Shattered Words

You have given me in abundance
A childhood’s worth of broken promises
My small hands stored them away
Inside a diary garden I secretly tended
Hoping that someday, your promises would be mended

The small tokens of love that fell
From your worried fingers
I clutched with white knuckles
Holding their faint warmth to my heart
Wishing that this side of you would never turn away again

The harsh words and curses that dropped
From your angry teeth
I took and hid beneath my skin
Disguised in excuses and reasons why
Unanswerable questions to your unanswerable crime.

I placed a smile over my soul
And an iron gate across my lips,
Averting my eyes from those of others
So that no one else could see
Within their depths, my lonely tragedy.

I shield myself with stolid toughness,
Your words pass through my mind,
Too many times shouted to mean anything anymore.
When with tears my eyes betray the truth
I just let the struggling questions
Slip away.

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Reviews: 2058

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Thu Jul 26, 2007 4:30 am

Emerson wrote a review...

huh. Well seeing that all of my favorite poetry critics have already hit this, I probably won't say a lot they haven't.

Punctuation, please. Poetry & Punctuation

Also, this article might help you: Emotional Poetry.

Like Brad said, this is real listy. Consider writing about an actual event. Readers can get into events/scenes a lot better than they can get into descriptions of emotions. I'm not even entirely sure what the heck this was about, and I can't relate to it. Write with characters, whether it is you just speaking to someone else or... something.

And I'm sure this was said already but, it's good to pound things into peoples brains: Read poetry.

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Reviews: 915

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Thu Jul 26, 2007 4:17 am

Incandescence says...

Twinflower--

This is an undistinguished list that tries unsuccessfully to be profound at the close. A weak concept balanced by weak execution.

Throw this away. Try something else.

All the best,
Brad

Points: 1144
Reviews: 381

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Wed Jul 25, 2007 5:41 pm

Fand wrote a review...

You have given me in abunudance
A childhood’s worth of broken promises
My small hands stored them away
Inside a diary garden I secretly tended
Hoping that someday, your promises would be mended

The "in abundance" is misspelled and, quite aside from that, unnecessary to such an extent that it almost makes no sense. I did, however, like the connection between the diary and the garden, but you really just present it and then drop it; why not develop it? Turn it into something beautiful.

Also... um... where's the punctuation? Please punctuate. Here's the deal: words and tone and imagery are supposed to give your poetry emotion, right? Right... sort of. It's actually punctuation that imbues it with emotion. How? Well, it tells the reader how the poem is to be read. Adding a dash can create a sense of suspense--of tension, of anticipation, if you will; taking all of the commas out and allowing your words to flow without interruption creates impetus that brings all the more emphasis to your end (though be careful not to abuse that one). Parentheses can be used to create a feeling of irony or observation, or add emphasis. There are so many fantastic ways to use punctuation in poetry! Why ignore them all?

The small tokens of love that fell
From your worried fingers
I clutched with white knuckles
Holding their faint warmth to my heart
Wishing that this side of you would never turn away again

There are really too many adjectives in this stanza. "Small tokens," "worried fingers," "white knuckles," "faint warmth...." Try using stronger nouns and verbs; they make the use (and subsequent abuse) of adjectives and adverbs superfluous.

The harsh words and curses that dropped
From your angry teeth
I took and hid beneath my skin
Disguised in excuses and reasons why
Unanswerable questions to your unanswerable crime.

I really like the imagery of hiding "harsh words and curses" beneath the skin. The last two lines I was ambivalent to; the first three could do with a little minor tweaking, but are, on the whole, fantastic. Again, though, try using stronger verbs and nouns so you can keep those nasty adjectives at bay!

I placed a smile over my soul
And an iron gate across my lips,
Averting my eyes from those of others
So that no one else could see
Within their depths, my lonely tragedy.

This stanza was okay, I suppose; I liked the "iron gate across my lips" bit. Other than that, it didn't leave much of an impression. Your poem would be complete without it, especially since most of this is repeated elsewhere, in other words.

I shield myself with stolid toughness,
Your words pass through my mind,
Too many times shouted to mean anything anymore.
When with tears my eyes betray the truth
I just let the struggling questions
Slip away.

