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Anonymous

by Hijinks


Bare save for a cloth, one night

a child sat - 'twas quite a sight.

Would have made even St. Nicholas jump 

to see such a dirty, sad little lump.

   "Why do you sit here, not clothed as a whole?"

A poor lady asked in the silence's lull. 

And to herself, she did confer, 

I pity the child, yet there are many like her

   " 'cause I was tossed from hearth and home,

and sent here, to the streets, to roam.

Could you spare but a cent for me?"

The lady said yes. "Let me see - not one, not two, but three!"

The stooped child thanked her, and stood to stretch.

  "Oh! My mother I was to fetch ..."

Said the lady, her eyes looking as if into hearts they could see. 

   "Farewell, so long," said the girl to she.

   "I will! And you, shall one day do the same?"

   "Yes, I shall, thanks to you. Say ... what is your name?"

But as others who deserve true fame

the lady melted into the fog down the lane,

Anonymous.

She gave her fortune, three pennies at that; 

While millionaires, a distance away, sat.


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Sat Feb 24, 2024 3:00 am
creaturefeature says...



this flopped so hard




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Thu Jul 13, 2017 9:36 am
GinaERufo wrote a review...



WOW! :) I was looking through the poetry section after recently publishing one myself (shameless plug) and the title caught my eye. The title, like everything else in the poem, was very creative and well thought of. I enjoyed reading this and I look forward to reading more of your poetry in the future. The flow of it sort of reminded me of a Robert Frost poem, which shows how highly I view you and your poetry! If my opinion matters at all, I highly suggest you submit poems like this one somewhere because you have true talent and you mustn't let that go to waste! I hope you continue to write like this because I will continue to read it! With love, Gina




Hijinks says...


Thank you! I'm glad you like it!



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Thu Jun 29, 2017 4:20 am
Sumerj12 wrote a review...



Hello there! Sumer here to review your work.

Alright, I see that this is a poem that tells a great story and makes an even better statement. This piece of work here also shows emotion, heart, pain and giving. Although I do love this poem and could hardly believe it hasn't been published, there are a couple of things that catch my eye. Such as, 'Anonymous.', this caught my eye because it is the very heart of the poem but in all honesty I don't think it flows well... seeing that all of the other parts of the poem rhyme. Now, then again this may have been your trick of the cards by making this simple word stand out, as you already have by making this one line have a single word. Another thing that caught my eye happened to be, 'I pity the child, yet there are many like her', this caught my eye simply because it played with my heart strings. By this I mean it was a very emotional part to me and I have nothing bad to say about it 'nor can I correct it in any way. For this I say continue making more poems and continue to shake people with such words.

-Sumer




Hijinks says...


Thank you Summer!
I have revised the poem several time : )
Yes, I did want Anonymous to stand out, as it's the title of the poem, and an important part.



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Thu Jun 29, 2017 12:27 am
myjaspercat wrote a review...



Hey there,
Myjaspercat here to leave you a review.

Before I get started I would just like to welcome you to YWS, it's always great to see a new person here and I am totally looking forward to reading your work.

LINE-BY-LINE/NITPICKS

Spoiler! :
Bare save for a cloth on the streets, one night, I don't really think that the comma at the end of this sentence is necessary.
A child sat - 'twas quite a sight
And would've given even St. Nick a fright. Hmm, that's interesting. I would love to see a little more description into why this is.
"Why do you sit here, not clothed as a whole?" I don't know I feel about the ending of this dialogue. For me at least it reads a little odd. I would suggest maybe playing around with the words a bit.
A poor lady asked in the silence's lull.
" 'Cause I was tossed from hearth and home, So, if you're trying to shorten the word "because" at the beginning of this sentence then you need to make 'cause' lowercase, but if not, then you can just take away the apostrophe and it will still work the same way.
And sent here, to the streets, to roam. There's too many to's. Now I cant really see a way to take out one of them with out having to revise the entire sentence so if you want to keep it as it is then go for it's just a little clunky.
Could you spare but a cent for me?"
The lady said yes. "Let me see - not one, not two, but three!" The use of the exclamation mark seems out of place. There are better ways to express the same thing.
The nude child thanked her, and stood to stretch. I'm a little confused by this. I thought the kid still had a cloth, meaning the kid's not necessarily nude. I could just be misinterpreting it though and if so, my bad.
"Oh! My old mother I was to fetch!" Again, the exclamation point doesn't fell necessary.
Said the lady, her eyes bright like a pearl. 
"Farewell," said to she the girl.
"I will! And you, shall one day do the same?"
"Yes, I shall, thanks to you. Say! What is your name!" Ok, whoa slow down... I'm really confused by this little chunk of dialogue between your two characters. It also sounds a little bit mechanical and fake.
But the lady slipped 'way,
Anonymous, If I were you, I would end this line with a period
Like others who deserve true fame.
She gave her fortune, three pennies at that; 
While millionaires, a distance away, sat.


OVERALL THOUGHTS:

1.) Poem structure -- This is gonna include three different things; capitalization, punctuation and rhyme scheme.

