"Mommy, I'm making Gramma a card!"
said Abby with her crayons set on the table.
"That's great, Honey," her mother responded.
"Gramma's a bit... let's say, unstable."
"It's a deathday card," Abby replied.
"But I need a new black crayon.
It's been used down its paper
from all the black balloons I've drawn."
"Let me tell you a little secret,"
Abby's mom said, leaning down.
"Let's go to the coffin store today.
There's one right here in town."
"Ooh! Ooh!" Abby squealed.
"Gramma's gonna love it!
...But having big deathday parties
I thought Gramma was above it."
"She just acts like that...
she's all dignified and such.
But your Gramma used to love parties
She used to love them so much!"
***
There were aisles and aisles of coffins,
but the best ones out on display.
Abby's grandmother would be honored
to have on of them for her deathday.
"That one," Abby said, pointing
to one with blue flowers on the side.
"She'd love it! It has space, pillows,
and lots of carvings inside!"
Abby's mom looked at the coffin.
"You're right, this is for the one.
It'll be a bit big to wrap,
but it's okay, we'll get it done."
Abby cheered and laughed
as they took it to the counter to pay.
She had found the perfect gift.
This was going to be the best deathday.
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138,124 Literary Works • 672,071 Reviews
Hey acm, here for a Review Day review,
Positives:This is the first time I've read anything that feels like this. You've chosen such a controversial topic, death, and done something quite unique and original with it, and I liked it.
You've chosen a simple and classic 4x4 style, throwing in the rhymes to help things flow better. To be honest, the rhyming is what saved you because I was about to say that this wasn't true poetry, but rather a short short rolled into a different format, but with the rhyming there it lends just enough structure to make it work.
Death is a very serious, and for most very depressing thing, but in this piece you've given it a sort of happy and free emotion that only comes to a select few who usually have different ideas about life than most people. I thought this was great, especially when the mom is in on it as well and is doing her daughter a favor by helping the true gravity of the event be masked over by the joy of celebrating something.
Negatives:
Typo? The sentence is sort of broken and not quite fluid because of the awkward wording.
Unfortunately as I was reading and it was all flowing nicely, then randomly I'm thrown this image of a young mother and her very much younger daughter, carrying a coffin through a store while skipping on clouds and rainbows. Didn't seem to make a lot of sense. Obviously they couldn't have carried the entire thing themselves, so there would need to be something else happening in order to be more realistic.
Overall:Definitely could benefit from a little bit of love here and there, but it's a great concept and it's well fleshed out.
I give it:
This is Kaos here for a review!
So this is an interesting concept for a poem, but I didn't really think it fit /being/ a poem? It didn't really feel like a poem to me, and I rarely say this sort of thing, but I think it could do better if it was written as a short story, if not that, rewritten into something that would better fit the poem. One of the first things that I noticed was the length, which is something that I didn't really think needed to be in the poem. The poem can be condensed into something shorter, but at the same time stronger since if it's shorter there's more attention on each individual stanza which is something that I think could be helpful here.
This seems typical from your poems as it kind of follows their style from what I've read from you before. The usage of dialogue is something that I wanted to mention, and I'm going to suggest to trim it just a bit because it starts to become a little excessive. The narrative here is probably the part with the most focus on it, and it should be that way because it is the part with the most potential. That being said, other areas here lacked, and I think that's due to your structure. The standard four-lined stanzas are something that I see go on a little frequent in your poetry, and I want you to try and experiment outside of that.
It's the entry-level structure to explore and it's good for an entrance into poetry and it's good for some poems, but I want you to explore and experiment outside of that because it restrains your imagery. And that's your weakness in this poem. There are a lot of potential things that could turn into imagery like the crayons and the mention of coffins and maybe even gravestones, so think more into that. I actually like the concept of this poem and I think it would make for an even better poem if you happened to apply imagery where imagery fits, because there's a lot of potential spots to fill.
Keep experimenting, editing, writing; keep going. I hope I helped and have a great day!
HEELLO acm,
A poem about a grandmother's deathday. This could be turned into a horror story. I like how you broke up sentences to make them look like stanzas in a poem.
Is Abby an innocent girl? It's as if she doesn't fully understand what the deathday is. To her, it's like a birthday rather than a funeral. Abby's mom doesn't try to explain either. I guess it's best that way.
Innocence. I bet after the deathday, Abby will never be the same again. I wish I was still innocent. But I've already seen too much, heard too much, been through to much- it's too late to turn back.
Stay innocent Abby,
Night Kaizer
I like this poem.
Thanks!