What's another word for 'gleaming'?

[trinityofone]

Inspired by psychopepsquad (and a Creative Writing assignment that wasn't working as a narrative) I wrote the first poem I've written in five years. You'll soon see the reason for this hesitance, but since I have to turn this in, I would love whatever advice you have to give about how to make it better. I'm especially bad with line breaks--my poetry is basically prose chopped into lines, and I have no real instinct as to where to place the divide. Advice, suggestions, laughter, ridicule--really, any feedback at all would be appreciated.

And so I blush to present:

Album

They used to hand them out—
squares of white paper,
thick like cardboard,
row after row of smiling
faces: your class photo—
first grade, second grade, third grade,
fourth.

Your mother has all hers pressed in books—
one after another, a chronological concordance;
and looking through, she can identify
each and every toothy grin—
she doesn’t even have to see
the names.
They all have that strange ‘50s sound—
that echo of another era when someone
would still name their kid Agnes
and not think twice.

Yours are scattered
and your average is maybe
two in five at best.
The blonde-haired girl is
almost certainly called Amber
or something else
that even then, at five or six or seven,
you would have guiltily considered
to be rather white trash.

It’s quite telling
that you recall the boys’ names
with so much more conviction
than you do the girls’.
There is Noah with his dark
chocolate hair and his deep
chocolate eyes.
You used to hide together
in the wooden maze at recess.
And Harley, who used to ride
his bike past your house every day. He jumped
over your mother’s peonies—
a death-defying leap.

His mother was a doctor. She knew all your secrets.
And one summer, he brought you from Florida
a snowglobe,
a pair of pink flamingos
braced bow-legged against the blizzard.

Ben was the boy whom all the girls
liked—like-liked—
including you.
He gave you books for your birthday:
three of them, from his own collection, with a note explaining
how he couldn’t find them in any store, yet
he wanted you to have them, nonetheless
and so here were his. His.
You kept the note, awkward second grade cursive
on purple paper like stained glass,
in a box, shut up tight;
and sometimes, even in high school,
you would take it out and look.

And then there is you:
dressed in the dark blue dress your mother
picked out special, not thinking or not
knowing that the background would be
the very same color.
And so
your body
—dissolves—
transforming you—
a floating head;
a white face
clouded by hair.

*********

What can I say? I know I'm a bad poet, but I'm a...well, a relatively good girl, anyway.

Comments

[whiskeypants.livejournal.com]

if there is a problem with it, it is with the line breaks. if you aren't aware of where they ought to break, then it isn't going to work. there is a certain feeling to a line break. and i don't know how to explain it. when i write a poem, there is a certain flow to it in my head.
did you just take the lines from what you had already written, or did you rewrite it entirely?

[darcydodo]

Ditto. I was also going to comment on the line-breaks, which seem haphazard at best. And you need to decide whether you want long lines or short, don't just randomly choose long-short-short-long-long because you like the way it looks or because you can't decide. The first stanza, for example, might work better as follows:

They used to hand them out—
squares of white paper,
thick like cardboard,
row after row of smiling faces:
your class photo—
first grade, second grade,
third grade, fourth.

Or if you wanted longer lines, then join the second and third, for example.

I'm not doing a good job of explaining it, either.

[rashaka.livejournal.com]

Hm. I have to disagree on the last line. I liked it

first grade, second grade, third grade,
fourth.

I remember noticing as I read that I like that line like so.

[darcydodo]

Possibly. I disagree with that far less than the breaking after "smiling." I actually think that the first second etc. lines could be broken/joined in half a dozen ways. :)

[trinityofone.livejournal.com]

Thanks. Yeah, that's one of the few breaks that I like.

Thanks for reading, too.

[rashaka.livejournal.com]

I think it reminded me a bit of "one potato two potato three potato four" and that's why it caught me.

[trinityofone.livejournal.com]

I don't think lines need to be universally one length--that's not the problem. The problem is I don't have any ear or sense for where they should go. I don't know how to magically make that appear.

I did have a reason for breaking after smiling, though. ;-)

[trinityofone.livejournal.com]

This is completely different from the first thing I wrote, so at least I didn't actually try to cut up a piece of prose. ;-) But that feeling that you have? That's exactly what I know I'm missing. It's very frustrating. This is why I know I'll never be a poet.

Still, this was fun to do as an experiment, and it'll give me something to turn in on Wednesday.

[trinityofone.livejournal.com]

That's still probably more than I know. But as long as my professor doesn't take one look at this and laugh me out of the room, I'll be relatively happy.

Thank you for reading! And my line breaks thank you for the only love they're ever likely to get. ;-)