I wish better was a color

I wish "better" was a color;
not gray like yesterday,
not bright yellow like I hope
the future will be,

but a shade tinged with hope.
a not-quite-there-but-we're-getting-closer,
a bright Wednesday morning
filled with bold aspirations

I wish I could live in this color,
be satisfied in progress,
live in this color that feels like dawn.
I wish "better" was a color.

A/N: All capitalization/punctuation choices are intentional.

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Tue Jan 19, 2021 5:26 am

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alliyah wrote a review...

Aha! I am here to review.

Also you know that I'm always going to love a good color poem, so you've already got my heart with the subject matter.

So let's take a look:

Stanza 1
First line is intriguing, and then gets explained in the following lines exactly what "better" as a color might look like. I like the light rhyme in line two between "gray" and "yesterday". I'm going to be controversial and say, I actually recommend sticking with just "bright yellow" rather than putting in "butter" or "cardinal" because most synonyms for "yellow" actually are different objects with connotations that will distract from the color theme; if you do swap out "bright yellow" for a different hue, I'd recommend keeping "yellow" in there and just adding a different color modifier word (like "daydream yellow" or "sun-rise yellow" or "sun-dew yellow" or "daffodil yellow") that way the reader doesn't get confused reading your poem, and suddenly see a word like "butter" or "pale aubergine" and wonder what's going on.

Stanza 2
I think you really need to change out the word hope in either line 3 or line 5, because you're both saying "I wish better was a color, but not like hope" & "I wish better was a color tinged with hope" -> which gets a little confusing to decipher. I think what you're saying is, you want "better" to be a color that isn't quite hopeful, but is a just a little bit hopeful?

And then the following two lines also feel contradictory with stanza one, with the phrases about brightness? I think if what you're getting at is you don't want colors to be limited to black and white binaries of good and bad but you want something that's just "better," something that's not full-on-awesome-amazing, but something a little less comitted and in-between. By the time I get to that final line in stanza 2 I think I've got the concept you're going for, but I think that maybe you could expand stanza two and get more into that concept. Why is the speaker not willing to just commit to full on "good" but wants this lighter "better"? Can you make this concept more concrete into the speaker's life, so far we've just got the connection to waking / dawn / and future, so a lot of day-movement imagery, but I think the concept could be made a little bit more concrete for us.

Stanza 3
I think there's a little issue with the flow of the phrase, "I wish I could live in this color, be satisfied in progress" --> maybe "satisfied with progress" instead?
I really like that sentiment though, and I think it says what you were saying in stanza two in a bit more succinct and clear way! And "dawn" is a great metaphor for what you're describing, and even gets at that gray to yellow visual too - nicely done with the imagery blend there!

Meaning
I think the speaker is expressing frustration with the world caught in binaries of success / failure, and perfect / bad and they want another option. Using colors to make these distinctions is interesting and unexpected, and I think the first stanza will catch a lot of readers off-guard where they'll not catch the concept and think that you're talking about nonsense. :] But once you start to get into the concept you're describing in the 2nd and 3rd stanza I think it begins to really make more sense what you're describing.

Suggestions
For a color poem, there wasn't a whole lot of imagery! I'd love a bit more diverse language used (since a lot of words that were used in the poem were repeated over again) and you might even consider doing like poetic interludes between the philosophical parts that just visually describes dawn or something a bit more visual than the rest. I think that would help the poem stick and have more of a poetic edge.

My other suggestion would be that I think you can take more room to describe your concept - it might be worth re-writing this poem in prose-form so that you don't feel limited by the 4 line stanzas and just kind of free-write and see where the concept takes you.

Overall
I like that the poem was boxed together in book-ends of "I wish better was a color" and I like how much dawn could work visually and metaphorically for the concept you were describing. I also think this poem has a lot of uniqueness to it's concept, I've certainly never read a poem with this theme taken in this manner before, so that was refreshing to read!

Best of luck in the rest of your poeting adventures, let me know if you had any questions about my review!

~alliyah

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Fri Sep 04, 2020 8:39 pm

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starlitmind wrote a review...

Hey Tuckster, I'm (finally) here as requested! So I've read ShadowVyper's review and agree with everything in it, so I'll try not to repeat anything unless I just forget xD

Okay to start off, I think the concept of this poem is really cool! I love how you are trying to give or associate an abstract adjective with a colour. It's a unique and fresh idea, so I really enjoyed reading this! <3

I wish "better" was a color;
not gray like yesterday,
not bright yellow like I hope
the future will be,

I love the start of your poem. It's simple, and I kind of feel that it may be too simple. Like Shady said, I think being more specific about "bright yellow" would make your line more impactful. You're trying to show/explain a wish to your readers, so using more specific language would make your point stronger. I also think you could expand on the "gray like yesterday part." Perhaps you could use some words with negative connotations, like moody, drab, dull, or something along those lines to emphasize what kind of a day it was.

