one cares, but when something just simply makes no sense at all, it throws the reader off.
As for the glove thing, it wasn't so much the gloves I had a problem with, it just felt like three or four metaphors were smushed together with no connection between any of them.
Ho-ly crap. That's all for now. If I can manage to come up with anything significant enough to be considered as a review, I'll return. But wow.