Last spring I took a pair of scissors
and clipped a short branch
from the magnolia tree two streets over.
They were beautiful implosions in miniature
but their perfume hung so heavy in my room
it was sickly - overripe and fermented,
days later the flowers folded within themselves
damp and sweet with decay.
Points:
Time spent:
Canary word: Present
Possible AI signals:
Original Text:
Are you sure you want to delete this comment? This cannot be undone.
Mark this comment as a review? Points will be awarded to the poster.
Your comment was posted, but it wasn’t long enough to count as a review. Reviews need about four complete sentences (at least 250 characters). Try writing another review that explains your thoughts in more detail — the author will appreciate it, and you’ll earn points for it.
125,018 Literary Works • 672,857 Reviews
Hi, my name is Kman134 and I am here to review your short poem today.
Well, here's what I think of the second stanza:
"They were beautiful implosions in miniature
but their perfume hung so heavy in my room
it was sickly - overripe and fermented,
days later the flowers folded within themselves
damp and sweet with decay."
The structure of the first stanza is well-organized and has well-written grammar; the symbolisms of beautiful and death within the stanza was brought to life by the imagery. it shows how life is like a flower--it grows, it blossoms, and it dies.
I hope you continue with your works and have a nice time writing more.
Hi, Tinny. My name's Tulip and I am here to give you a review on your short poem.
Okay, so my reviews are barely ever structured the same so please forgive me if I go rambling in different directions as I review this. But since your poem is so short, I will just let you know what I though of each stanza differently and at the end I'll do the "what was my favorite" bit.
Okay First Stanza's up first and this is what you had:
Okay, I liked this stanza because of the small imagery you provided here. A pair of scissors. That leaves it up to the reader to imagine the size and shape, or even perhaps what type of scissors. Are they regular household scissors or are they gardening scissors (if they are such a thing)? You give us a small detail and we can imagine how it connects from there. A short branch? Define short compared to the tree. Is the tree tall and looming far over your head or is it a smaller tree so it's like taking a twig from it? You last line is pretty well written, but you can make it better. Is it when they are beginning to bloom? Or is it in the peak of the time, where the entire tree is covered? Well not necessarily part of the poem, but something to think about I guess?
Now unto the Second Stanza!
Okay, so this stanza has a completely different tone from the last one. You have it where their smell is over powering. You bring us a small description of the plant itself. But then you change tones completely within the same stanza. You go from beautiful over powering smells to death. I feel like the death part would be able to work in a smaller stanza by itself. By doing that you would be able to keep them separated by what message you are trying to convey. Death and beauty can work together if the flow between them are done correctly.
Now to my favorite line(s) of the poem!
Spoiler
I liked these two lines because you give imagery but its not an overpowering amount.
Keep up writing Tinny,
~Tulip!
LTF! <3
This won't be too long, but before anyone else chewed on this, I wanted to get at some of the muscles and tendons you've put on the table and really examine the strengths and weaknesses.
First off, an analysis so you can know whether or not your intentions came across properly.
We begin with an element of nostalgia and reflection in that we're instantly thrown into past-tense and given a glimpse from a time of the year where the general overt symbols are Rebirth and Renewal. So in the position of the reader, we're given an immediate contrast to those symbols to be applied as a salt on the remainder of the takeaway. Magnolias are one of my favorite flowers to bring into poetry because they share their symbol with my absolute favorite, the jonquil, for endurance. So we're reflecting on the sought-after endurance in a time when normal folks would be considering renewal and awakening, and this gives me the inclination that the narrator has gone through some brutal things, and I like that position as a reader. It puts us in the same place.
So the beautiful things that were sought after in the time of renewal fulfilled the narrator's immediate hopes of beauty, but then their presence began to weigh in full on the narrator and her expectations began to skew. The things that she'd gone after in this mindset that things were going to swing up began to fill the entire space around them with a scent that is often regarded as toxic in its sweetness. It represents the natural curb of our hopes, and how reality has its mighty way of reeling us in when our hopes get too high. It's intensely melancholy while hiding behind the beautiful flower imagery. And for that I thank you. It's not heavy-handed. It's calculated. And I like being given the chance to upturn petals in search of meaning. It made the experience more impressive.
So generally, your word choice is spot-on, and the only lines that feel like they could be restructured or rephrased to improve flow are the first lines of each stanza. In the very first line, I feel like we're whipped between the expository opening and the instant narrative without a moment of fluid respite. And in the second stanza, while I appreciate the imagery, I'm on the fence about "beautiful implosions"--because on one hand, it's as if you're demanding of the reader "think these things are beautiful!" and on the other, you're whipping between soft beauty and implosions. And I mulled this over for a long while thinking about how the juxtaposition is actually quite powerful and how I appreciate the whiplash, but all the same, there is whiplash. It's not necessarily bad. It's not necessarily good. It's just something to be aware of.
Finally, everything you've given us is just enjoyable at the end of the read, and that's really a bragging right. Sure, there's more to be enjoyed if you dig into it, but even on the surface for a casual reader, there's something to be had.
Let me know if you'd like to discuss it further!
Ty xo