I also agree with Shady about the repetition of "not." I may be bit biased against repetition, but since your poem is a tiny bit on the shorter side, every word really matters, so I think variation in your word choice would be really helpful. Also, you use "not" again in the second stanza (line two) so I really think changing one of the ones in the first stanza would make this stronger.

but a shade tinged with hope.
a not-quite-there-but-we're-getting-closer,
a bright Wednesday morning
filled with bold aspirations

So I think that it's really cool how you're giving the abstract word a colour made of abstract ideas. You mentioned that you didn't want "better" to be actual colours like yellow and gray, and then here you say that you want it to be a colour that represents things that really can't be captured in a colour. This is probably my favourite stanza

I also think that this stanza could use some more vivid and stronger imagery. What exactly does a shade tinged with hope look like? Is it muted, bright, flashy, sparkly, calm, etc. What kind of a bright Wednesday morning? Before you said that you didn't want it to be "bright yellow," so what's the difference between a bright yellow and a bright Wednesday? Just some thoughts to think about!

In the last line of this stanza, perhaps you could incorporate your colour theme more. When I think of bold, my mind switches to this or bold colours. Red is actually a symbol of boldness, so perhaps you could describe the aspirations like that? Just another thought!

One last thing about this stanza. Of course, punctuation is a stylistic choice, and I know your choices are intentional, so I'm not trying to tell you that you did anything wrong. I personally think this stanza would work better with a period at the end. For me, it would sort of finalize your thoughts and give a more finished or stronger feel, if that makes sense. Like you explained what you want "better" to look like, and that period shows you have gotten your point across and firmly believe in it. Also, since the next line comes back to the beginning of the poem, putting a period would make your last stanza seem like the conclusion of an essay, which I think would work. But of course, punctuation is stylistic, so please disregard this if you don't agree!

I wish I could live in this color,
be satisfied in progress,
live in this color that feels like dawn.
I wish "better" was a color.

I love the way this poem goes full circle. I think this stanza could use some expanding as well. What does living in color that feels like dawn like? Describing this more to the reader could help them understand why you would want that. Also, dawn is an opportunity for so much imagery, so I think it would be fun to play with that. If you want to continue the colour scheme, perhaps words like "rosy" could work. How about "crisp"or "pearly"? Just some other things to think about!

Also, I'm not really feeling the repetition of "live in this color." It doesn't really seem to add anything to the poem for me. Maybe you could try something like "bask in this color that feels like dawn"? Or just eliminate the first one all together. Whatever works for you!

And that's it! If I'm being honest, I had trouble reviewing this because I wasn't that sure what to say since I really loved this poem a bunch. Besides the imagery and repetition, I wasn't quite sure how to make this helpful and not repeat what others have already said xD That being said, I hope this review proves useful to you in some way! You did an amazing job with this poem in my eyes. I feel this is such a fun and unique idea and that you excited it well. I really admire you as a poet. I hope this helped! <3

Atticus says...

This was very helpful, thank you! I definitely agree that stronger language would be helpful and appreciate the thorough stanza-by-stanza analysis! Thank you again so so much!

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Thu Aug 13, 2020 7:19 pm

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Vex3330 wrote a review...

I love this!! It's a really beautiful poem and I love the way it presents hope! It makes me want to find the colour now lol. I'm thinking a bright blue/gray/purple/pink or something idek. But yeah amazing poem! Beautiful imagery, both in talking about the colours and talking about the world. I could read a lot more about colours and sounds, despite it being an incredibly vague topic. Maybe try write something about music next? (Just a thought :p)
Anyways, keep up the writing!! I really loved this poem
Bye for now!!

- Vex

Atticus says...

Thanks for the review!

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Thu Aug 13, 2020 4:18 am

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Shady wrote a review...

Tuck!

Thanks for giving the WRFF thread some love! Let's get started...

To start out, let me say that I really like this poem! I think it's an interesting premise, and I like the way you handled attaching feelings to colors. That being said, I've got anal nitpicks, coming in hot in 3...2...1...

