Sloping sidewalks in a backwards town
Step on the cracks and they’ll send you down
to the red sleeved man with a crooked mouth
There’s no way up and no way out.
Step on the lines and lie face flat
Dare to break your mother’s back
Try to hide the real world facts
by skipping squares to double back.
This sidewalk bends in a place near home
but she who fears the place unknown
will swallow up her broken bones
and spit them out onto the road.
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139,556 Literary Works • 672,608 Reviews
Hello, klennon! I'm here representing Team Potter on review day!
I really like that you took good care of your meter. That's the first thing that I noticed. I'm not usually a fan of rhyming poems, but you obviously put a lot of thought into the rhyme scheme and meter in this piece. I appreciate it! Nothing beats hard work in a rhyming poem.
The first two stanzas seem more connected to each other than the last one feels connected to the whole piece. I think it's because you don't reveal who "she who fears the place unknown" is. Is it the mother? Is it hell that she fears? The last two lines are ominous, but I'm not sure what they mean, or what bearing they have on the rest of the poem. I would try working with that last stanza a little to work more with the overall theme. Or at least the theme that I saw.
The way I interpret this poem is that your environment can bring you down. I think that this is a true statement. If you're hanging out around negative or mean people, it can make you negative and mean.
I like your reference to the devil in the first stanza without explicitly stating that he is the devil. I like the red sleeves. I never thought about it that way, but it nudged my mind in the right direction.
The use of the old nursery rhyme of breaking your mother's back worked well for the second stanza. I like it when people rework old things, and I think it works nicely for the poem.
Altogether, I enjoyed reading this. I hope that this review proves useful to you! Happy writing, and happy review day.
hello person! phangirldivergent46 here to review your ]work!
your work was good but i think it good definitely use some improvements...i would try and suggest everything i can when it comes down to it...so here you go...
TITLE
i almost always forget to comment on the title of the works... so this time i'll make sure i do it at the very beining...
SLOPING SIDEWALKS --- well according to me....this was really catchy! i seriously went like "sidewalk huh? should be something interesting, lets read it." so yeah...i guess good job there...
THEME
next comes the theme of your poem...
now this is another thing i would say i liked... its humorous and overall good i would say...
GRAMMAR
NOW comes the grammar....well when it comes to this, there aint much that you have used here. i would suggest, for your future poems use some more puncuations...maybe put some 'comas' and 'hyphens' where you want a pause or something... that way you ca make the reader read your work, the way you want and have it in your mind
your poem lacks grammar, so i would suggest work on it?
MEANING (the way i understood)
yeah so... now when it comes to meaning...i would say i did understand the first two stanzas.. but the third one specially the last lines... well i really dont know what u meant by it. i mean i did get the sense of it...but duh! just care to explain?
overall this was okay...but certainly not the best of your works...
hoping for the best
~PD46
Hello. I appreciate the constructive criticism. I always take every reader's opinion into mind, because it's important to know your audience's viewpoint. Thank you for spending the time on this review.
The meaning of this poem is about being stuck in the same old town with the same people, and finally facing the fact that you have to leave the comfort of the monotony and enter the world of the unknown, figuring out who you are supposed to be.
Hello, this is Kman134, here, with a review for you.
First off, i love the idea of staying in a dead end town, feeling like you're going nowhere in life.
the reference to "Break your mother's back"--the old superstition--and hop-scotch--childhood games--reflect on our childhood and how it has come to an end.
in the third part, i can, also, relate for we all fear the unknown and though we lose everything, we make up for it with a new life. i don't know if that is what you were going with, but it's the best i can think of.
anyway, i hope to read more in the future.
Thank you for the review! Yes all of your inferences about my poem were correct. It's about being stuck in the same old town with the same people and also my adolescence coming to an end. Also, I tried to express the fear of not finding your place in life, the fear of what is unknown. So you were totally on point with my theme! Thank you for all of your comments!