They say when you see
your soulmate you
fall in love at first sight.
I found it with the girl
with light brown, pixie cropped
hair in the coffee shop.
.
She smiled so perfectly.
It took me a second to
remember what I wanted
to order; I was lost in her eyes.
She flashed me a smile which
showed two rows of perfect teeth
and two perfect dimples to match.
She was breathtaking.
.
She wrote my name, Courtney,
in big loopy letters on the cup.
And as she passed me it to me,
I could feel her fingers next to mine.
The energy pulsating from tip to tip
radiated with a power I had never felt before.
But they never touched.
.
It wasn't until I was leaving that
I saw on the side of my cup.
That loopy handwriting
had written a number,
and the name Bethany.
I looked up,
she was staring at me,
we both smiled.
And electricity started to soar
through my veins
knowing I was going to spend forever
with this girl.
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Canary word: Present
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125,020 Literary Works • 672,731 Reviews
Hey Retro,
I feel this poem was going the dramatic route, and I don't know if it was really successful in that regard, I actually found this kind of bland. That line about the fingers that the speaker first illustrates "feels like electricity" to immediately go back against its word and say "but we weren't even touching" might have had something to do with that impression.
I can always dig drama and first love and all, but this is not exactly the most original scene here. I think what bothers me most about it isn't so much the content, just the lack of authenticity. This is listed as both romantic and narrative, these are two genres that depend wholly on connecting, drawing someone in, and a quality of realness - something uniquely felt and individualized. So, what do I mean by that:
This is the most general statement a poem can make. What is "perfect" to this speaker, is it straight like a row of garden hedges, dangerous like alligator daggers, is it worked on and flawless as a porcelain fake, is it humble and character-laden with wide gaps inbetween?
Google "she flashed me a smile" and you'll be met with hundreds of thousands of song lyrics, poems, prose, etc. with that exact phrase with that exact order of words. Now times it by the millions of poems/songlyrics/stories that are all about love at first sight - this is why I say bland.
I can appreciate the pixie cropped hair line, and I like that you've made a scene out of an idea, and that this poem moves and we've got plot going on. But When we talk about "show, don't tell" and scene-writing in poetry, what we mean (using the same example in regards to a smile) is this:
In a couple of lines, we have a story, a voice, a scene, an emotion, a mood/tone/atmosphere, and images that draw us in and personalizes the experience. Imagery is the best tool for a poet, and a way of personalizing by painting the picture of the world that you individually see, hear, touch, smell and feel.
You've written so many poems, you're young and you've a unique perspective, you've got a handle on the writing itself - so blow us away! The entire dictionary of words are your canvas! Use them!
~ as always, Audy
This is amazing! Beautifully written.
Hey there, retro.
All of the poetry I have read of yours has been amazing, I really like it. And it's quite astounding as to how often it appears in the featured works spotlight on the front page! So, congratulations on that.
You haven't made any grammatical mistakes that I've noticed, nor spelling. Punctuation is something that can be played with in poetry, so it's not really worth mentioning anyways.
As for your content, I have to say it's yet again (not surprisingly) lovely!
This linked really well with this line:
Why? Because pixies are meant to be magical and seeing "pixie" used along side "power" was a really cool link to make.
Honestly, that's all I can really say about this without turning it into a ramble about how much I like your poetry.
Happy YWSing,
-Clarity.