A girl in blue cautiously picks her way
over the melting slush,
Both arms wrapped tightly around a large envelope
colored by the mid-morning sun
Off the blinding white snow.
She limps slightly;
Either a handicap from birth
Bestowed onto her by God to prove
That only the innocent suffer,
Or received suffering
by the telephone pole
She just walked into
After looking down so oft
To find her footing.
As if a great burden,
She makes her way to
and opens the mailbox,
Gently sliding in her package,
Afraid that somehow the fall
through the slot will
Damage the paper with her
Deliberately neat handwriting
on it.
She watches the parcel slide down
as far as she can,
leaning foreword
as the opening grows
smaller and smaller
and she closes the slot.
The paper slides out of sight
and into the lonely dark
of the inside.
The girl's gloved hand dusts
some dripping ice off
of the intensely blue top,
Puts her now empty hands in her pockets,
and begins the journey home
As if a heavy weight has suddenly lifted
and now she has nothing to do.
Author notes
This is my 100th poem posted to allpoetry.com
A contest entry
- Ordinary World~ by Blkwidow77.
450 points, ended March 4, 2007, 38 entries
Honorable mention
• next poem in this contest, remove from contest - Paint Me A Picture by April Storm.
450 points, ended March 8, 2007, 46 entries
• next poem in this contest, remove from contest
Please tell me what you think
Comments
-
Hello and welcome to my contest. Being that the contests are now 'blind' and I don't know who wrote them, I can no longer read people's poetry and note their progress from one contest to the next. Also, I will then need to use my disclaimer part of reviews, for those who have never recieved a review before, as I don't know if you're new or not. (unless I happen to recognize your style of writing and know who it is)
You're welcome to put your name in your author notes, if you're one of the ones that likes me to note your progress in your writing.
"The original disclaimer":
~I feel it necessary to tell people unaccustomed to me, a little something about my personality. And that is, I'm inclined to be bluntly honest. Not mean, just straight forward about the impressions your piece left me with and suggestions I might have. You are not obligated to change a thing. But it is always wise to at least take them into consideration.~
That being said, let's move onto your piece. The first thing I can say, is that I was pleased to find this a story poem. This is definitely one of my favorite kind of pieces. At least when written correctly, and you certainly seem to do well enough with this style, that I was pulled into your piece.
On the critical side, there are a few thing I could suggest. One is, when you enter someone's contest, you really should keep it singular. In other words, enter only one active contest at a time. I don't know about other contest hosts, but I find it disappointing that I allow no prewrites because I want poems that are geared towards this contest specifically, only to find the writer has merely tossed in, not just this one, but another. Because then I begin to wonder if your goal was to write to the best of your abilities, or merely to win a trophy somewhere.
More specific to the poem though, one of the main things I noticed, was more 'detail'. That is to say the suggestion is merely minor. It has to do with extranneous words. Words that are extra and aren't really needed in your words. The benefit of removing them, is that it sharpens the words and images that are left, and make them stick out more prominently in your readers mind. Which is exactly what you want, right?
For example, here:
~~Both arms wrapped tightly around a large envelope
colored by the mid-morning sun
Off the blinding white snow.~~
In the first line, you could remove 'both' because a plural of the word 'arm' already says that. In the second line, you could place a comma after sun, and in the third line, drop off 'off the'.
I know these seem like minor changes, but I found those extra words in your poem in several places. And I think if you removed them and read it outloud, you would hear the difference I'm talking about. It refines your work.
Just food for thought. Either way, I enjoyed your piece. Thanx for coming to play~
-
This is simply beautiful. Every word of this seemed so delicate, and purposeful. The story you told is stunning... and you painted the perfect image of this girl in my mind. I just love this... Amazing. :]
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