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Critical Analysis #2
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punksmurf
Junior Member
since 2002-01-01
Posts 37
new hampshire, U.S.

0 posted 2002-04-04 06:44 PM


this is kinna spur-of-the-moment, bear with me.

i wonder if you know
how beautiful you are
do you comprehend
your smile?
floppy brown hair
wet brown eyes,
deliciously dark-spiky
lashes
so black on pale skin
darkness in your sea of soft browns
do they show you
how gorgeously perfect you are?
or are they too busy,
tangled in perfect-long blonde hair?
i could try to show you
your soft-perfect skin,
just let me stare,
immerse myself in your brown-sea eyes
hope,
but i can't force you to understand.

-i've just reread this and it's so yuckily mushy, i think i'm gonna vomit, sorry, just HELP!!!


© Copyright 2002 Hilda MacKinnon - All Rights Reserved
jenni
Member
since 1999-09-11
Posts 478
Washington D.C.
1 posted 2002-04-06 01:16 AM


"i've just reread this and it's so yuckily mushy, i think i'm gonna vomit, sorry, just HELP!!!"

the obvious solution... don't be so yuckily mushy.  

the speaker here wants the subject of the poem (blake, presumably) to be aware of his/her own good looks.  why?  what's blake supposed to do with the understanding?  how would anything be any different if blake was aware of what the speaker sees?  answer that, and i think you can rescue this piece.  in other words, build context, i guess.  like the scene in the movie "swingers," where the friends tell the main character over and over "you're so money, and you don't even know it;" they weren't just saying that for the heck of it, just so he'd be aware; they were trying to boost his confidence, shake him out of his my-girlfriend-left-me funk and get him to meet another girl and rejoin life.

another way to go is to show us what it all means for the speaker.  what you have now is like:

oh mickey you're so pretty
can't you understand

you need to add something like what follows in the song:

you take me by the heart
when you take me by the hand

anyway, you probably get the idea.  take what you've started here and do something with it.  from what i've seen of your other posts here, you're a really creative writer, i'm sure you can come up with something pretty cool.

good luck,

jenni

[This message has been edited by jenni (04-06-2002 02:06 AM).]

brian madden
Member Elite
since 2000-05-06
Posts 4374
ireland
2 posted 2002-04-06 03:09 PM


I really like this, you are right it is mushy yucky but heh most love poems are. The problem with love poems is write honestly without been too mushy. Ok on with the critique.

The poem seems like a conversational piece, it works best when you let the feelings flow. Though I think you need to dig deeper on your feelings, most of your descriptions are about surface, what Blake looks like.

How about showing us how Blake makes you feel, how Blake lights up a room, etc etc.  You have a lot of interesting starts that need to be expanded on like

" do you comprehend
your smile?"  

Too vague, what about the smile? How does it make you feel? Also " comprehend" seems too harsh, too clinical for this context.

" floppy brown hair" at first I thought get rid of "floppy" but it is cute, and works, but tell us more about this floppy hair.  


These lines are my favourite, and I think the strongest part in the poem.  

" floppy brown hair
wet brown eyes,
deliciously dark-spiky
lashes
so black on pale skin
darkness in your sea of soft browns"


I don't know about the question
" do they show you
how gorgeously perfect you are?"

I think it upsets the flow of the poem.


"or are they too busy," Don't like the word busy. You could even lose the line,  

how about:
" floppy brown hair
wet brown eyes,
deliciously dark-spiky
lashes
so black on pale skin
darkness in your sea of soft browns,
tangled in perfect-long blonde hair"


"immerse myself in your brown-sea eyes" I know this is a cliché but I think "drown" might work better than "immerse" or "slip undertow in your brown-sea eyes "


I think the last six lines lack the strength of the previous lines, they don't carry your feelings as well.

" i could try to show you
your soft-perfect skin,
just let me stare,
immerse myself in your brown-sea eyes
hope,
but i can't force you to understand."


Hope this helps.

A dreamer is one who can only find his way by moonlight, and his punishment is that he sees the dawn before the rest of the world.oscar wilde

J.L. Humphres
Member
since 2000-01-03
Posts 201
Alabama
3 posted 2002-04-09 02:23 PM


punksmurf,
  This seems to be a poem of a more personal nature. I think the subject would really appreciate the poem. As far as any advice on the poem goes, I dig some of the images you use, but some could use some expansion...("deliciously dark-spiky lashes","wet brown eyes",etc.) I like the idea behind the descriptions,but perhaps you could enlarge the image. Also you tell us about Blake physically but leave us with no real knowledge of who this person is. Maybe this will help a little.
              J.L.H.

Jason
God is a warm whisper from the cool void.
Jack Kerouac

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