Action Figures

[Weeded]

Action Figures 

He grabs plastic action figures
out of his purple Scooby-Doo
backpack. His Brother configures
a tall tale of heroism
as they sit in that minivan
packing bodies, bags, and boredom.

He drops the ball, Brother says fetch.
He complies, reluctantly and
quietly removes his seatbelt.
Under the seat is a crawlspace
where crumbs and forgotten toys lie.
He fondly remembers laying
to hide from Mother and Father.

In the crawlspace searching; action
figures love to hide. He combs through
darkness, feeling discomfort from
seating rails, surrounding bolts poke
him sharply. Mid-search, an abrupt,
deathly rattle presents itself.

"What was that? Hm.. Oh well."
Action figure searching
commences. Father screams.

Like the roll of kaleidoscopes;
his body the little glass bits
revolving... Up, down, up, down, up-
out.. He regains consciousness, looks
around and sees desert, cacti;
glass bits rest on his wounds and ground.

A voice cries out, "whoa, whoa buddy!"
It belongs to the running man;
shirtless, shirt in hand, the action
figure if it were a man; an
angelic man who made problems
his own. He scoops the bloody boy

who screams in agony from his
wounds. The running man doesn't run
far to discover Brother. No
motion, eyes closed, blood painted skull.
The running man's wife, a nurse, says
with a tragic and somber sigh:

"He's dead." Words will never again
have an effect on the screaming
boy like this. The running man ran,
brother in each hand, life and death,
a concept a child is never
meant to understand. Yet the boy

sees it all too clearly. Laying
on the flatbed of a pickup
truck, observing lifelessness in
the life that was took. He wonders
about his family; pluming
black smoke rises from the mini-

van when a loud helicopter
lands, but the boy is now drifting.
They lift him up, his last wonders
are: "Why just me? What about my
family? What about Brother?"
He gives up as he gives in to

his torpid heart. An EMT
slaps his face, he hears "stay with me!"
but it's faint. He closes his eyes.
Darkness transforms into peaceful
light. Yet his eyes open, to his
surprise. He sees his godmother

pacing, grandmother patiently
waiting. They hold him as they cry;
he wishes he wasn't alive.
They feed him ice cream and give him
gifts as if it helps. He unwraps
presents and finds action figures.

[kefta4ever]

For an overview, I like how you split certain lines to read to first word of the following line. I will point out where I thought that was pretty effective.

In section 1, you may want to just end with "packing" (or storing) bodies and bags. This alludes to the end of your poem in a neat way (body bags) and eliminates boredom which is an odd word in the list because you aren't really packing boredom. You're preparing for boredom.

In section 2, it presents ideas that I don't think are flushed out in the poem: the brother-brother dialectic telling you to fetch, forgotten toys (forgotten joys), or why he enjoys hiding from his parents. If you could combine this section with section 3 then I think that would eliminate some of the ambiguity unless that's what you're going for.

In section 3, this is a great use of splitting lines when you say "action" in the first line. You don't need to mention that your character is in "mid-search" as it is clear what he's doing in the lines before. Instead of describing the rattle to "present" itself, you could say "tears his calm" or something a little bit more accurate than a noise presenting itself.

In section 4, another good example of splitting your lines. "Commences. Father's scream." would make more sense rather than saying two actions occurring at once with "Commences. Father screams." The way I wrote it juxtaposes your fathers scream as a something that begins as result of something starting. But this is just kind of a stylistic choice.

In section 5, I'm pretty sure there's a word missing here "his body the little glass bits." Maybe "becomes"

In section 6, you may want to just describe the man as an "angel." Otherwise you will have used "man" a lot in that section.

In section 7, I think your narration is a little too wordy. You could concisely say what you want by starting the section with "who screams in agony from his wounds. His brother, silence. No motion..."

In Section 8, "He's dead." Words will never again
have an effect on the screaming
boy like this." I think this line should be altered to change the absolute "never" to something more reasonable. I assume hearing the words "he's dead" would still have an effect in the future. Whether he is screaming or not in the future is not a question I think you want audiences thinking about.

In section 9, I think if you elaborate on his emotions or curiosities when witnessing lifelessness in his brother, that might make this section a little more impactful.

In section 10, when you say "the boy" it is a bit confusing because you were describing him as "he" and "his" through the whole poem.

In section 11, "Darkness transforms into peaceful
light. Yet his eyes open, to his
surprise. He sees his godmother" The "yet" implies a contradiction between the light he saw after the darkness. I imagine the light would be effect of regaining consciousness.

In section 12, you last line is a good way to end but I think you could play around with the idea of the true joy of action figures: make believe or pretending.

[Weeded]

Kefta,

Thanks for the feedback, I appreciate the thoroughness in your critique, and hope you are enjoying the forums so far.

S.1- I was recently introduced to a concept from reading another poem in the forums, it was abstract nouns. I tried to apply it here with 'boredom' in an effort to bring more effect to bodies and bags, and also to differentiate between those two words as an idea and the idea of boredom itself. I may or may have not applied this correctly, however.

S.2- Ah I see what you mean here. I'll work on an edit and try to merge the ideas left here into stanza three. I also just barely noticed I didn't keep to the line count I intended here..

