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139,679 Literary Works • 672,647 Reviews
Hi anna!
This is a cute little poem with a side edge of sadness! I like what you're doing with the mix of Neverland and Alice in Wonderland, because they're some of my favourite childhood images.
I'm going to chat a bit about rhyme here. Rhyme's pretty hard to actually pull off in a lot of poems. It seems like the natural option a lot of the time, because when rhyme is there, your poem is forced to have a sense of rhythm and flow, which means you get the reader moving from one line to the next with relative ease. The problem is that the rhyme is often not done so well. A really good rhyme is almost invisible, in my opinion. Mind that everything I say is my opinion and you can always disregard it if you want! When rhyme doesn't work, it's really obvious, all we can see are the rhymes and they force us to keep on looking at them. Your rhymes aren't terrible, let me say, but they also aren't really good rhymes. I want to tell you to ignore rhyming and try this without the forced structure. However, I think that you want a childlike tone to this and the wonder of rhyme really does work toward that, no matter how I dislike the technique. (I forgot to say I’m biased because I don’t like rhyme! Take me with a grain of salt.)
Second line of your third stanza: *important.
I like the check mate at the end! This is a good idea of the game constantly being played between the two, and between your narrator and their life, the game of age almost. I like the suggestion of a checkmate because we’re not totally sure who has won here. We have to call the checkmate, but is that the couple? The pair of them, childhood and adulthood have to come to a head and clash. Who is winning? Adulthood finds all the gold, meets all the dates, but childhood keeps all the promises and all the hopes and dreams. I feel like you mean adulthood will win, but I’m going to read it differently because I like the fight still going on silently, emotionally.
This really is super cute and I hope that you can clear up the rhyming issue. Maybe do consider taking out the rhyme and seeing how it works that way? If it doesn't work you can always throw the rhyme back in. With that issue fixed, I think this will be a solid little poem!
Please hit me up if you have any questions or queries or just want to chat!
~ Pen.
Anna dear! It's nice to see one of your lovely works! And now I get to comment on them, yippie
BON DIGITY!
Ignoring my vast pools of excite, let's move on to my impressions about the piece per se. I really love these kinds of works! They literally remind of the times when my age was fresh and my life unbeknownst to me. Thank you for sharing a piece of your life that is a nostalgia for many others. Calling in readers is something remarkable.
I'm very glad that you lifted the Neverland part; this became another factor for the memories. The many words you installed in were varying in time: rabbits when young, pirates when a bit older. Pixie dust for our female readers. These combinations literally related the piece almost to any kind of reader without losing its professionalism. It's a treasure box of a piece and I like it!
I just have some comments, though...
The titles should be the ones which will hook readers. The pixie dust part was variably interesting, but the rabbit holes didn't quite click. I don't know with you or other readers, but the way I read it, it seems just not the perfect set of words. Try another, I'm sure you'll find one
Great start, I believe, but not the best latter. The 'so' should be use as a concluding word, but it didn't actually conclude anything nor wrapped up anything, so try replacing it with another word. If it stays like that, the sense might be misinterpreted.
Neverland, I believe as I've seen in Barrie's novel, is spelled without the space. Also, are those words in the parentheses echoes? If they are, why not change them a bit, like very late or maybe late, something like that. Try to emboss it from the rest of the piece.
I don't see the necessity of the quotation marks. Like the use of awful: very young
This line might mislead the other sections of the piece since you've indicated in the first stanza that you're already old enough to not believe in those kind of stuff. If you meant older than the aforementioned, then try using another term instead of just 'old'.
Should be 'important'
Are you following a form of poetry? A sonnet or metered ballad for example? If not and you're doing a blank verses, why not lift checkmate and put it alone in the next verse. Let me say, this line, although a bit cliche to some, ROCKS
Lastly, I would really like to applaud for your very creative thinking. You upheld the thematic use of childishness in the piece whilst keeping it very mature. I especially would like to acknowledge the last line, of course
Anyways, that's that! I hope I helped, even by a bit
Yours indefinitely,
Alf
Hi, thanks a lot for the review, I'm glad you liked! After I'm done replying I'll try and edit the poem a little and take on your constructive criticisms, you're totally right about the confusion between if they're old already or about to become old so I'm going to have to reconsider a few lines.
The quotation marks for "an awfully great adventure" are there because I was quoting from Peter Pan ("to die would be an awfully great adventure") and the second 'I'm late' was in brackets not as an echo but to emphasize the reference to Alice and Wonderland ("I'm late, I'm late for a very important date"). The concept of the whole thing is that I took two of my favourite coming of age books from my childhood (Peter Pan and Alice in Wonderland) and gave the alternate lines to show my sadness at having to leave those stories behind and grow up. So in each stanza the first and third lines reference Peter Pan and the second and third lines reference Alic in Wonderland. I'll try and make this more clear when I redraft!
I'll definitely correct Neverland too and put check mate on a seperate line (I love that idea), I was vaguely sticking to iambic pentameter to give the flow of a children's story, but making it slightly disjointed there I think will add to the message.
Thank you again, your reviews are always so helpful for re-writing! Let me know when you post something new so I can review it. XD