LITR 3731: Creative Writing
Student Poetry Submission 2005
Jamie Garcia
My Special Day
Stayed
up late night before,
Now
up early out the door.
Arrive
at the Cathedral palace,
With
my fluffy white princess dress.
Soon
I’ll walk down the isle,
I
hear my heart thump even louder.
From
Miss to Mrs., lady to woman,
No
longer Daddy’s girl.
We
stand facing each other,
Our
eyes both glazed over.
I
kiss my husband; He kisses me, his wife,
Together
we start a new life.
Draft Exchange Report
First of all, it was very hard for me to come up with a poem idea. I had papers with a lot of different thoughts and scratch-outs on them. This is the only one that stuck out to me, since I had recently got married.
I typed and printed up my poem and brought it to class. Since I didn’t know anybody because I am a finance major, I had just made an announcement to everyone that I had to do a draft exchange and would appreciate the help. Mary Kay Clements was the first to respond. She gave me great feedback, but I still felt a little lost on what to do with the poem. She wrote:
This poem was very direct and to the point. It had wording which allowed me to picture in my head about attending weddings of friends and family. I really loved how you made the change of being single to now becoming another person. You documented in a very gentle way how you went from having your own identity to now sharing the identity of another half to the whole. I so can relate completely to no longer being Daddy’s little girl. I enjoyed how you detailed about the wedding dress being as fluffy as a princess’s dress. There are a lot of women who can relate to your explanation. It really sounded as if this was the ultimate wedding we all plan for ourselves since childhood.
There are just a few questions I have about the rhythm. Did you mean for lines 8 and 10 to be shorter than lines 2-4-6? And was the rhyme like a slant rhyme? I just feel there could have been a little more about the feelings you were going through on this very special day. I felt as if you wanted to say something else after daddy’s girl, but you in a way cut it off. Is this true or not?
I feel all in all this was a very nice poem expressing some of the thoughts and feelings going through your mind on your glorious day. Job well done.
To comment, I wasn’t trying to use any technique other than getting the words on the paper. I wasn’t thinking about lines 8 and 10 being shorter than 2,4,6, so I enjoyed this part of the feedback. I feel she put deep thought into what to say. Is it a slant rhyme? Well, I don’t know that answer either. I wasn’t trying say anything after ‘Daddy’s girl,’ it was just my way of saying ‘I do.’
Since we had to use the online student as feedback, I emailed my poem to Audra Caldwell. She was very prompt in emailing my back. Her is what she had to say:
I like your poem. I was only married 2 ½ years ago, so I can relate. The third stanza is nice with the alliteration of hear and heart. Also I think it evokes the most feeling, but at the line “No longer Daddy’s girl” the feeling is broken. I think it is just a bit awkward. The feeling is evoked right after that with the thought of kissing. And a new life. I’ll try to think of some other way to state the line I mentioned above. But overall I think the poem is great.
Audrey and Mary had the same idea about the line ‘Daddy’s little girl,’ so I thought I better put something else after. I assume she didn’t think of anything either because I never received another email….I was stumped.
To tell you the truth I was just going to turn it in the way it originally was because I had no idea on what to do. But while writing this draft exchange an idea popped in my head and I entered the new stanza, ‘We stand facing each other, Our eyes are both glazed over.’ I thought this line would explain more in detail what was going on. If not though, I’ll tell you: ‘No longer Daddy’s girl’ is when we say ‘I do’ because now I have entered into woman-hood. ‘We stand facing each other’ is reeling in the big kiss when it’s official.
I believe draft exchanges aren’t as effective as in-class reading, but you can still take a lot out of the experience. When doing a draft exchange I think it’s better to exchange with people who know what they are talking about because I obviously don’t know much about the rule of poetry. I’m very glad Mary and Audrey participated in my exchange, and I was able to look at it in a different way.