Notes from the pen~
these poems are so poem-y with a hint of poem-y and basically swimming in poem-try so I expect a review if you’ve got time!
WE ARE FLAMINGOS/ A FLAMINGO IN A PRIDE OF LIONS (couldn’t decide :P)
We are flamingos
trying to be lions.
but we never quite get it right-
one twilight-pink feather peaking through
the blanket of gold-and-murky-brown sunset that we so desperately draped ourselves in
Or
One high-pitched bird cry shrieking through
the deafening roars we practice too long to get right
We are flamingos
desperately trying to be lions
but we can never quite hide the blush-pink shyness of us
with mud-brown boldness of them
or suffocate the shrill-soft bird cries of us
with deep-sea roars of them
And so the truth is the truth-
flamingos can never be lions
like the moon can never be the sun or
smiles can never quite be the laughter
We push back water from our eyes,
metal up our spines and
demand to be lions
threatening to rip the jungle apart again and again until
we become them
But the truth is the simple, plain truth
that while we are meant to fly,
to rip the horizons with papery pink wings
and claim the sun as ours,
they are meant to roar cry
chase our flight with incandescent hatred,
and threaten to rip the jungle apart again and again
until they become us.
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Time spent:
Canary word: Present
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125,029 Literary Works • 672,775 Reviews
Hello rida! Nicope here for a quick review!
First impressions: SUCH A GOOD POEM! It's a really good topic. it can be interpreted different ways, but to me it's basically saying we're trying to be like other people instead of ourselves. And i think that's a good message.
Thing you could fix: there's not much i could find to fix. Your grammar seems to be good.
Hope this review was helpful
Keep writing!
-Nicole
Wow! Thanks for the kind review!!!
Hi there rida! I'm here for the requested review (sorry for the wait!)
Title and initial impressions
I don't usually mention spelling in my reviews, but since it's in the title, I just thought I'd point out that "curios" is spelled "curious" - totally not a huge deal, just a polishing nitpick! Speaking of the title, I thought the clickbait approach was a fun way to lure the reader into the poem. I love a good clickbaity title, however, I do expect poems with clickbait titles to have satirical, humorous, or cynical themes, which yours doesn't really have. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but I just wanted to mention that the poem didn't quite match what I was expecting from the title.
From the opening two lines, I immediately can see that this is a poem about trying to fit in with other people.
I love how these two lines set up what the rest of the poem is going to be about, and also set up the framework for all of the imagery and extended metaphor that follows. I also like how you repeat these lines/ similar phrases throughout the poem: "We are flamingos / desperately trying to be lions", "flamingos can never be lions", etc.
Stylistic choices
I agree with Lim that you made some great use of line breaks; I especially liked how you chose to break up this stanza:
The way "demand" and "threatening" are placed at the start of a line places emphasis on those words, which creates a great effect in this stanza I think!
I was a bit confused by your use of punctuation - in some places, you use periods when sentences end (e.g. "We are flamingos / trying to be lions." and "and threaten to rip the jungle apart again and again / until they become us.") but everywhere else you don't use any periods, and instead use stanza structure and capitalization to denote where sentences start and end. There's nothing wrong with this tactic, it just isn't consistent throughout the poem. I'd recommend taking a look at how you want to use (or not use!) punctuation, and use that method consistently throughout. For a more in-depth look at punctuation in poetry you can check out this really great article!
Imagery
Your imagery was by far my favourite part of this poem - the vivid language and intense colour-oriented descriptions made this look like a bright, beautiful painting in my head <3 My favourite image is in the final stanza:
That. is just. *chef's kiss*!
I noticed that you used a lot of hyphenated descriptions, such as "twilight-pink", "gold-and-murky-brown", "mud-brown", "shrill-soft", and "deep-sea". I thought this created a neat flow! My only suggestion would be to perhaps spread these out more evenly; right now, 7 of these descriptions are squished into the first three stanzas, while the remaining 3 have no hyphenated descriptions. I'm not saying you need more hyphenated descriptions, as that might start to become a bit much, but I think it wouldn't hurt to spread them out throughout all 6 stanzas!
(Side note ~ the use of hyphenated phrases reminds me a bit of my poem Trust that you'll fly! I just thought that was neat to see the similarity there ^^)
Closing thoughts
Overall, this was a really fun poem to read! I think pretty much everyone can relate to trying to be something they're not, and the metaphor of a flamingo trying to be a lion works really well to depict that experience. I found the turn at the end of the poem - revealing that the lions want to be flamingos, as well - was super clever and interesting! I hope this review is useful to you, and thank you for being so patient while I got around to writing it :) If you have any questions/ comments about anything I brought up, feel free to ask!
