A beautiful day in the middle of spring.
The neighborhood is filled with young children.
Down the road lived two brothers.
Two brothers I call my cousins.
I ask them to come over so we can play and run around.
“Sure!” they say “we will come right now!”
And my house they were bound.
sidewalk chalk and and kicking balls
we were having a blast.
until one brother said to other and me
“let’s ride our bikes up and down the street.”
Brother said “yeah! that sounds like fun!”
but me? I looked at them and said “Umm…”
My bike has four wheels, I'm still training you see.
your bikes with two wheels will be faster than me.
Don't worry! you will keep up! You got this cousin!
Do not give up!
I started to peddle and I got faster and faster.
I felt like I was flying
as i was following the brothers from a far
I saw in the distance a big silver car
the boys came to a stop with their brakes on their handles.
I quickly approached them and the car was still moving.
stop! they yelled, but I was still cruising.
I screamed as my bike with four wheels met the street
as the big big silver car stopped short with a streak.
all of a sudden my feet found the ground
followed by my hands with a pound.
with tears in my eyes I picked myself up
and walked back to the sidewalk pulling my bike.
The car drove away and all I had to say
“go home! I don't want to play anymore today”
Hi Jessica. This poems tells a little story, and that comes through clearly. Your lines have a regular length that gives this poetic unity.
ReplyDeleteThat said, there are some things I would love to see you work on in future poems. Remember the second day of class, when we went over good and bad qualities about poetry? I am afraid this one seems a little over the line in terms of the rhymes, which often seem forced onto the language, as we discussed in class that day.
The other thing I would like to see you work on is using more descriptive detail to show rather than tell things. The phrase "a beautiful day" isn't working, because it is an easy, conventional way of labeling a day, rather than bringing the beauty to life with sensuous imagery.
The same goes for the line "We were having a blast." That's too flat and straightforwardly told to make us feel it.
So lets revisit the lessons from the book. Try to employ more of what you are learning from reading Kowitt's book. Let's avoid rhyming for a little while and focus on descriptive detail that helps convey ideas and emotions. Hope this helps!
Hi Jessica! I liked a lot of aspects of your poem, including the way I was able to put myself into the story as a child. I also liked that many of your sentences used alliteration. For example, in the first few lines you used chalk/ ball, children/cousins, and around/now. You also brought the story full circle by starting off wanting to play and ending by telling the kids that "I don't want to play anymore today."
ReplyDeleteThat said, I agree with Professor Miller that more description and less rhyme would improve your poem.
:)
Hi Jessica! I liked a lot of aspects of your poem, including the way I was able to put myself into the story as a child. I also liked that many of your sentences used alliteration. For example, in the first few lines you used chalk/ ball, children/cousins, and around/now. You also brought the story full circle by starting off wanting to play and ending by telling the kids that "I don't want to play anymore today."
ReplyDeleteThat said, I agree with Professor Miller that more description and less rhyme would improve your poem.
:)
I think the use of "brother" and "cousin" don't allow the reader to fully enter the narrative, because that's not how someone might really speak -- it feels artificial. Perhaps after the introduction of the fact that the boys are brothers and the speaker's cousins, you may want to give them names, as that's how the speaker would likely tell the story in real life and I think that would make it sound more natural.
ReplyDeleteThe story of this poem is easy to connect to. I felt part of the story. However, I felt that this poem was a lot like a Dr. Seuss book. Either way it was great! Can't wait to read more!
ReplyDeleteThe change between brother and cousins is a bit confusing,but I love the overall story-it is easy to relate to especially for me (my cousins live right up the block and they are a family with four sons). I love the stanzas about four wheels versus two and the cousins cheering her on-it has a disney cheerful kind of feel to it.
ReplyDeleteI like how you effortlessly described the conversations between you and your cousins without quotation marks and the "I said" and "he said". I liked the child's perspective and the easy-to read quality of the poem. This good story could be pushed further with more poetic form.
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed the rhyming of your poem, maybe it was a little excessive but it added to the poem and demonstrated the child's point of view. The anecdote is very clear and easily understood.
ReplyDeleteThis poem definitely tells a story. You captured the child's feeling effectively. In the beginning, the rhymes contributed to the child friendly setting, but may have cheated the poem out of depth in the end...
ReplyDelete