A. CAPTALIZATION

So this is gonna be kind of short and sweet so to say. Now since poetry is a very creative form of writing there is really no RIGHT or WRONG way. However, there are some things that I highly suggest avoiding. Do you notice that every single line in your poem is capitalized? Well of course you do, you wrote it. My point here is that you shouldn't capitalize every single time you hit that enter button.

You may ask: why not capitalize every line? It looks so pro!

No, it doesn't. For one, it just doesn't make sense. When you are writing a paragraph in your short story do you write
Like this? As your line is cut off mid sentence do you start the next line with
A capital?
Nope, so don't do it with poetry, it's just as wrong as doing it in prose writing.

There is an exception for capitalization though. It is fine to capitalize words not at the beginning of a sentence as long as you have a point for doing so.

Now, I do understand that sometimes you can just throw out all those boring rules when writing poetry but you still have to think about the effect it's gonna have on your reader. Here, it's jarring to read and it does slightly effect the flow of the piece as a whole. Anyway, enough with that lets move on.

B. PUNCTUATION

Ok, I really only had one big problem with this. The overuse of exclamation marks. In case you didn't know, an exclamation mark is used to show emphasis and --shocker-- exclamation.

However use this sparingly, if at all. Overusing exclamation marks is about the easiest way you can indicate to your reader that you're an amateur. Think of it this way: if an exclamation mark is used for emphasis [to draw a reader's attention to something out of all the rest of the piece] then you're not really doing so if every other sentence has an exclamation mark.

As well, when you read through the dialogue that you put those exclamation marks into, it didn't really seem to fit with the context. Just a thought to chew upon though.

Before I move I move on I just want to make it clear to you that you don't have to add a form of punctuation at the end of each line. Sometimes you can make an idea stick out more [in terms of strength] when it doesn't have any form of punctuation following the idea.

3. RHYME SCHEME

I'm going to be as short as I can be while addressing this topic since I know that this mainly deals with authors personal perspective. For the most part I want to ask if you've considered writing this without having to be stuck to any form of rhyming. The reason I bring this up is because I found parts of the poem didn't flow well, and if it would be pretty hard to revise those parts with out breaking the scheme. As well, there were parts that I wanted to know a little more [you know see more description] which would also be difficult if you stuck to a rhyming pattern. But it's all up to you to find your best style of poetry.

2.) POEM AS A WHOLE/ CONTENT -- So, for the most part, I found this poem to be rather interesting, as I briefly mentioned above. I like the idea behind the lesson you are trying to teach and I always find enjoyment when I read poems by other poets that strive to write something with a deeper meaning to society [kind of like the poetry version of an Aesop's fable] not that I'm saying most poets don't convey a deeper meaning, they all do in their own way. What I'm trying to get at is you did good. It could be dug deeper a bit and revised to truly hit home to some people, but that's all up to you to figure how to do so.

Anyway, I think that's all I have to say. If you have any questions feel free to ask, Good luck and continue writing.




Hijinks says...


Thank you so much! I'll see if I can work any of your suggestions into my poem : )



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Thu Jun 29, 2017 12:15 am
Virgil wrote a review...



This is Nikayla here dropping in for a review!

What I'm most confused by here is the rhyme scheme. The main complaint I have there is that this isn't consistent. What I mean by a rhyme scheme is a pattern of rhyme to follow throughout the poem, though this doesn't seem to have one in complete. Here's what I see now when I read this poem: AAABBCCDDEEFF, and so on. This poem takes on a strict rhyme that holds back the rest of the piece. I wish this were a bit more loose though more thoughtfully structured since this seems to be a poem that'd work with rhyme if done given given the subject matter, though as of now the rhyme feels pretty forced. Working on the general flow would be beneficial since this is more based on a narrative, which isn't something we always see in poetry. Incorporate more elements into this such as imagery and give this more of a neat form.

An aspect of this I haven't seen done too many times in poetry is dialogue and I'd have to say that while this fits, I'm not much of a fan of this since it's not very well-executed compared to the few other cases. Let this have more of a natural flow and also try and make the dialogue a bit less over-the-top if it's supposed to be representing this theme of a lady giving...a couple pennies to a girl? For this to be more effective I think it'd have to be more money, and you can still say that's her fortune.

People giving a dollar to those who need it aren't automatically heroes is the point I want to make here and those gestures don't need to be recorded. They're anonymous for a reason because it makes the people doing those acts feel better. It's an act of kindness that doesn't want to be showed off to the world since those people are usually timid and don't want fame. Giving a girl three cents isn't something to be famous for, though, which is what I'm attempting to say. It is nice, though! Those people don't want to be famous, they don't want money. They want to feel warm inside, and that's what you should try and hit the reader more of with.

If you have any questions, don't be afraid to ask! I hope I helped and have a great day.




Hijinks says...


Thank you for this. I was trying to point out it was that she gave all her money, however little, when she could have given none, saying, I don't have enough as it is.
I tried to fix the rhyming a bit, I hoped that helped.
I know I had a lot of conversation, but I don't really know how to change that without changing the whole poem. I'll try to add a part about it warming her soul ...
Thanks for the input!