I wish "better" was a color;
not gray like yesterday,
not bright yellow like I hope
the future will be,

I like the first line a lot! I misread it as "I wish I was a better color" at first and was like eh but then re-read and was like oooh that's a different Feel and I dig it. I'm not digging that both of your next two lines start with "not"

I know in poetry sometimes repetition can work to build up a theme, but I'm not getting those vibes from this, it's just seeming like a lack of word-variation more than anything, tbh. I think "not gray... or bright yellow" would would work here, swapping out the second "not" for an "or"

I also think it might be stronger if you choose more powerful words for your colors. "Bright yellow" yeah sure okay, but like... what does that mean?

Consider, for example:

"yellow" "bumblebee" "butter" and "pineapple" could all be considered bright yellows -- or maybe you meant the really insanely bright yellow, like the matching pant-suit set of the middle-aged woman who always glared over her glasses at you when you went to make an appointment at your therapist's office. Or the glaring yellow of the bikini of your nemesis flashing in the hot summer sun, mocking you from the far side of the pool.

You get what I'm getting at. Poetry is supposed to have some emotional investment, even more so than prose, so while "bright yellow" is a color, it doesn't really have a lot of connotations with it? And I definitely think you can build upon those connotations more than you currently do. Like yellow, bright, future, sure, but really dig into what you mean by this.

Even if you don't want to turn this into a metaphor or simile (like I'm starting to realize I'm pushing for, oop), you could still choose other words that don't need an adjective.

not bright yellow like I hope
the future will be,

but a shade tinged with hope.
a not-quite-there-but-we're-getting-closer,
a bright Wednesday morning

Here's more repetition I'mma complain about. I don't love that you talk about yellow being how you hope the future will be, then describe it as a color tinged with hope. It's like... circular lol. "like I long for the future to be" or something would help negate this. I do like the "tinged with hope" so I'd suggest changing the first not the second hope, but of course that's up to you.

You also use "bright" yellow and then "bright Wednesday" which... meh. You have so many words at your disposal. Use more of them xD "a fresh Wednesday morning", or even "a sunny Wednesday morning" would keep up more of the yellow themes from before.

I wish I could live in this color,
be satisfied in progress,
live in this color that feels like dawn.
I wish "better" was a color.

You also repeat "I wish" here which feels closer to intentional repetition since you capped both ends of your poem with the same line. But also seems weird since you didn't start stanza two, so it also feels a little chaotic and not entirely planned. What about just cutting out the first "I wish" and starting this line/color with "I could live" instead? We already know it's wishful thinking, but you could add more emphasis on the emotions by taking away the "I wish" and just fantasizing about living in it instead.

You also have "live in this color" repeated in lines one and three, and use the word "color" three times in honestly a short stanza. It feels a little excessive, ngl.

What about something like:

"I could live in this color,
be satisfied in progress,
and rest in the hues of dawn"

Or something? Then we move from simply living to being satisfied to finding rest, and also mix up the word choice and have some more variation in the language, you know?

ALSO. I know you said capitalization/punctuation choices are intentional, and this critique isn't a "yOu dIdN't CaPiTaLiZe CoRrEcTlY" comment, I know poetry can do it's own thing. But. There's a couple of places where I don't know that I agree that your punctuation is working in your favor as a stylistic choice. So feel free to disregard if you like the punctuation as is, but honestly, it's kind of weird to me that you have this being three stanzas but only two sentences, even tho it feels like three sentences but not broken up by stanza?

Idk, in some cases I like breaking up the lines in between thoughts to add to the poem, but it feels a bit chaotic for the theme of this poem.

Right now it feels like the first thought is first stanza plus 1st line; second thought is last 3 lines of 2nd stanza; third thought is last stanza. What if you just made each stanza a thought? You could end the first stanza with a period then start the second stanza with "a shade tinged" and just take out the "but" so it doesn't have to be connected to the first?

a shade tinged with hope;
a not-quite-there-but-we're-getting-closer

And then you can end that thought at the end of the stanza and let the last stanza finish strong with your wrap up? Just a thought. Obviously feel free to disregard that suggestion (or any of the suggestions I made), but I thought I would point it out that stylistically, I would make different punctuation choices lol

I think that's all I've got for you! Sorry if this came across as excessively harsh or over-critical. I do like the premise of this poem, and I think you've got SO much you can do with it and might have gotten a little carried away with suggestions because I got excited for all the directions you could take this lol.

Big take aways from this review are 1) your poem is good! You should feel good! 2) be bold in choosing words to convey emotions. Don't tell us it "feels like dawn" SHOW us what this color feels like, and 3) use varying vocabulary so you don't use the word "color" 3 times in a 4 line stanza xD

Thanks again for the request! Hope this helped!

Keep writing!

Shady

Atticus says...

Thanks a lot for the review! I agree with everything you said and will be sure to work it in

Young Writers Society

I wish better was a color

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