Once Upon a Time
Remember when the tap of the pencil in the desolate room
matched our heart beats? Sitting in a room listening to scratches of
distant audio unsure of who we are. You want to be Prince Charming
to a damsel in distress, but are we not all ugly inside?
Your chunky chains of fairy tales restrain you keeping anyone
worth while. The villain is she who takes the prince off of his quest.
A villain am I. W never said a word, we never stood a chance.
We were a dichotomy of wrath. Preconceived order
Crumbles to disorder, so how long can you illusion stand?
Remember the trees and stars, a laugh to cut the silence,
As the moon glared.
I'm beginning to see a pattern with you, dah'lin, and it seems to me you love to lose love under the moon. XD No, okay, back to being serious. I'll start out with the elements I love and then, because I adore you so, I'll move into what I think could be better. MERCILESSLY. As these things should be, as I expect you to do with me as well.
ReplyDeleteNow. First off I want to address that wonderful alliteration--chunky chains. I know it seems a pretty simple thing, but you could have easily gone cliche with that, with the clanging and the banging. But chunky? It's such a heavy word. Insulting word. I love it. Imagine obese chains! In fact, let's consider the idea of even using "obese chains" to stray even farther from the cliche. I love a good alliteration but a wonderful image can overpower that further. Honestly the choice is yours but I will tell you I like that bit just the way it is.
As you probably know, I'm image-oriented. Give me a visual; I feel like all your usual visual-expertise is lacking here. You always create very solemn moods with your visuals and I feel like this work needs that here, rather than being stuck on heavy-handed connotations. You talk about fairy tales. Give me examples! I think you might want to get familiar with the Grimms here. You're trying to create the image of an ugly fairy tale. All their fairy tales are wonderfully ugly. I have their complete collection. I can fish it up for you if you'd like? Moving along...
Oh my God, "we are a dichotomy of wrath"?! Like an orgasm in my mind! It's wonderfully refreshing here--striking language. I feel like this almost separates itself from the rest of the piece. Preconceived order? What IS that? It's brilliant! I think this is where the poem meets its best. Still, you have to be wary of unnecessary adjectives. Though you have good images you tend to be description-heavy. Reign in unnecessary adjectives. Does the room have to be desolate? Actually, chuck "in the desolate room" entirely. Does it sound better? I would also consider playing with meter. Manipulate some line breaks into this and this is actually something I struggle with--I was told that at the end of a line break you want to end with something not necessarily strong, but solid. In this I mean you do not want to end with words like "of" or maybe not even "anyone". Also (and this is where I always fall off myself) you do not want to end in words that are too strong. It makes it too heavy. Avoid ending in cliches and I think that helps.
I hope I was helpful without being too brutal. DX Anyways, good job. You have a good skeleton to polish here--now start giving him some meat.
Kyley,
ReplyDeleteYou definitely have some interesting words in this piece. I mean as Diamond had mentioned "Chunky Chains," it's so bizarre! It just attracts you and throws your senses a little off balance. I love it.
I would also have to agree with Diamond on the line breaks. The words all just kind of get lost in the way they are carried. But I'm not going to try to make the same notes as Diamond but she did explain things quite well.
But I think you can chunk a lot of the filler words like: when, the, in, etc. and make the words a little more effective. For example instead of "Remember when the tap of the pencil in the desolate room matched our heart beats?"
You could cut when, the, and in. Perhaps producing: Remember tapping pencils matched our heart beats. Or maybe even take out more...
Remember tapping pencils
matched heartbeats
sitting
listening
These words don't need the help of when, the, etc. And I think there should be more play with punctuation for how the words are read.
For this piece I feel a little too lost. I know we're suppose to stimulate thoughts but it might have been a little too much.I keep wondering if you have this amazingly detailed picture in your head about this piece and you condensed the thoughts too much? Because I can't seem to follow.
I do enjoy the darker feel towards fairy tales and I'm not sure the message you are trying to portray but I feel like this poem is meant to remind you of childhood fantasies that carry to adulthood. And how females think of relationships. How we were raised expecting our prince to live by the standards of chivalry. And we expect to be treated as princesses but of course fairy tales are not real. And while we have these selfish expectancy it makes it harder for us to find functioning relationships.
And with the line "You want to be Prince Charming to a damsel in distress, but are we not all ugly inside?" I thought the issue of girls perceiving most guys as pigs because they think between the legs. Or girls who use guys because both can be ugly inside especially when there is motives.
I definitely think this piece has some great potential it just needs a little polishing and experimentation.