Published January 4, 2008
Early morning Monday,
The harsh reality of life
Emerges from our weekend fantasies,
And bites us
Hard.
Harshly real Monday,
Work, work work,
While the elastic week
Stretches further and further and further
And now
There
Is
No
End
In
Sight.
No end to the elastic week,
But Monday will always
End in a coffee shop.
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139,535 Literary Works • 672,600 Reviews
Love the title. Don't see what it has to do with the rest of the piece, though, especially the first stanza. Ultimately, what is the point? Expand on the elastic week, and tie that in with coffee shops, and then I think there might be something to chew on. Good luck!
I thought this should have another comma after the second work.
I loved your poem! It is really well worded and it has great rhythm. I think that you did an excellent job. I love the way it looks too. It really grasps your attention as well. Great job! I love it!
abbisnall,
No amount of editing will rescue this. S2 is stifled by the machine-gun lines; the repetition of the words "harsh" and "elastic" were unwarranted and displayed a general lack of creative force; and the build-up to S3 gave no motivation for why the Monday ends in coffeeshops OR why anyone might care.
All the best,
Brad
i dont have a job yet but mondays should always end like that some time to relx after a hard day...i guess school would do almost the same as work
this is good, i liked it, it deffinitly has potential.
however, i feel as if it is unfinished. you've told us about why mondays are no good, which is fine, but where do we go from there? do we go to this coffeeshop? where is this coffeeshop? how do we get there? don't loose your readers. take us further, oh great mistress of mondays
also, the line scheme didn't really match up stanza to stanza, but im no expert on that.
Colleen kindly pointed out the typo in the title; I'll not harp on it, though it is poor show. ^~
As far as this poem goes, I would rate the stanzas thusly:
S1: Not bad. Not perfect, either.
S2: Rated inappropriate for the abuse of line breaks. Not suitable for most audiences.
S3: The best of the three.
As I mentioned, your use of line breaks is questionable; what rhythm were you working with? What emphasis was each line break supposed to bring to the previous and subsequent lines? I'd suggest starting again, with S3 as the backbone of the poem.
B'lieve you meant "Coffeeshop" with two e's in your title there.
is a big no-no. It's generally a bad idea to invent adverbs like "harshly". It doesn't roll off the tongue, it makes the reader stumble over the poem. Cut it.Meaning. What do you want this poem to say to its reader? That "all's well that ends well," Mondays are okay if you go to a nice cafe after work? I have a problem with the first two stanzas because they don't say much. Yeah. Mondays suck. We get it. The first two stanzas lack zest and they lack originality.
Diction. You describe Mondays as "harsh" and "real" twice. It's silly. Also, this:
It seems silly to describe the week as "elastic." Just say, "The week/Stretches further and further."
Line breaks.This sort of thing is awfully childish. When one reads a poem, one does not read the line breaks, but progresses from line to line as though the line breaks were not there. While they can serve to emphasize certain words or phrases or to create double meanings on paper, doing stuff like the above is silly and doesn't serve much of a purpose.
Speaker. Who's telling this story? I think you could help the poem by adding a persona who speaks directly to the audience. The poem, right now, doesn't appeal to the audience. And if there's no appeal, no connection, the poem fails. So. Tell us more about the speaker's life. Where does he/she work? Why does he/she feel better about going to the coffee shop after work? We're not going to see why Monday ending in a coffee shop is good until we know why the speaker is comfortable there, why everything works out for him/her.
-Colleen
I liked the layout of it, and the way the poem felt sort of chlostrophobic to read, mainy because everyone knows what it feels like to have to be at work/school for five days a week. My favourite bit was the ending because the ending made me smile a bit, like the coffee shop would as well. Well done!
Hello abbisnail,
First things first, what I enjoyed:
> I thought the visual layout of this poem was spot on. Especially in the second stanza.
> I enjoyed the concrete imagery and the state of the diction which was great for evoking that dreary, dull, unceasing pain of life and work. That idea that so many have these fabulous fantasies of getting out and starting over, but a stark Monday is good as any to crush those to dust.
> Kudos muchly for the term elastic week. Tres cool.
> This poem is very brown and gray, which I like, immensely; those having a working class feel to them.
Second things second, what needs work:
> In S2, L2 there needs to be a comma between the first and second work = work, work, work,
> In S2, there should be a comma or semi-colon after Stretches further and further and further for proper punctuation, so: Stretches further and further and further;.
> I also think that in S2, Stretches should be on the previous line, thus giving more impact to the furthers:
While the elastic week stretches
Further and further and further;.
Or something like that.
Good luck with your editing. If you have any questions feel free to ask.
Ta,
Cal.