For some reason I felt like I reviewed this! And seeing that I didn't, I'd love to take a look and leave a few quick thoughts.
Formatting
I love that you utilized so many of the iconic grammarly images in this! It makes it really fun! This is a fabulous usage of a screen shot poem for sure. I think it'd be interesting if you could alter on the side where it says "correctness: 15 alerts, clarity: very clear" ... could those notes be something more poetic? Maybe "clarity: crystal clear, engagement: cuts through the soul" etc. just to do something a little more playful with that section.
Overall all the text is readable though, and you chose a good smattering of words to creatively-spell. (in this case they aren't mispellings, but are purposely spelled contrary to convention )
I like that you didn't change up every single word's spelling because that would distract the reader, but you choose a good amount to make the point!
word plays
I think some of the genius of this piece is in your word plays where you creatively spell a word unconventionally, where the "mispelling" actually gives more meaning to the piece because of the homophones!
ie. "knot" rather than "not" when you're talking about headphones tied in knots!! genius.
& also "i don't know how to right" has double meaning when "right" is contrasting "right vs wrong" but also "write". So the speaker thinks they can't write or / do right. love it!
very clever! I think you could have done a few more word-plays in the 2nd half of the poem too! Maybe capitalize "someone" to contrast with "i" ? Not sure!
All those word plays elevate the piece and make the reader doubt whether conventional spelling is truly as valuable as grammarly would make it out to be.
specific notes
"alfabet judmbel" is a big feeling. xD
I like the continued theme of unscrambling that continues through the whole poem, though it sort of drops off at the end.
message
I like the emotional range that the speaker goes through but I think the conclusion requires extra inference than we are given in the story to make sense.
Here's a summary of what I see being said:
1) the speaker feels lost, their words are jumbled.
2) the speaker finds grammarly, their words feel unjumbled.
3) the speaker learns so much from grammarly.
4) the speaker still holds on to a little doubt / mistrust of grammarly because they want to keep "i" lowercased.
Another way of saying that is: A is a problem. B solves A. I like B. But I don't like C. (the first three premises are connected, the fourth / concluding one feels separate).
Okay so 1-> 2 -> 3 all follow logically, but I don't see where 4 comes from, unless we infer that because this is all written as a poem that the reason they hold mistrust against grammarly is because the speaker is into modern-poetry so have a separate conviction about the pronoun i. The problem is that doesn't necessarally relate to the jumble / unjumbled parts early. I think to fix that logical flow issue you could bring in the concept that the speaker is a poet earlier. Or you could link the capitalization issue to the concept of jumbled/unjumbled somehow, so that it logically flows together more.
intention / effectiveness
Humor poems are tough! You have to speak to people's familiar experience in an unfamiliar or at least unexpected way. And you're able to do both! Almost everyone has struggled with figuring out typos and those easy grammar mistakes, you speak to a struggle we all have gone through. But the ending is unexpected. And the very premise of encountering this struggle in a poem is also unexpected so that along with the humorous spelling mistakes makes this an effectively funny poem from multiple angles.
message
One of the things I'm always saying when I review humor pieces, is what value does this piece have beyond a laugh? Because if you can move your poem towards significance rather than just a funny encounter, then that's a truly winning poem. And I think you do move this poem towards significance, because although it might seem like an inconsequential issue that grammarly is "correcting" our grammar in ways that are not necessarally useful towards communication, you show how some of those different perceived mistakes actually may communicate more meaning! And you're able to engage with the issue of the conflict between Art / Meaning vs. Form / Convention / Rules - which is a very significant battle that as poets we encounter every single time someone comes to a poem and says "don't forget to capitalize "i" because it's more correct" @_@ even in times when the meaning is so much more important than the perceived "correctness". Things like grammarly and spell check are methods of artistic control in some sense, and your poem starts to raise those suspicions which is significant!
Altogether, I love the subject matter. And this poem does it's job of being funny, and maybe unexpectedly impactful. Thanks for sharing this creative work. I'd say it definitely deserved its spot in the spotlight! (ALSO 41 LIKES??? That's amazing! Congrats!!)
~ alliyah
ps this is also your checklist challenge prize much belated
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