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Thu Jun 29, 2017 12:13 am
SnowGhost says...



Good job! And congratulations on your first piece.




Hijinks says...


Thank you!



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Wed Jun 28, 2017 11:48 pm
alliyah wrote a review...



Hi there! Congratulations on posting your first piece on the site!

It's well-edited and I like the old-timey feel of it. For me some of the rhyming felt a bit forced. And I wonder if you could sneak "Anonymous" into the line after or before it to keep up the rhyme scheme. Or maybe just italics it, if you really want it to disjoint the flow (not always a bad thing in a poem). Another small piece of criticism is this poem is almost all dialogue and that makes it a bit difficult in some places to follow -- if you italicized some parts or off-set one speaker this may aid the reader's clarity.

Anyways, well done! And I hope to see more of your work around the site in the future! If you have questions about any of my review please don't hesitate to ask.


Best,

~alliyah




Hijinks says...


Thank you! I'll try italicizing it. I know it's a lot of dialogue, but I didn't know how else to enforce what I was thinking. What do you mean by 'off-set' one speaker? Thanks!



alliyah says...


By "off-set" I was thinking if you didn't want to do italics to show the different speakers you could try doing an indentation every other one -- I'm not sure if that would work or if it'd just look messy. Best of luck!



Hijinks says...


Oh ... I'll try it, and see how it looks : )



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Wed Jun 28, 2017 11:39 pm
Featherstone says...



Hello, Fea here to review!

So firstly, I must say, this was a very well-written poem. It was easy to follow, and the rhyme and rhythm were spot-on. The only time either was broken was with the word 'anonymous', which I will say broke me out of it a bit.

It was short, but engaging, and easy to read. Nice job!

~ Fea




Hijinks says...


Thank you! Do you have any suggestions on how to change 'Anonymous', or perhaps make it part of a different line?



Featherstone says...


I'm not really a poet, so unfortunately no. I write more fantasy story stuff than anything else, so I'm not a great help with actual solutions XD Sorry



Hijinks says...


That's okay - I get it : )



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Wed Jun 28, 2017 11:11 pm
ExOmelas wrote a review...



Hey there! First of all, welcome to Young Writers Society! I hope you find the sort of critiquing you need here :)

I'm just going to go through this line by line pointing out nit-picks (ie little things that I don't think quite work) and nice moments.

On the streets, bare save for a cloth,

I think it might be worth switching these two clauses round. First of all, it would make "bare" the first word, which sets the scene of poverty very starkly and strongly. Secondly, it would mean you wouldn't need one of the commas. I'm pretty sure
"Bare save for a cloth, on the streets one night"
would work, which would just make the scanning and flow easier.

"Oh! My old mother I was to fetch!"

Wait, if she was kicked out (which is what I assumed "tossed from hearth and home" meant, why has she to go find her mother?

Ohhh that was the lady. Maybe switch the line of speech and who said it round. Because of the semi-colon at the end of the last sentence I thought it was the girl who had spoken, which threw me off the speaking order for the rest of the conversation :P

reading the news, sat

I'm unclear why news is italicised, but I adore the ending. It's so deadpan, which I love inherently. But it also sounds like not very much, which makes the reader wonder what you mean, which makes the reader think about the connotations of sitting, ie sitting around doing nothing to help the poor.

I realise that I didn't actually do many nice moments but that's cos I love your tone overall.

Overall:

What I love about your tone is the way the word order tends towards middle english, even though the language stays as present day english. This means that you are able to get the feel of the past in without alienating the reader. Great job!

As is a natural problem of such a strict rhyme scheme, there are inevitably some rhymes that don't work. Like, St Nick, what does he have to do with anything? Maaaybe to do with children being sad, but that isn't made explicit enough for me to be sure. Still, I think it's worth it to establish your feel of a historical piece. This is just a warning that other people who are less inclined to the genre might not take it so lightly.

It is a historical poem, but nevertheless I think it's important to show why it's relevant. Especially since the situation hasn't really changed all that much, not at a basic level of millionaires not caring about the poor. One really easy way to change that could be:

"While millionaires watching their flat screens, sat."

That would break the fourth wall of course, so it's entirely up to you whether that's the route you would want to take. If you want to talk to me about balancing heritage with relevance I have a gushing spiel about the new Romeo and Juliet at the Globe in London (it is beauuutiful), but I won't bore you with that unless you want it.

Still, I enjoyed reading what you have here and if you don't want to make that big a change to it I totally understand.

Hope this helps,
Biscuits :)




Hijinks says...


Thank you! I've changed the first line, like you recommended, and I'll think about that last line. It really helps to have helpful criticism ... I find family is either: older brother - 'That sucks!' And mother or father - 'Wow Pearl! That's really great!'. So it's nice to have strangers tell you what they think. I know I already said thank you, but thank you again!



ExOmelas says...


Ahahaha that sounds unhelpful. You're welcome :D



Hijinks says...


I know : ) My mom just wants to be supportive, and brothers will be brothers.




Life is the art of drawing sufficient conclusions from insufficient premises.
— Samuel Butler