Paper Dolls

[moot]

First of all, I love your concept. There's some great stuff here. I think you just need a little tightening on the meter and a few polishes and you'll be set. Consider the following revision of your second draft:

Paper dolls
Cut to please
In perfect rows
Sharply creased

Bleached parts
Creep into decay
Paper creasing into scars
Sheets of ivory fray

Like a ruggest scythe
The clocks hands reave
Paper heads tumble
The end offers reprieve
Infinity never stumbles

Paper dolls stare
Empty eyes never blink
Paper dolls do not care
What you and I think.

Hi TemporaryForever

Thanks for the review. This is a helpful example. I am interested in improving meter. Cheers.

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Hello moot,

A very good friend of mine once used paper dolls as a metaphor for her decline into Parkinson's disease (to which she later succumbed).  I find your use of them similarly poignant as a social commentary -- to my initial reading, about the need to conform to the perfect image, though I can read this a few different ways.  It is a particularly non-masculine poem.  There are a few issues with it which could be quite easily sorted out; the first and most pressing for me is your use of rhyme with inconsistent meter.  In such short lines, I feel that adherence to meter is fairly important as otherwise your rhymes tend to fall in the wrong places and jar.  This is particularly noticeable in the second and third stanzas.  It is definitely a poem that can be worked with, however.

Paper Dolls - Draft Two

Paper dolls
Cut to please -- this is a very telling line.  To please is their only purpose
In perfect rows
Sharply creased -- implies pain in order to achieve perfection

Bleached doll parts
Creep into slow decay -- perhaps you would consider "in creeping decay" or something similar, for meter
Paper creasing into scars -- similarly, something like "creases to scars"
Sheets of ivory fray -- are they really sheets anymore?

Like a scythe
The clocks hands reave -- this is a bit of a mixed image, but I can stretch to that -- I would probably suggest ditching "like a scythe" though, as the simile weakens the image a bit -- also, *clock's
Paper doll heads tumble -- you could cut "doll" from this line
The end offers reprieve
Infinity never stumbles -- the introduction of infinity at this point is a little problematic straight after talking of an end -- it seems to come from nowhere, and doesn't really work as a contrast to the decay/end concept if that was your intent

Paper dolls stare
Eyes that never blink -- you could remove "that" 
Paper dolls do not care
Paper dolls do not think

Hi Leanne, thanks for the review and suggestions on improving meter.

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Hi Moot,

What is best about your poem is:
1) You use imagery well - the image is clear in my mind.
2) You don't have a lot of unnecessary language
3) A lot of people who post in beginner forums and use rhyme struggle to use it well, and end up using poor rhyme choices, but you don't have that problem.

Some limitations/areas of potential improvement of your poem are:
1) Your subject matter is light - paper dolls are a limited subject matter and even their ability to be symbolic of larger is limited.  Fortunately, you keep your poem short and light which fits your light subject matter.  I think, however, that your poem is one stanza too long.  I'd cut the third stanza, and there's other reasons why I'd pick that stanza to cut (as follows).
2) The second stanza is about the decay of the dolls over time and the third stanza is just repeating that idea.  But the third stanza has a couple of additional problems.
3) One additional problem I see in the third stanza is the words, "like a scythe the clock hands reave" are not precise.  This is a bit of a mixed metaphor.  Clock hands don't actually reave.  Clock hands are symbolic of time, and everything decays in time, but not "like" a scythe reaves, because the reaving of a scythe is quick and immediate - one moment something is not reaved and the next it is reaved when talking about scythes.  A symbol often associated with old age is death, because old people die, and death is associated with the image of a man in a dark cloak carrying a scythe, so this is where your metaphor becomes mixed.  It seems you're trying to tie all this together in one image but it doesn't work literally.
4) Another additional problem I see in the third stanza is that it mentions that the dolls' heads "tumble" as if reaved by a scythe; yet, the fourth stanza then wants to speak about the eyes of the dolls.  But if the heads have tumbled off in the third stanza then the eyes would have needed to tumble off with the heads.

Fortunately, all this is easily fixable just by removing the unnecessary third stanza, making the poem tighter and snappier while removing all your biggest problem areas.  As a final touch, I would then think about switching the last stanza to make it the second stanza.  To wit:


Paper Dolls - After Suggested Changes

Paper dolls
Cut to please
In perfect rows
Sharply creased

Paper dolls stare 
Eyes that never blink
Paper dolls do not care
Paper dolls do not think


Bleached doll parts
Creep into slow decay
Paper creasing into scars
Sheets of ivory fray

Hi Brillig. Thanks for the review and including what appears to work and what does not. Cheers.