(Untitled)

[niliwen]

Prompt: Sparkling

Admiration in Scarlet

Red is a birthday
To the rest of the world around us.
It is the swish of a dress in full twirl
Under the banal flourescent lights
Of that glorified shed in the park.

Behind my eyelids
Red is the crease of your coatOver your elbows, your strong arms

Comments

[silverflight8]

Don't have a specific comment, but I liked this a lot.

[niliwen]

Thanks!

dodos rolling out the edit wagon,he pauses

[bardiphouka]

Very well written, albeit bittersweet piece. I do have a quibble

Under the banal flourescent lights
Of that glorified shed in the park.

I am not sure if you deliberately meant the discordance between this couplet and the rest of the poem, but I found it..jarring. It took a bit to get back into the flow of what is otherwise a well written piece. I think it was using the word banal. Florescent lights are many things, but I really do not picture them as banal? Just a thought. Well done over all though.

Re: dodos rolling out the edit wagon,he pauses

[niliwen]

Thanks.

As for the word 'banal', that was how it struck me at the moment though now I'm wondering if the words 'sterile', and 'prosaic' fit better?

Here be your edit!

[innana88]

I really enjoyed this, Niliwen! I think poems about colors done well are terribly evocative and I do indeed say this was done well. :) Great work this week!

I'm going to disagree with Bardi; I liked the phrase 'banal florescent lights'. It is not the usual use of the word, to be sure, but they are indeed dreary and commonplace. I do think you might jar a few folks that come at that line the way Bardi did, so it is a risk to keep a word that is imprecise/unconventionally used. Perhaps 'mundane' might fit a wee bit better, but that's a choice entirely up to you.

First line: cut 'around us'. The 'us' is implied in the rest of the poem.

Glorified shed? 'Glorified' just kinda leaves me hanging here. I never figure out what makes it glorified. Cut it. You don't need it and it is this word that I think is more problematic than banal. I like the idea of twirling beneath dull florescent lights. Great contrast. 'Glorified' takes out what is most interesting here.

I really don't have much to critique about the rest of it. It's lovely.

Re: Here be your edit!

[niliwen]

Thank!

As for the word 'glorified', how can one suggest that it's just nothing more than a shed despite the sprucing up?

Re: Here be your edit!

[innana88]

Ah, okay, I didn't at all catch that this is how you were using 'glorified'. I think you might need a bit more detail than simply fluorescent lights. I didn't get the idea that it was spruced up from 'glorified' alone. I got the idea that it was a pretty dull place from your use of 'banal' to describe the lighting. 'Glorified' didn't make a lick of sense to me, as a result. Maybe you need another stanza describing the shed itself before the first stanza here.