S.3- I like how you brought up 'mid-search.' I threw that in there in an effort to keep the syllable count. As for the rattle, it wasn't meant to describe an auditory rattle, but the physical rattle of the minivan. That said, not sure if I need to reword it still?

S.4- I like this recommendation, still debating but I'm thinking I'm gonna run with it.

S.5- Hm, the only thing I can think of is "his body is the little glass bits", enjamb 'bits' and take 'up' out of the next line to keep the syllable count I intended to keep to. Not sure if that sounds right though.

S.6- the reiteration of 'man' is intentional here, to be honest.

S.7- I had trouble with this part too, I can see how it comes wordy. I'll work on it in the next edit.

S.8- I was trying to put as much power as possible in the two words "He's dead", I can see how I may have tried a little too hard there.

S.9- Noted. I'll definitely work this into the next edit.

S.10- the first time I referred to him by the 'boy' was the 'bloody boy' in stanza six with the introduction of the 'running man.' Does referring to him simply as the 'boy' or changing the adjective in front of 'boy' (bloody/screaming) bring confusion to who I'm referring to?

S.11- I intended to portray death in the 'peaceful light', not the regaining of consciousness. For him to close his eyes on the helicopter, and open his eyes to his family in a hospital bed implies he'd been unconscious for some time. I may need to reword this, however.

S.12- I felt this too. I'm thinking I may need to introduce a 13th stanza in the edit..


Thank you again for the crit, bout as constructive as it gets. I'll work on an edit, thanks for reading.

[Emz]

Hi Weeded,
 
I really enjoyed this poem. You effectively used action figures to convey an emotional story about a young boy. Generally speaking, this is pretty strong already, though I will point out a couple of things below. I didn't read the previous comments so I hope I'm not already repeating previous suggestions!
 
Action Figures 

He grabs plastic action figures
out of his purple Scooby-Doo
backpack. His Brother configures (I like the capitalisation of Brother; I assume that it suggests older brother with a bit of authority over, and respect from, the main boy.)
a tall tale of heroism
as they sit in that minivan
packing bodies, bags, and boredom. (Perhaps just bodies and bags, without the boredom; it's implied that they are alleviating boredom through play and story-telling.)

He drops the ball, Brother says fetch.
He complies, reluctantly and
quietly removes his seatbelt.
Under the seat is a crawlspace
where crumbs and forgotten toys lie.
He fondly remembers laying
to hide from Mother and Father. (I like this stanza, and again the capitalisation of Mother and Father reinforces its use to represent authority.)

In the crawlspace searching; action
figures love to hide. He combs through
darkness, feeling discomfort from
seating rails, surrounding bolts poke
him sharply. Mid-search, an abrupt,
deathly rattle presents itself.

"What was that? Hm.. Oh well."
Action figure searching commences.
Father screams. (I adjusted the line breaks here. I like the way you have the line breaks split in other stanzas, but I believe this slight adjustment may read better)

Like the roll of kaleidoscopes;
his body the (maybe "like" instead of "the") little glass bits
revolving... Up, down, up, down, up-
out.. (I like the way you did that) He regains consciousness, looks
around and sees ("to see" rather than "and sees")desert, cacti;
glass bits rest on his wounds and (on) ground.

A voice cries out, "whoa, whoa buddy!"
It belongs to the running man;
shirtless, shirt in hand, the action
figure if it were a man; an
angelic man who made problems
his own. He scoops the bloody boy
(nice line break)
who screams in agony from his
wounds. The running man doesn't run
far to discover Brother. No
motion, eyes closed, blood painted skull.
The running man's wife, a nurse, says
with a tragic and somber sigh:

"He's dead." Words will never again
have an effect on the screaming
boy like this. The running man ran,
brother in each hand, life and death,
a concept a child is never
meant to understand (nice). Yet the boy

sees it all too clearly. Laying
on the flatbed of a pickup
truck, observing lifelessness in
the life that was took. He wonders
about his family; pluming
black smoke rises from the mini-
(this is an interesting line break, and it definitely works to continue the flow.)
van when a loud helicopter
lands, but the boy is now drifting.
They lift him up, his last wonders
are: "Why just me? What about my
family? What about Brother?"
He gives up as he gives in to

his torpid heart. An EMT
slaps his face, he hears "stay with me!"
but it's faint. He closes his eyes.
Darkness transforms into peaceful
light. Yet his eyes open, to his
surprise. He sees his godmother

pacing, grandmother patiently
waiting. They hold him as they cry;
he wishes he wasn't alive. aww
They feed him ice cream and give him
gifts as if it helps. He unwraps
presents and finds action figures. Nice way to tie in the action figures again.
 
Very nice work.
 
Emma

[Weeded]

Emz,
Thanks for the feedback. This is just a personal opinion, but I believe suggestions are stronger when repeated If one person says something about a poem, sometimes it can be easily dismissed, but if every critique contains the same suggestion somewhere one knows that forsure needs to change

That said, I believe all your suggestions are spot-on! I prefer the line break you mentioned after seeing it, as well as the grammatical changes. Thanks again,
mike