twilight,
and a traveling lightning bug
crossing the road on his journey
to wherever lightning bugs go
becomes a windshield fatality
a bright light
a child's happiness
a summer's evening
for no longer
and a carcass quivers in the wind
and a tiny star slowly fades
and windshield wipers silently erase
all traces of existence.
Author notes
yerp. it happened :/
I really need feedback on this, because it's a finalist in a poetry scholarship, and I now have the opportunity to edit it before final judging.
Punctuation, anyone? I'm thinking I may want to add some. Also, do you get the story? I was talking to someone today who totally didn't even understand what had happened. I thought it was obvious... :\
A contest entry
- For The unknown by Incroyable.
323 points, ended December 12, 2007, 37 entries
Bronze trophy winner
• next story in this contest, remove from contest - Poems... by Surreal Rhapsody.
100 points, ended November 26, 2007, 18 entries
• next story in this contest, remove from contest
Please tell me what you think
Comments
1 - 10 of 10
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it right in the flow, i would certianly give u a scholarship on this one
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I think this is a very nice piece - flows nicely and congrats on the trophy
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Here's what I have to say on punctuation in poetry: It's your choice, as long as you keep it consistent. I'm one of those poets that uses capitalization and correct punctuation, mostly because my drill-sargeant English teachers have entwined rules of grammer with my very soul.
That said, I have no problem with people who throw punctuation out the window when writing a poem, and even somewhat admire (and envy!) them. So my advice, after all that, is to either stick with no punctuation (in which case, you can get rid of the comma in the first line and the period in the last line) or use all punctuation.
Another mechanics question you may want to consider is the page aesthetics of the piece. Right now it's just one solid stanza, block-justification on the left of the page. Breaking this into multiple stanzas might be fun, but this is a short enough piece that I can't decide if it needs to be or not. The one part that I think might do with a bit of page aesthetics polish is the lists - they look a bit bland when they all line up so nicely and blend in with the rest of the text. What if you tried some indentation or something?
a bright light
a child's happiness
a summer's evening
Or however you want to make it work. It's your canvas to play on, friend, not mine.
Be careful with talk of summer nights and lights and stars - the last thing you want in a poem is to use ideas or words that are overused. Poetry readers want to be surprised! I think your strongest image is the windshield wipers, despite the fact that you use the word "windshield" twice in one short poem. I think your weakest line is probably "to wherever lightning bugs go." Honestly, I love the idea behind it, but I think you can say it much better.
Overall, I think this is an excellent piece, and I can see why it's a finalist! I'm not an expert at any of this poetry stuff - I write it just to write it, mostly lol. That said, all of my comments are mostly meant to make you think a little bit and maybe experiment with things until you find the style and voice that is your perfect fit. Best of luck on the poem and in the contest!
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Wow, thank you sooo much. This is exactly the kind of advice that I needed to make this better. THANK YOU!!!!
annye
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I get it, very well. You could consider adding punctuation to it, capitalizations, some more commas, periods, and so on. Well done though.
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Interesting.
This is an interesting poem. Well detailed. I get what you mean. Well done. Kais =)
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This was kwl, good luck on the contest, and I did get it!
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Awesome! ^.^ I think you did a good job^.^ Good luck on the contest!
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this is interesting. i liked it
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ooooooooh!
o.O!!!!!! This is soooooooooooooo thought provoking to me really it is! You have done a great Job!
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