"you gotta see the west coast,"
she said. her acrylic nails were
red and the color slunk into the
whites of her eyes. "there just
ain't nothing like the blue sky
in california." a cough hacked
from the cracks in her chapped
red-lined lips. "you gotta see
those people. they got these bright
white teeth and blue convertibles."
"something about it," she said.
"god bless america, you know?"
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Committing poetry since February 2006
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3 comments:
The character is nicely drawn, through the cough, and her snippets of dialogue. Unlike my written wordings (as Blomain pointed out) these sound real...
I am not sure how much work the italics do though.
character-driven poetry is something ive been pondering a lot lately. after writing fiction, its sometimes difficult to make that transition between the arts in the same day and abandon the fiction mode of thinking in favor of something more poetic and ambiguous. so a lot of my poems lately have had these very rudimentary and undefined characters in them. my dialogue is never quite good enough to make it work, so i have to write with this really obscure poetic voice that refers to unknown people with the assumption that their identity isn't essential for the poem.
this one, though, creates a very full-bodied character (mostly through the dialogue, which always seems to escape me) and at the same time, makes a funny little caricature of the state of california. which also brings up the idea that it's more than possible, in fact it's almost necessary, to define a state by its residents. in this instance, california doesnt look like a very desirable place, and i'd have to agree with you. californians suck. but san francisco is beautiful.
by the way, everyone, take note of the new links that i added to the blog. line rider is a bunch of fun. and tucc's student photo page has a few of my prints up there along with my classmates. and at the 3rd one up from the bottom (farmhouse magazine) you'll find my most recently published story. i am the featured artist of the month in fiction.
HOORAY!
everyone shower me with praise.
and spread the word about farmhouse. they're good people.
i think i agree on the italics. i wasn't sure, but wanted the red/white/blue to be clear. in essence, i suppose i was using the italics to tell, not show. shame on me!
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