# Brighter



## sore (Apr 4, 2013)

*I hope you guys can see the complexity of this piece. 
Read once all the way through, then read it excluding the words in parentheses, 
and then read only the words in parentheses . *

I worry (a lot)
when I think (of other girls)
about how they (shine),
sparkle and radiate beauty,
and about how I could be (brighter).

(and) Nothing hurts worse than thinking about
not being with (you) my love, my heart,
because I know you (deserve the) best,
you are my (sun), moon and stars.​


----------



## hiatus (Apr 5, 2013)

lets see if I get it... 1st read: through I see insecurity reaching out to someone. 2nd read: kind of the same as the first? 3rd: that said person seeing past the others and accepting the feelings and returning them? I'm bad at finding deep meanings of stuff but poetry is something I enjoy: clueless or not. So how far off am I?


----------



## bajmahal (Apr 5, 2013)

This is beautiful and very clever.  It worries me just a little that it needs directions.  I don't know that I would have naturally done on my own what you directed me to do.  There must be some way to get the reader to intuitively read it in those  three ways.  Perhaps if you said somewhere in the title or between the title and the first line that there are three poems here - of course, maybe you would then have to make the two stanzas into one stanza to avoid confusion.  I really love that it's a threefer - I've never seen this poetic device before - is it your own invention?


----------



## PiP (Apr 5, 2013)

So you make up a verse or poem from the words in parentheses? Clever. I would never have made the connection without the clues though. Personally useless at cracking code. Love the poem even without its extra dimension.

If I'm wrong, I'll go  back to sleep basking in the sunshine and to hide my blushes I'll claim it's sunburn. 

I'm just discovering the mysteries of poetry at the moment. Does this type of poetry have a name tag? I like it 

PiP


----------



## Ethan (Apr 5, 2013)

Hey Sore, it is very clever but as has been said above, it does need the explanation which is a bit of a downer. How about colour coding? just a thought.


----------



## ODaly (Apr 5, 2013)

This is an ingenious bit of layering. I quite like how the parentheticals act like a second stanza to the second reading, and I think they're enough of a clue in and of themselves to not necessarily need instruction if one takes a minute to consider why they're there. I'd very much like to see how much you could do with something like this.


----------



## sore (Apr 5, 2013)

thank you everyone! I probably will find a way to show the 3 poems without directions, I'm not sure if this sort of poetry has a name or not, I saw someone else use this before and decided to try it out, (and it took a ridiculous amount of time).


----------



## Ariel (Apr 5, 2013)

Very interesting and touching.  I would suggest spacing for the in-poem instruction.


----------



## crypticsonnet (Jun 2, 2013)

I literally saw this online as an image the other week & just had to find the original source. I really like this, it's brilliant!


----------



## Vitaly Ana (Jun 2, 2013)

This is clever. I am definitely a fan of this piece. I don't necessarily think you NEED the parentheses, but I do like it better with them (forces the reader to focus quite a bit more on the depth).

Excellent!


----------



## Gargh (Jun 3, 2013)

How about trying to align vertically the words you want to also read separately? Or choosing a font that has two very close variations - like Arial - so that the 'secret' poems are more subtly placed and therefore more fun to discover. You could also simply play with font size. Italics or bold could be misinterpreted so steer away from them as a substitute.  I do agree that parenthesis is inappropriate - it gets in the way of the first read and makes re-reading and working out the others too straightforward - I don't like to be spoon-fed poetry, personally.


----------



## Arcopitcairn (Jun 4, 2013)

I very much liked this piece, but hated the explanation. You should remove the explanation and let the work stand on its own. It's good enough to do that.


----------

