The Colours Shaped Me, Father

by Lightsong

Ideas swarm around me

with a myriad of colours

Green and Red, Blue and White

Purple and Brown, Yellow and Black

Green provides fresh air to me

brings life to me and brings me to life

teaches me the importance of being grateful

Blue and White are my favourite twins

one keeps the rhythm of my breath steady

and clears the scattering mud out of my mind,

while the other holds my hands firm

and guides me to the way to Heaven

My mouth curls upwards when

Yellow comes to visit the teary-eyed me.

Brings with her my favourite sweets and drinks,

hugs me warm with her brilliant light

Is it strange for me to be envious of her?

When the silent night reigns, Black appears

scares me with his shadowy thoughts

of various ways to end his breath

feels guilty of his every mistake - be it small or big

whips himself for a thousand years

Purple and Brown, the two unlikely friends

The former finds delight in parties and wines

taunts Problem to arrest her under her disco light,

while Brown is against that, as she is wise by nature

prefers to savour the smell of books of ancient wisdoms

However, it is Red, father,

whom his arrival I have never welcomed

a beast that cannot be untamed

most dangerous when he stabs you

with spears made by the adamant Reasons

symbolizes hatred and revenge.

Compared with others,

on me, his influence is the greatest

That is the reason, father,

I hope and pray and do everything

within the limited power I reserve over myself

to stop Red from ripping you apart without doubt.

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Sun Nov 29, 2015 12:54 pm

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Rydia wrote a review...

Poem number two! Yay for colour poems, I wrote one of these for a class exercise once and it's one of the few poems I actually like from my school girl days. I think there's something about putting down in words what colours mean to you that resonates with people.

Specifics

1. Again I'm going to advise you to cut out any words which are surplus and try to make everything count so if we take those first few lines:

Ideas swarm around me
with a myriad of colours
Green and Red, Blue and White
Purple and Brown, Yellow and Black

At the moment this is listy and doesn't immerse the reader in the poem so how about we try to make it quicker and more interesting:

Ideas swarm, a myriad of colours
like spectral fingers playing jazz on rainbows
or green sheep jumping red fences,
lulling me to purple sleep.

Rather than mention every colour, try to get some solid images in there which your reader can start to imagine and connect to. What colour would sheep be if you could re-make them? They're all docile and naive to me so I think of them as green and fences can be dangerous or no go zones so they are red and sleep is of course mysterious so it's purple! Maybe play with connecting colours to emotions and the like?

2. I like the second stanza. It's sweet and it feels like what green is to me but it also feels a little stereotypical. What else might green be? Try to choose the second or even the third thing you think of so it's a little more unique. For example, my second thing is jealousy which is of course also over used but my third thing is escape. Green is getting out of the house or getting away from industralisation. What's your third thing? Or even your fourth? The more you ask yourself a question and dig deeper, the more interesting the answer will be. This is a tip I was first given for book writing where you introduce a situation and then ask yourself at least three times how the characters are going to get out of it. Never go with the first idea.

3.

one keeps the rhythm of my breath steady

Steady is a clunky word to end on so I'd actually suggest switching this to 'one keeps the rhythm of my steady breath' which flows better and still says the same thing.

4.

and guides me to the way to Heaven

I think this is needlessly wordy. Simply 'guides me to heaven' would work 'or shows me the way to heaven' or maybe something a little bit different like 'and points me heaven-ward' or 'and leads me up the pearly path' which is a little vaguer but most people should make the connection.

5. [Quote]Is it strange for me to be envious of her?[Quote] This line feels too out of place because you don't follow it up later and it's a complete tangent. I'm not sure it fits the poem.

Overall

I think it would be nice to see the unease created by black and red creeping in earlier as they're a bit of a shock when we reach the end. Maybe if the other colours are used more to describe how they've sheltered or protected the persona from some unknown darkness and then as we approach the end the darkness gets revealed for what it is - the father's anger.

I like the end of the poem more than the beginning because there's some substance there and a story behind the description of the colours which is harder to grasp in the earlier stanzas. Maybe try to bring that out more through the rest of the poem.

~Heather

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Reviews: 32

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Tue Mar 10, 2015 11:52 pm

Swiftfurthewarrior says...

My favorite color is brown, but people say I look good in red.

*Now I'm not so sure of that. *

Lightsong says...

Lol, okay. Each of us has different interpretation on colours.

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Tue Mar 10, 2015 1:53 pm

PickledChrissy wrote a review...

Heya, Chrissy here for a review!

