Too bad your upgrade ran out and froze your other items. Luckily, I haven't read this one yet. Let's see what you've got.
When I sat to write woeful words, straying
like alley cats, they brought the likes of
fish heads and drug in dead rats. I like your imagery here, it works well. On a technical note, get rid of the comma after "straying" the line break is enough to create the pause you're looking for and the comma is awkward on a grammatical level.
Grammatically/formally, I think these lines can be cleaned up a bit:
These days I still believe in wrinkled muslin,
Unbleached and earthy, coarse and real, just
a few sour lemons, when the sugar box is bare.
Or storms have gathered and stuck on my ceiling. I wonder why "Unbleached" is capitalized? Since you're not following the format that says to capitalize the first word of each line, it should be lower case. Is that last line supposed to be "storms I have gathered?" The first line of this section is great, I like the rhythm and the image is wonderful.
But my favorite, are words of silver dust Why the comma here? It doesn't belong. *see note below*
Stork's white wings widespread, poems in bill,
magically delivering, dispersing them to
kindred souls of those, who might peruse
and long to step into that enchanted coach. Another good passage, I particularly like the image of teh stork carrying poetry.
* Note: In looking at your comma placement, and the fact that some of those commas really shouldn't be there, yet seeing that you put them there for the sake of a pause, I wonder about your line breaks.
In workshop, I saw a good variety of styles, and people who worked best with longer lines. I also saw, and happen to be, people who work best with shorter lines. Because of this, looking at your poem creates the impulse to chunk up your lines. Just to play with the format a bit, try a little bit of editing where, whenever you have a comma within the line, add a line break.
Then you'd replace this:
But my favorite, are words of silver dust
perhaps a fairy's wand, a scoop to dip
in stars, to wave a sprinkled sparkling,
turning slippers into glistening glass.
with this:
But my favorite
are words of silver dust,
perhaps a fairy's wand
a scoop to dip in stars
to wave a sprinkled sparkling,
turning slippers into glistening glass.
This might help in seeing where you really need a comma. For example, "But my favorite" lost the comma and used a line break afterwards instead. Some lines, like:
When I sat to write woeful words, straying,
like alley cats, they brought the likes of already have excellent line breaks, and to put "straying" in the next line because there's a comma before it, would ruin what you've done. So, by no means is my suggestion a hard-and-fast thing.
However, with the flow of this piece, and the listing you use, I think you could do more line breaks. With the commas in this piece, some feel like they're there because you wanted a pause but where hesitant to break the line for some reason. Mostly, I just encourage you to play around a bit with your commas and line breaks, see where they really want to be.
Okay, so the main run-down on this poem. I think you've done good things here. And, by the red award icon attatched, I see I'm not the only one. I think there are a couple of formal things you can do to add some oomph, but your wording and imagery are spot on. Nice writing. Let me know if/when you revise. |
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