"Stolid toughness" really isn't working here; it's not a very poetic phrase, is it? And why say something like that when you could use an image? "I shield myself with rhinoceros skin." "I shield myself with granite." Etc, etc. Yes, those are truly terrible examples--but you get what I'm saying? You can express something with more eloquence, sometimes, by using an image, than you can with the words themselves.

The rest of this stanza also left very little impression; you could cut it completely, and probably should.

Try using more images, and again, strengthen those verbs and nouns and use punctuation! I can see that you at least have some idea of what you're doing; now it's time to hone those skills. There's a lot of potential here. Get crackin'!

Fand

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Reviews: 179

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Wed Jul 25, 2007 3:20 pm

biancarayne wrote a review...

Mmkay, so...the rhyming in this actually seemed to work, although some of it sounded forced, and some lines didn't rhyme at all like the other ones had...other than what something euclidean said (and it sounds like she gave some awesome advice), I think maybe some punctuation would also help this, because it would give the reader an idea of how this is supposed to flow...but anyways, I can't really add anything else that something euclidean didn't say. This is definitely a wonderful start and with the advice that something euclidean gave you, I think you could most definitely make an amazing masterpiece out of this.

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Reviews: 91

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Wed Jul 25, 2007 1:18 pm

something euclidean wrote a review...

You have given me [s]in abunudance [/s]
A childhood’s worth of broken promises
My small hands stored them away
Inside a diary garden I secretly tended
Hoping that someday, your promises would be mended

Picky stuff first: 'in abundance' is redudant; you don't need the comma in the last line of this stanza.

You don't need to capitalize the first word of every line -- I know MS Word does it automatically, but don't follow that for caps in poetry. Capitalize like you would in prose - at the beginning of a sentence - and then you can play with things for effect if the poem needs it... which brings me to punctuation. This would benefit from more punctuation. The general rule of thumb is that punctuation works in poetry like it does in prose. If you're going to write without punctuation, study writers who use similar devices [and not just E.E. Cummings]. Without punctuation your diction, rhythm and linebreaks have to drive the flow of the poem. Poetry and Punctuation.

This beginning is starting on the right track - a childhood's worth, small hands, diary garden. All these phrases are condensed, concrete, and interesting. The rest is a little wordy for what you want to convey, though. "Cut the fat" - find words and phrases you can 'tighten' into something shorter. A lot of the time you can do this and make something more descriptive. "Broken promises" is such a used phrase - I wouldn't call it a cliche, but I've seen it time and time again. Something fresher and more personal would bring the feeling home.

The small tokens of love that fell
From your worried fingers
I clutched with white knuckles
Holding their faint warmth to my heart
Wishing that this side of you would never turn away again

This has some good descriptions. Interesting that you focus on hands. However, the last line is wordy.

The harsh words and curses that dropped
From your angry teeth
I took and hid beneath my skin
Disguised in excuses and reasons why
Unanswerable questions to your unanswerable crime.

What excuses? What reasons why? If this unanswerable crime is something other than general neglect and harshness, hint towards it. Otherwise, this is another stanza that is getting close - L2 and L3 work very well, but the rest is too vague to make me feel anything.

I placed a smile over my soul
And an iron gate across my lips,
Averting my eyes from those of others
So that no one else could see
Within their depths, my lonely tragedy.

Barring the questionable use of 'soul' [this is a personal thing as much as anything -- 'soul' is so abstract that it only works in certain poems and that's not the majority of poems it gets used in] the first two lines of this stanza are excellent. The other three are plain and while they get the literal message across [what happened and why] they don't have any subtext. There's no atmosphere in the words, no imagery or metaphor or anything to convey the fear or the lonliness of this.

I shield myself with stolid toughness,
Your words pass through my mind,
Too many times shouted to mean anything anymore.
When with tears my eyes betray the truth
I just let the struggling questions
Slip away.

"Struggling questions" -- another glimpse of what you could do with this poem if you take time to restructure some parts and polish others. With a subject like this -- one that is both 'common' and very touchy -- your language needs to be personal and you need to present the ideas in new ways. This can be difficult but it gives more a sense of the person behind the poem and brings a familiar topic afresh to the readers ears. New, striking imagery will also bring forth the emotion more than generalizations or half-developed familiar phrasing ever will.

So: Cut the fat, then go through and find ways to make this "breathe"; attention to word choice is essential. Every word counts.

I hope this was helpful - if you want anything clarified or help with something, feel free to drop me a PM ;]

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