Keep writing,
--whatcha
Thank you so much for the helpful review!!! I really appreciated your suggestions!! <33
Btw I thought of your poem while writing this too!!!!
Hi there, rida!
The first lines of this poem caught my attention. Flamingos and lions don’t seem all that related to each other, so I was curious to read on. In the end I found both the flamingos and the lions to be sympathetic. The tone of the poem seems honest and emotional, which added to my ability to sympathise with the figures depicted.
Subject, Themes, Narrative
I thought the message of the poem was that the grass is always greener on the other side. There seems to be a theme of trying to change oneself to fit an ideal.
At first I was thinking this might be more of a lyric poem, but then the ‘turn’ in the last stanza when the lions are revealed to want to become flamingos as well made me go ‘ah, that’s the story!’.
An additional interpretation/ thought I had was whether the story of the flamingos and lions is allegorical, for instance depicting specific groups of people in real life who wished they were more like each other, or if it’s meant to be read as it is. As I noted earlier flamingos and lions seem to be an odd combination (to me at least!) so I found myself curious about the relevance of choosing these specific animals.
Language and Imagery
I thought the images of the lions and flamingos were pretty vivid. I could picture them as I read the poem, especially how they contrasted with each other.
I noticed this motif of associating the moon/night with flamingos and the sun with lions. I thought the different aspects of the sun, such as its colour and also its movement from sunrise to sunset, which you chose to base the motif on were interesting.
Then the sun motif being brought back to describe the flamingos’ intention to become lions was also effective in conveying the impossibility of their ambition, I think.
I think I would have liked more description on the ‘jungles’ and the ‘horizons’. As far as I know, I don’t think lions live in jungles (they live on plains, where there’s lots of grass), and according to a quick google search neither do flamingos? So I was wondering if ‘jungle’ was a metaphor, like when people say ‘jungle’ to mean a messy situation, or if there’s a meaning attached to lions and flamingos being in the jungle.
On ‘horizons’ – I think it might make the poem even more vivid to have some descriptions of sky colours, since the flamingos fly around towards the end. Some of my favourite sky colours are orange (sunset orange is usually a named shade of colour!), pale yellow, pink, and of course dark cyan~
I really loved this stanza. The way “push” is used for both water and metal was a nice way to transition from one line to the next. I wonder why “metal” up their spines, specifically? My guess is that it has to do with “threatening”, as though the flamingos are preparing to fight.
Structure and Sound
I liked the placement of the line breaks in this part. The way that the lines get consecutively longer built up my anticipation, and then the third line delivers a ‘but’ statement to develop the ‘plot’ of the poem.
The structure of the poem as a whole is based a lot on the line breaks, I think, since it is a free verse poem. The hyphenated images like “twilight-pink” are interesting and give the piece a distinctive style, but I wonder if “gold-and-murky-brown” really needs to be hyphenated? I think hyphens create a kind of jumpy, staccato rhythm when read aloud, which can be nice if used sparingly at the right time, but sometimes staccato can get too much.
The space between the ‘Or’ and the other lines, and singling ‘or’ out for a line of its own didn’t really add an effect for me. If it’s aesthetically pleasing for you, I’d say keep it, but if there was supposed to be an effect there, maybe a different spot in the poem might work for this fragment line?
On the title: I think ‘We are Flamingos’ seems more apt – because ‘flamingo in a pride of lions’ makes me think of only one flamingo that lives with a pride of lions, whereas the poem seems to be about a bunch of flamingos aspiring to become lions.
That's all
Feel free to ask any questions about what I’ve said here. Hopefully you found these comments helpful - and keep writing!
Cheers,
-Lim
Wow thank you so much for this amazing, amazing, amazing review!!!!!! :0
<33
Wow I don’t even know where to start with this. First of all, I love the entire idea of the poem. We’re all trying to pretend to be something we’re not, but it never truly works. There’s always something off. I love the way you describe things as well. You paint a picture with very lovely writing. I specifically loved these two stanzas “And so they truth is the truth- flamingos can never be lions/like the moon can never be the sun or/ smiles can never quite be the laughter” and “we push back water from our eyes, metal up our spines and/ demand to be lions/ threatening to rip the jungle apart again and again until/we become them” Like I said before, the way you paint pictures is very lovely. I like how you keep a lot of the coordinating conjunctions on the line before what they’re connecting. I feel like it adds a place for good rhythm if you ever speak it at a slam poetry event or something. Anyway, that was a lovely poem and I can’t wait to see more from you!
Best lines in my opinion.
Good line. Really says there's a beginning to happiness and an expression to it. Both ways. Confusing line to analyze. But good nonetheless.
Remove to change incandescent. It doesn't match.
Thanks for the review! ^_^