Poem: "Sugar"

[shiori_makiba]

Sugar
by shiori_makiba / Ashley Weyer
Part of the Berettaflies line.
Current index: http://ysabetwordsmith.dreamwidth.org/10376029.html
Comments and constructive criticism is welcomed.

“Sugar”

It wasn't long after she woke up with wings,
that Tsubasa was starving.
The hunger made itself known almost
as soon as she could think past, 'I have wings.'
She plowed through what seemed like her own weight in food.
Even through it was some of the blandest food she had ever eaten.
It was food and in that first rush,
that was all that mattered.

“Is that strange?” her mother had asked.
“Not at all,” answered the guy from SPOON.
Pointer, that was his name.
Not a bad sort, if a little blunt.
Fortunately she had experience with
well-meaning but blunt people.
And to be fair, he didn't have nearly as bad
a case of foot-in-mouth disease as Ynez.
“New soups often have changes in appetite, especially the first day.”
He looked at the wings, looking more curious than afraid.
“Especially with physical changes like wings. The energy has to come from somewhere.”

Within days, her body shifted from
wanting mountains of food to wanting sugar.
To the point that she had stolen
Ynez's can of soda as soon as she walked into the room.

“Thirsty?” Ynez asked, one eyebrow raised.
“Yeah. Sorry about taking your drink.”
“No big deal.”
“It was still rude.”
“You can buy me another later, if it bothers you.”
“Okay.”
“Still, I thought you didn't like Jazz all that much.”
“I don't.”
“Well, you just downed an entire can of it.”

She looked and sure enough, one empty can of Jazz in her hand.
'Odd,' she thought.
And shrugged it off in favor of spending time with her friend.
Best friend, Ynez was definitely her best friend.
Only a bestie would be fine with someone sprouting butterfly wings
and stealing their drinks.

One can soon turned into more.
Jazz was suddenly her new
favorite soft drink.
Maybe it because
it was so sweet.
That had bothered her before
but didn't seem to now.

Tsubasa mentioned it
to the medical staff.
They didn't know what to think either.
It might be nothing.
She seemed to be part-butterfly now
and butterflies were nectar feeders.
Though that didn't explain
why Jazz in particular hit the spot.
They added it to her file just in case.

EDIT: Re-arrangement of some lines and one typo.
EDIT: Re-arrangement to correct grammar misstep.

Comments

Thoughts

[ysabetwordsmith]

This is a wonderful introduction to the changes in taste and diet.

>> She plowed through what seemed like
her own weight in food.
Even through it was some of the
blandest food she had ever eaten.
It was food
and in that first rush,
that was all that mattered. <<

Here you have a sentence fragment between two complete sentences, and it would attach well to either side.

>> She looked and sure enough, one empty can of Jazz in her hand. <<

Hee!

>> 'Odd,' she thought.
And shrugged it off in favor of spending time with her friend.
Her best friend. <<

This has a complete sentence followed by two fragments. Stringing at least the first two together would improve the flow. Remember that fragments attract attention, and thus work better in moderation.

>>Through that didn't explain<<

That should say "though" above.

Yay!

Re: Thoughts

[shiori_makiba]

Fixed. Hopefully better now.

I have problems with Wanton Abuse to the Common Comma and Improper Usage of a Semi-Colon in prose - guess Jarring Sentence Fragments is going to be my common poetry goof.

As usual, thank for you for helpful feedback.

Re: Thoughts

[ysabetwordsmith]

>> Fixed. Hopefully better now. <<

Yay!

>> I have problems with Wanton Abuse to the Common Comma and Improper Usage of a Semi-Colon in prose - guess Jarring Sentence Fragments is going to be my common poetry goof. <<

Then drop down a level and what you have is a generalized difficulty in identifying where sentences should break. You're making pattern errors instead of random ones. The drawback to that is they keep happening; the advantage is if you can fix the underlying problem, it will have a huge impact on improving your work.

There actually is a patch for this problem. Try studying sentence structure. A good reference on diagramming sentences can help you understand which things can stand alone and which can't. Alas, much of the "English class" material is downright dreadful linguistics.

This guide to diagramming is reasonably coherent. Mainly what you need is the ability to distinguish a fragment from a complete sentence. If it's missing a subject and/or a verb, it's a fragment. If it has a subject and a verb but is phrased as a dependent clause, that's a different type of fragment.

Perdue OWL is a pretty reliable source and has entries on "Parts of Speech," "Sentence Punctuation Patterns," and "Sentence Clarity."

>>As usual, thank for you for helpful feedback.<<

*bow, flourish* Happy to be of service.

Re: Thoughts

[shiori_makiba]

Pages bookmarked for easy referral.

Thanks for the info.

Have a mnemonic

[thnidu]

(A tall, lean, pedantic chap -- with unruly light-colored hair, a great many pockets overflowing with markers, pens, and slips of paper, and a striped scarf that brushes the floor at both ends -- approaches thnidu and asks to take over the keyboard for a few moments.)

Much as I like pain perdu (French toast), that OWL roosts at Purdue University:
Purdue U

(He bows and departs, leaving a card inscribed
Dr. Whom
Consulting Linguist, Grammarian,
Orthoëpist, and Philological Busybody
)

Hmmm... Where was I? Oh, yes. ISTM that this kind of free verse might be especially conducive to that problem in written English, since the line breaks tend to occur at many of the same places as pauses in speech: boundaries between major grammatical sentence constituents.


I just noticed another point of punctuation up there:

“Especially with physical changes.”
“The energy to make those wings had to come from somewhere.”

When a quotation in prose spans more than one paragraph, each new paragraph begins with an open-quote as a reminder that someone is speaking, but there is no close-quote till the end of the entire quotation. This is an exception to the general rule of pairing opening and closing punctuation marks. Of course, it yields to such narratorial interruptions as

"You need a strong drink," she said, refilling her own. She took a long swallow and smacked her lips.

"Of course, that's just my opinion."

(And in a demonstration of synchronicity, as I was typing the above, the host of the music program I'm listening to announced that the previous song was from the album To Pimp a Butterfly. Stylet's inspiration?)

Re: Have a mnemonic

[shiori_makiba]

Thanks. I'm currently puzzling on how to re-word that particular bit to correct the grammar mess.

ETA: Hopefully fixed now. Thanks for giving me feedback! - hard not to avoid grammar mistakes if no one tells you are making one.

Re: Have a mnemonic

[thnidu]

Heh. And there's a classic example of hypernegation, which happens even to the most careful and syntax-aware of us!:

hard not to avoid grammar mistakes if no one tells you are making one

Re: Have a mnemonic

[shiori_makiba]

*headdesk* I'm only mildly dyslexic but it is still enough to make my relationship with spelling and grammar occasionally adversarial. Thanks again, Dr. Whom.