ink dries far too quickly
untouched pages become maps
& scrawled thoughts
or cartography
while legible,
become inaccurate;
a false impression of rivers where mountains ought to be
so qualifiers become map keys
I think
I hope
I used to know
scattered between chunks of memoirs soaked in dreams
the landscapes all the more vibrant
painted in palletes of versimilitude
in the dangerous space
between
the weight of reality & the temptation of fiction
yet the ink refuses to smudge
for the time at least
these thoughts appear permanent
harsh letters carved over stone
so take them at your own risk
only don’t ask me to draw the compass rose
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140,104 Literary Works • 673,009 Reviews
Hey Alliyah,
I really haven't read enough of your poetry. I feel like this one is a mix between figurative and metaphorical, but I have a hard time deciding if the meaning is too elusive or not, so I'm actually going to begin this review by paraphrasing your poem to see if I can come up with a meaning. Hopefully you can use this as a way to see how at least one reader interprets your work.
When our writing utensil dries too soon
things we've never decided to write become important to future generations
and our brief thoughts
or our practice writing,
[even though it's legible]
isn't something we meant to say;
A line for a mountain might become an indicator of a river
but we can do nothing about it aside from make a key I believe, well if it's not then I've messed up, I might have known how to take care of this before
deep in my memories between all the vivid fantasies,
the big, bright, perfect worlds
painted in color schemes of the real world
hiding in that scarey spot between reality and fallacy
between
real life and the inviting world of creation
but the pen refuses to move
despite trying again and again
I cannot get rid of these wrong marks
and they feel like they would outlast society
so follow maps at your own hazard
but please don't ask me to be your map maker.
After doing that, I really like how the poem comes out. I did a line-by-line paraphrasing and I think what I get out of this poem is that it's a struggle between dealing with reality, and creating fantasy. Creating a fantasy world is so much more appealing than living in reality, but the reality we make in a fantasy world is influenced by our inabilities in reality. "We cannot have a perfect map" because our tools do not allow it, not because we cannot see it.
This feeling of inaccuracy follows through the poem nicely and I feel like you did a very good job of developing it and exploring it in the poem.
I think it wasn't so clear to me on the first read-through because some parts had a drastic jump in either punctuation, style, or message. When I was writing my paraphrase, I had to really concentrate on these parts to decide what it is you were trying to say.
I feel like you should attempt to add in punctuation here because you begin with it, and I feel like the poem would benefit from the continuation of that. If you don't want to, you might want to consider removing the few pieces of punctuation in the poem, or moving them to somewhere that makes them obviously a mistake to add. For instance, if you put a period after "ink dries" then you'll end up with a neat phrase, a true phrase, but also a point in which it could have just been the ink dripping onto the paper as you thought.
I hope this helps and I look forward to reading more of your poems!
Thanks for joining the Poetry Exchange!
Thank you for hosting the poetry exchange Aley! It was fun!
And thanks for the review! I need to re-visit this one ~ I think the meaning might be a bit too unclear, although you pretty much got it! It's supposed to be about when people start letting the lies and dreams in their lives write too much of their perception of reality and how that can effect how others see the world/reality. Thanks again!
Oh! I really like that theme. Try writing it with just a single metaphor rather than dreams as a metaphor, and maps as a metaphor, just use one thing that's really concrete like mountains or houses or something. At the very least, it will give you a new way to approach a very cool theme!
Hello alliyah! Kara here for a (hopefully) quick review!
{the} ink dries far too quickly
great job and keep up the great work.
Give me your soul.With that aside, I'm not the best at poetry but here we go!
Bold = grammar and flow issues.
Italics = suggestions and overall
Strikethrough= removeUnderline = krazy Kara komments.
Spoiler
untouched pages become maps
& scrawled thoughts
or cartography
while legible,
{they} become inaccurate;
a false impression of rivers where mountains ought to be
so qualifiers become map keys
I think
I hope
I used to know
scattered between chunks of memoirs soaked in dreams
the landscapes {are} all the more vibrant
painted in palletes of versimilitude
in the dangerous space
between
the weight of reality & the temptation of fiction
yet the ink refuses to smudge
for the time at least
these thoughts appear permanent
harsh letters carved over stone
so take them at your own risk
only don’t ask me to draw the compass rose
oOF
this was powerful.
The description, imagery, meaning, etc. was some of the clearest I've ever seen. The spacing is excellent, and I absolutely loved the meaning of the poem. I nearly cried. The only true problem is the flow, but I fixed that
Why haven’t you given me your soul yet? --
Kara
Thank you Kara! I'm glad you enjoyed the piece! I'll take another look to see what I can do to fix some of those flow issues you mentioned.
Yo welcome
I'm going to attempt to review this beautiful piece, even though I'm not great at poetry reviews.
First of all, I have to agree with the previous reviewer on one thing- this all feels very scattered. The lines almost float in the wind, with just a small thread connecting them. HOWEVER! I don't see the lack of a definite meaning or direction as a bad thing. Heck, with that last line, I think it fits perfectly. If we're asking you what the meaning is, we aren't looking hard enough ourselves. I will try to keep my droning about the meaning I gathered to a minimum, though, so allow me to get nitpicky here.
I honestly loved your descriptions, and I think the arrangement of the lines was gorgeous. It always intrigues me that so many poets on this site in particular use this tactic of pleasing visuals in their poetry. I did, however, feel like the poem was very hit and miss on an internal rhythm, so that's something you might want to work on. The inconsistency of each stanza threw me off track a little, but that's a stylistic decision, so I won't harp. I feel as if this poem in particular could've benefited from punctuation. There's no place to pause, no resting place for the reader.
That's about all I've got, so I hope it was at least somewhat helpful. Thank you so much for this interesting piece and, please, keep writing!
Hello! So I'm going to attempt to review this lovely piece today, although I'm not very good at reviewing. Let's see...
My overall impression was that it seemed kind of scattered. It's not really clear what the poem is about, although it gives good vibes. Good job on that, I think. I don't know, you used some really beautiful imagery, but it almost seems wasted, since they don't seem to add up to anything. I feel like it needs more direction, a clearer sense of what's going on. There's a lot of emphasis on imagery, but perhaps not enough focus on the narrative aspect. The only part that I could really understand was the last paragraph.
Concerning grammar- in the last line, "only don't me to draw the compass rose" -I think you forgot "ask". I believe that's all, though.
It's a really beautiful poem- only lacking somewhat in clarity. I hope you found this review helpful.
~RoseAndThorn
(Formerly DragonLily)