<font color=pink>Hello everyone! Im sure lots of you have viewed my Insightful Prose thread for my AP Lang&Comp final, and if you havnt just check it out real fast so u know where im comnig form here. :D

Well thats the 2nd part of the final. The 1st part is reading a piece of poetry or prose we wrote ourselves. So heres mine, tell me whatcha think! For all those who wanted to see my free-verse poetry, this is it, though not my best quality :D

Fingers pressing easily on mother-of-pearl keys
Staring out into a crowd
Faces both familiar and not
Notes flowing smoothly in a well-rounded tone
Taking rhythms from nowhere
And relaying them to the anticipating masses
Drawing to a close
Choking the last note off abruptly
Recieving enthusiastic cheers and applause
Or a standing ovation
This is what playing saxaphone brings you
And i would never change it

So there it is, rather proud of my 10 minute work
Any recommendations for fixing it up or making it more dramatic are welcome also :D </font>

Great stuff Jen, I was picturing you on the stage in one of those poet cafe things with a beret and little round glasses on. :D

Wish I was better at literature - poems, stories, the works but I have trouble putting my thoughts on paper :(

<font color = lightgreen>You might try accentuating how the faces in the crowd are both familiar and not; something like "faces in the crowd/strangely familiar and familiarly strange" or something like that, taking advantage of the turn-around of the two words.
Also, you state that playing the saxophone brings cheers and applause, but what does it really bring you on a personal level? It never hurts to let the reader know where you go emotionally when you play, or how it feels when you play for others.
Finally, I would find somewhere else from which to have rythyms originate than "nowhere"; from your soul, perhaps.

For 10 minutes, not bad at all. [img]graemlins/awesomework.gif[/img] [img]graemlins/petard.gif[/img] </font>

I'd make the following changes. They're kinda subtle... I took them straight out of your verse so read closely.

I'd rephrase the line in ><. I'm not sure what do with it. I just think that it would be a little bit better if it were a tad more terse. Right now the description seems clumsy. Another thought that I had for the second line was "Stareing into a crowded room".

It's a good bit of free verse. I want more personal details in it tho'. The mother-of-pearl keys is a kind of an intimate detail that really helps connect you and the reader. I hate to say this because it's so contrary to what I usually say but I think you use too many adverbs. I cut alot of lys and ings. Ummmmm... yeah. Don't be afraid to use punctuation either. Keep it up.

DeSoya

[ 06-11-2002, 12:32 AM: Message edited by: DeSoya ]

<font color="lawngreen" face="trebuchet MS"> And now dunda.. you have just scared my fragile little mind [img]tongue.gif[/img] [img]tongue.gif[/img] [img]tongue.gif[/img] [img]tongue.gif[/img] </font>