The shadowed box of eyes and fur
Sat inside the old canoe
Peeping inside
The child was amazed
At the squirming mass of cats
Little eyes stared up at her
Pure wonder reflected
~
A tiny paw reached up
Both curious and cautious
It gently touch the small hand
That reached over the cardboard walls
Instant love between them
A bond that would forever hold
~
A kitten found a home that day
And its littermates and mom
Safe and sound
Forever loved
Always warm and dry
Never to be abandoned
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139,487 Literary Works • 672,577 Reviews
it is a review.
..seems you do have kitty..why not post it's image? love to see it...
I just simply love it.I just like it. I do love kittens. and their fluffy softy body.
Thanks! I'm probably going to take a picture of my kitty soon, when I finally get around to it! xD
Hey TheBlueCat,
I'm happy to say WELCOME TO YWS!
You've actually joined during Review Month which is a month where we try to do 50 reviews a piece, welcome!
That being said, let's get on with the review.
First off, I have to say that I like how you're not immediately obvious about what's going on. You give the poem a hint of mystery and allow the reader to wonder and guess about what exactly is happening. You do this by giving vague details like "shadowed box of eyes" rather than "cardboard box of kittens" and while that would be horrible in a short story or a novel, it's okay in a poem.
The original image left me with very little figurative language however, and I feel like this poem in general doesn't give much to the senses. We have a canoe, but no lapping of water, if the canoe is ON water at all. We have kittens, eyes, shadows, but we don't know why the looker can't see into the box, or where the box is in the canoe, or if the canoe of kittens might actually have an owner somewhere that's now missing a kitten.
I feel like this poem is trying to be very heartfelt and give us all that "Oliver" story where a girl finds a kitten in a cardboard box, and rescues it from the dangerous world, but at the same time, I feel like we're missing the images that might make the world dangerous. If you give us more of a sense of what's going on, who is around, why the girl thinks she can take the kittens, or even some tension about maybe doing something someone wouldn't want her to do, then I feel like there would be more of a tension to relieve at the end of the poem. Right now, you have a poem that's mostly telling us what's going on without the figurative language which makes poetry stronger, and we end up just seeing a short scene. I shouldn't be able to sum up a poem in a sentence. I can sum up this one. A girl finds kittens in a cardboard box in a canoe and takes them home, happily ever after.
Let's add some drama to that in the emotional turmoil and add figurative language like metaphors or similes so we can dive into something beyond the surface. I find myself reading this and asking myself "Why does this matter" when I should be asking "What happened" and I know how I would get to "what happened" but I'm not sure how it would be best for YOU to get to it, so I'm going to give you a challenge to write another poem instead of telling you what I would do. Sometimes the best way to learn is to do after all, and you've got the words, and the formatting, to do this well, we just have to work on the story.
Challenge:
Think about something that makes you feel the most emotion you've ever felt, whether that's happiness, anger, frustration, love, friendship, or thrill doesn't matter. When you have that thing, write a first person poem about it without ever using a direct description of it.
For instance, I am really passionate about writing utensils. I loooove my pens. Like, I get super excited when I find a new pen that I love and I write with certain brands of pens because I love the way they feel. They make me happy. I wrote a poem about my pens and talking about cheating on them because I had to use a pencil since I couldn't find my pen.
It may SEEM silly, but I got it published because of how much emotion I was able to put into my poem, and I didn't admit it was about a pen until the very end.
Lastly, check this out: Capitalization in Poetry
I'd love to see the results!
-Aley
Thanks!
Thanks!
This has too much told not enough show. What do the cats look like? Who is the child? Describe the how she felt don't say how she felt. There is a lot of good flow in the poem. It has the possibility to be a strong poem. It seems very bland to me. Instead of "At the squirming mass of cats" try "A squirming mass of (dry/wet) (color) fur, emitting countless meows." something like that. It's just a recordation and an example feel free to put your own creativity to my example. It's just my opinion that emotion makes a good poem.
Thanks for the review, but it was a personal choice to not have the child have an identity. Also I didn't feel like it was necessary to describe the looks of the cats, but I may try to add that later. Thanks though!
This is super sweet.
Thanks!