Remember the Cotton Candy Days

Hello,

This is cute, but a bit overdone for a poem. I mean, I like how you had the overall life/death/seasons thing in a new way to write it, but it's still really overdone simply because of which seasons you put with which part of life, and the way you describe them. It's hard to get this sort of poem right because it's so overdone we automatically think about these seasons like this. I'm really not surprised you have it set up like this, and that's mostly the problem.

I do like, however, how you described things. It's pretty. You did a good job picking new ways to describe summer, winter, fall, spring. Don't get me wrong, I can get over the cliche and enjoy the poem, but I think you fell into a couple traps that a lot of poets end up in and it just sort of makes me sigh and want to move on.

Trap #1: 4 stanzas.
If you have a season poem and it only has four stanzas, then you either have to make stanzas longer than one another which looks imbalanced, or you have to make them all the same size which makes too much emphasis for some of the seasons. Yes, there are four seasons and we can argue there are four stages of life, but there didn't used to be a childhood for life originally, and there definitely didn't used to be a teenager stage either. It's sort of a unique thing that started happening when Child Labor laws came about [teenagers not children]. That being said, I can see where you're going with this, but there's an easy reason why it's hard to have 4 stanzas for all 4 seasons.

You don't have anything to conclude us out of it. You just have winter. That doesn't give us anywhere to ponder what you're saying and it doesn't give us a good description of some of the seasons. There's a lot more that happens in the teenage years of life and the adult years of life than the child's years, and there's a lot more drama that happens in the child's years than one stanza can handle. If we're limiting this down, we really need to accept we are at least going to end up with 4 very long stanzas if we want to get a poem about life and death in with a poem about seasons.

We also need a conclusion of some sort so that we don't just die at the end of the poem and that conclusion should not be taking up Winter's space. It's not for things like "And so the universe came to a halt because I have died, Death is a horrible thing, I am gone forever and no one will ever talk to me again" but more for things like hope, and love and remorse because the seasons might have a link to life, but winter doesn't stop Spring from coming back again.

This leads me to the second trap.

Trap #2: Ordering.

If you are going to do this, then we at least need to talk about the order that you put them in because if you start with spring, and have the person die in winter, you're going to end up with a very end all poem that's very typical. Just about everyone wants to start with spring and end with winter. That's how our calendars work, so it makes sense. However, it's not interesting. We all are going through this already. We know what to expect. Yes, you can describe it like no one else can describe it, but at the same time, you can describe it through developing a new way to start it too. It's going to be easier to be original if you start with some event that shows someone dying, like a father dying in fall, and winter being depression, and spring coming out of that depression than a childhood, a teenager, an adult, and an old person. The reason being because that's not what other people do. They don't do it because that's not how they're thinking about it and it gives us a quick opportunity to mix things up and change the standard procedure in an interesting and creative way. It's sort of like saying "the earth is round" for the first time and having to prove it at that point. You can make it work, and you can make it work well, but you start out a step ahead if you change up which season we start in.

Overall, nice writing. I think the conclusion came too fast, and it's weak because you're not admitting that it's death, but it's okay. I think you need to work on mixing it up and making this poem more unique so it stands out from the collective if you want to change it. Otherwise, it's pretty.

Aley

Papapapa I'm lovin' it

When I read this I was thinking about growing up and honestly it's so sad. As a kid , the simplest things bring you extreme happiness. It doesn't take much to bring a huge smile on your face because you view the world through starry eyes , but as you get older you start to see the world as something a lot less colorful because the weight piles up on your sholders. Lovely job!!

Hello CapitalMonday here! This poem, I have read makes me wonder why has my life gone? The seasons have been changing and no one has come to say hello or came and took a picture with me underneath a tree? Now this poem could be described as amazingly written but there is one thing I did notice is that when its says "sun no more does shine", that should be replaced with "the sun doesn't shine anymore" or something similar to that.

This poem also brings back memories for me since I had a friend once that would hand out with me during the spring and summer but when the fall season came, she had left me with a broken heart and a cold winter to myself. Now whenever I read this poem, I remember this and how we would laugh or chase after each other.

Plus this poem has a great tone and use of imagery or the use of fantasy throughout the poem. (I love poems with these types of specials boundaries to them.)

Sorry if this made no sense what-so-ever...
CapitalMonday

Salutations.

Wanderer, my dear friend, this truly is a marvelous work. As I told you today, I suck at writing poetry - although you will not know that for a fact, since I hide my poor attempts quite well - but you have good reason to pat yourself on the back.

Ordinarily, I would put my legend here, but that only works for short stories or novel/la chapters. Even if I did put it here, it would be useless, since both the grammar and the spelling is flawless.

Do you remember the springtime days,

when the sun and moon were friends

The days when every tree could walk

and dogs and cats could laugh

The days of cotton candy clouds,

and of ice cream and milkshakes

Then came the days of chocolate,

and long summers by the sea

The days when bugs were hunted,

and tag our daily jobs

When sweets and soda sustained us all,

and tree houses were our mansions

But then came the days of uniforms,

And the red-leaf rain of Fall

The days when we all learned of love,

of hate and rage and pain

Gone were the cotton candy days,

the red wine days have come

And when the sun no more does shine,

and winter finally comes

The days of tag are all but gone,

and the trees all fade and weep

For the cotton candy days have fled,

to the cookie jars of memory

This review courtesy of

Sorry to @haven235, I meant to say do not review it again

Hi!

when the sun and moon were our friends

and tag our daily jobs

Really cute poem. I enjoyed it. A very sweet, childlike poem. That's how I found it to be. I found it to be found of sweet, childhood memories. I think it has a lot of potential. Really good. You're really good. .

I do want to point out that you can't put 'And' or 'But' at your beginning sentences. It makes it dependent. I also didn't really care for not capitalizing the second lines. I do like capitalizing in my poetry, but that's me. Anyway, awesome job. You rock with your writings.

Hope.

Great poem! I really liked how you used the cotton candy to represent youth. Maybe if you were to stick with your theme of food and used a bitter thing that only grows on you as you age people, like coffee, instead of bow ties it could tie the poem together. It really is a stupendous piece though. This poem made me want to get out an old photo-album and start feeling the nostalgia.

sorry for the spam. I'm trying to figure out how to work this review system and I'm a little bit technologically impaired.

This made me really emotional. But in a good way.
Alright I apologize for the following English teacher that follows and reads into symbolism...
I really like how almost seemed to make candy a theme here, almost like a reference to innocence lost. The cotton candy days were the days of bright fluffy thoughts where the only thing that was on our mind was happiness. And then came the days where we lost all of that. And you represented that beautifully.
One thing I might change, and it may be hard to fit it in, but in all the other paragraphs but the second one you reference cotton candy. It's not a big thing but I feel it may bring it all together.
Fantastic job!