Cool poem! I love it. Just have a few things that need fixing. Congratulation on making spotlight, btw. That's awesome!

Well, one thing I noticed is your punctuation. To be frank, it needs work. Here, I'll show you.

Ideas swarm around me

with a myriad of colours

Green and Red, Blue and White

Purple and Brown, Yellow and Black

I realize that you did put a period on the end of each, but they somehow ended up between stanza's.

I wonder how that happened. But the first bit, just before you start listing the colors, should be it's own sentence.

taunts Problem to arrest her under her disco light,

Um, this is a bit of a weird question, but do people still use disco's? That seems kinda out of the time. At least I think it is.

When the silent night reigns, Black appears

scares me with his shadowy thoughts

of various ways to end his breath

feels guilty of his every mistake - be it small or big

whips himself for a thousand years

Okay, this entire bit puzzled me. I couldn't make sense of it. Is it talking about the black, or his dad, maybe him? Oh, and either way, the "feels" needs to be feeling.

Compared with others,

on me,

I think that the "on me" should be "to me". Would make more sense that way.

Well, that's it with the nitpicking.

Did I tear it apart enough?

This is a awesome piece. Powerful, lots of emotions. I love the colors. I never saw that before. Very original.

KEEP WRITING!

Points: 4984
Reviews: 621

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Tue Mar 10, 2015 2:01 am

Rook wrote a review...

Hello!
Interesting poem here. It consists of mostly symbolism, and I like the symbols you incorporated, however, I feel there could be much improved.

Firstly, this seems like it ended up being a poem about the character's father, but we only mention him in the last two stanzas of an 8-stanza poem. It's hard to be /about/ something when it is included as a seeming after-thought. If the father relationship is what you want to focus your poem on, you need to lessen the other stuff.

That one-line stanza (that I didn't even count as a stanza) feels like it should be connected to the stanza before it. That's just my opinion though.

The starting stanza feels pretty unneeded to me. Also, if you decide to keep it, it feels strange to me that the colors in the "intro" aren't in the same order as they are in the poem. The way that that stanza introduces the poem reminds me of an essay introduction, and that's probably not a good thing.

I read through this and wondered why the reader cares about the colors, and how the colors actually affect the narrator's life. Are they examples of the narrator's moods? I get that with the purple/brown one, but not the blue/white one. This whole poem feels inconsistent to me. I don't quite know how to put it into words, but think of it this way: what do the colors as a whole represent to the narrator? Then, after you've answered that question, do the parts of the whole, the individual colors, reflect that thing?

Okay, I just read Flemzo's review, and I agree absolutely with everything they said. You should definitely re-read it over. It's super helpful, and I feel like I wasted my breath with this review.

I do like the ending, though I feel like it could be better. I think the last stanza (apart from maybe the last line) was a lot weaker than the preceding stanza, and I feel like it might be better to just scratch it altogether.

Good job-- I really like the concept! Let me know if you have any questions. Keep writing!

Points: 323
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Mon Mar 09, 2015 9:47 pm

zandalovespanda says...

Good writing, Labrador, this is beautiful and I love how you used colors to symbolize people and the narrator's emotions regarding those people! Very good, very very good, and can't find anything to critique, so, well then...
I guess this is my shortest review.

Keep writing!
-Zanda

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Reviews: 201

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Mon Mar 09, 2015 2:18 pm

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Flemzo wrote a review...

Hello, there. The following is a review from someone who used to be really good at reviewing, but then he took a few years off from the website, and now he's trying to get back into the swing of things.

With that, let's get into it.

Ideas swarm around me
with a myriad of colours
Green and Red, Blue and White
Purple and Brown, Yellow and Black

So right away, you're establishing that you're talking about colors. But do you need to? I'm not sure, for a couple of reasons: 1) your title is already suggesting that the poem will be about colors, and 2) You address the colors in a specific order here, but then expand on them in a slightly different order. I hesitate to recommend you take the colors out, though, because that leaves one introductory statement that could either stay in or be taken out. Just a thought.

Green provides fresh air to me
brings life to me and brings me to life
teaches me the importance of being grateful

Personal opinion: the second line of this stanza is awkward. You've said the same thing twice but just switched the words around. As a whole, I think this stanza (and I'll probably say the same thing about several other stanzas) is clunky. You've included some superfluous words in here, whereas poetry is a style noted for brevity. So, if I were to rewrite this, I would do something like:

Green provides me fresh air,
filling me with sustaining life
and teaching me the virtue of gratitude

Just an idea.

