Porcelain Fragile

[Kaily Bear]

Hi Kaily, a few things:

1) It's usually a good idea to place your edits in the original post, marked as a new revision. Many people will not read the thread before they comment on the poem so that they're not influenced by the discussion and can come to the poem fresh. That means that you'll get comments on earlier versions.

2) For critique to work well, I would encourage you to resist the urge to explain your poems--at least not at first. If you do, others may then read the explanation into the poem and you won't know if the poem succeeded in conveying what you wanted.

3) Regarding your comments on why you used Once upon a time, or on repetition--I for one assumed you had reasons for what you wrote. The question critique asks: is the execution effective? Confining my comments to the repetition, I would simply ask that you consider fictional dialogue. Dialogue does not mimic how people speak. There are halting pauses, stutters, rambling tangents that never make their way into stories. Dialogue is stylized reality. In a similar way, so is poetry. Just because a child might speak a certain way doesn't make it an effective choice (my opinion of course). Which brings me to my final caution.

4) You can disagree with critique and move on. But if everyone is seeing the same thing (hasn't happened yet in this poem, I mean this more generally), you should consider if there's something to that. However, there are certain poems where you will say to yourself: I see what they're saying but I'm going to go this way anyway--also fine.

Not meaning to be too pedantic.

Best,

Todd

1) understood, iv seen that before, but i wasnt so sure on the changes yet so wanted to keep it up awhile first, see if there are any more comments on the original before i change it =]

2) agreed, i saw that posted before, so i didnt do it in the OP, but people were giving me advice and pointing out how childish it was... but that was actually the intent, but didnt want people to think i was just ignoring their advice, or not taking it into consideration, so i gave an idea of what i wanted to do with it. i did take advice with the things like repetition, but for certain things like once upon a time, that kinda thing is essential for the feel  of the poem, and for word choice, i felt keeping the words simple but strong would have more effect for the feel i wanted to give to it. =]