Blue and White are my favourite twins
one keeps the rhythm of my breath steady
and clears the scattering mud out of my mind,
while the other holds my hands firm
and guides me to the way to Heaven

Again, a lot of words when brevity would be more effective. Also, punctuation! Poetry is just prose with line breaks. Put into prose form, this stanza reads:

"Blue and White are my favourite twins one keeps the rhythm of my breath steady and clears the scattering mud out of my mind, while the other holds my hands firm and guides me to the way to Heaven"

Awkward, clunky, and weird. Also kind of wordy. Brevity is key (I'll provide another example with this one):

Blue and White, my personal Gemini;
one to guide my steady breath
and clear my cluttered mental slate,
the other, to hold me close
and guide me toward Eternity.

My inclusion of "Gemini" also raises a point: imagery and allusions are common in poetry, and helps not only get the point across, but also helps with the brevity and makes things interesting. Obviously, don't be esoteric with it -- "Gemini" references an astrological sign represented by twins, so people would understand that, compared to referencing a pair of twins you may know personally -- but allusions may or may not help you.

My mouth curls upwards when
Yellow comes to visit the teary-eyed me.
Brings with her my favourite sweets and drinks,
hugs me warm with her brilliant light

Is it strange for me to be envious of her?

"My mouth curls upwards" is awkward. You can just say "I smile," or, to go back to my allusion point earlier, make a reference or other metaphor about smiling. Generally, when I read "mouth curls upwards," I think of creepy people or villains in movies. Their mouths curl into a smile, happy people smiles don't curl. Again, personal opinion.

Brevity for this one, too! "Teary-eyed me" is awkward. Also, punctuation! "Brings with her..." is a sentence fragment, which is generally unacceptable. I might also suggest that "Is it strange..." can even be in parenthesis, as it feels like an aside rather than a main point. So it might look like:

... hugs me warm with her brilliant light.
(Is it strange for me to be envious of her?)

When the silent night reigns, Black appears
scares me with his shadowy thoughts
of various ways to end his breath
feels guilty of his every mistake - be it small or big
whips himself for a thousand years

Punctuation! Brevity!

And now to contradict my "brevity" point: don't tell us Black has "various ways to end his breath," SHOW us! What does that mean? What kind of breath does Black have? Does it sound labored, like Darth Vader? Does it smell awful, like a tuna sandwich left in the sun? "Various ways to end his breath" is so bland and dull. Here's your chance to do something interesting with it!

Purple and Brown, the two unlikely friends
The former finds delight in parties and wines
taunts Problem to arrest her under her disco light,
while Brown is against that, as she is wise by nature
prefers to savour the smell of books of ancient wisdoms

You say "the former" for Purple, so I'm expecting "the latter" for Brown. Instead, you say "Brown is against that." Yawn. Also, a lot of telling in this stanza, which is unfortunate, because you have an opportunity for some great allusions. Purple, like the Greek god Dionysus, loves to party, while Brown, like his brother Apollo, prefers reason and knowledge. In poetry, you can't really ever have too much imagery.

(full disclosure: I had to Google "the opposite of Dionysus" in order to make that Apollo reference. But the point stands!)

However, it is Red, father,
whom his arrival I have never welcomed
a beast that cannot be untamed
most dangerous when he stabs you
with spears made by the adamant Reasons
symbolizes hatred and revenge.
Compared with others,
on me, his influence is the greatest

This is probably the best stanza of the poem, but it still isn't all that great. There's the promise of imagery and something interesting, but it kind of fizzles out. More imagery, less words, and use punctuation.

A couple of notes about word choice: "whom his" doesn't make any sense. "Whom" is a pronoun, as in "To whom should I address this letter?" You may have been thinking of "whose," as in, "whose arrival I have never welcomed."

Also, "A beast that cannot be untamed" means the beast CAN be tamed, which doesn't make it a very threatening beast.

"adamant Reasons" looks like it should mean something, but I have no idea what it could possibly mean. Maybe flesh that idea out a little more?

That is the reason, father,
I hope and pray and do everything
within the limited power I reserve over myself
to stop Red from ripping you apart without doubt.

I think this is fine, but maybe after some other corrections that you could/should make, you'll find something that you can tweak with your ending.

Final thoughts -- To clarify "brevity" a little more: There's a lot of passive voice going on here. Switching to active voice will virtually cut this poem in half, and making more allusions or effective metaphors will make this a more interesting read.

Hope this helps!

Young Writers Society

The Colours Shaped Me, Father

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