Review Request: On 12-23-2009 at 3:09am : I am a bit jittery about this poem as I wrote a somewhat difficult form. Please review and correct my mistakes.
thanks, Koyel

This review is also in response to your review request at "Nancy's Poetry Review Forum " , as I've been asked to substitute.

What is on the page:

The required placement of the repeated words is correct for the form.

The topic of the poem is something that is of the type often recommended for sestinas - something that the repetition can work with naturally.


The verb tenses vary a lot, which is confusing to the reader. Since another reviewer advised paying attention to the verb tenses, and they haven't changed with the subsequent rewrite, I am led to conjecture that the lack of time-sense is intentional -- implying that the speaker in the poem has lost touch with reality. However, this doesn't appear on the page in a way that says "this is intentional" to the reader.

Since the other reviewer also advised making it clearer what the betraying beloved had done, and this also didn't happen in the rewrite, the 13+ content rating becomes a puzzle.

There are the three obvious options for why today the speaker is no longer in the darkness:
1) the beloved returned and was forgiven.
2) the speaker decided she was over the former beloved.
3) the speaker has a new beloved.

There's nothing on the page to support any of these three options.

There is a fourth option that is less obvious, but which has not been set up:

4) the speaker has committed suicide/is dead.

There are only hints to support the fourth option. Reading through the poem, the hints look like they're just metaphors for the depression.

If this poem is about suicide, that would explain the content rating, but the rating doesn't count as being "on the page". If this were published, it wouldn't have a rating to go with it.

The metaphors might tie into cultural expectations in your country. However, what is on the page isn't enough for the reader from elsewhere (who doesn't know about other review comments or what didn't change) to make that deductive leap.

Stage in the writing process (from 1.0 to 5.0): 2.5 -- The poem is not yet functional. The reader does not have enough information to be able to tell what is going on.


Suggestions:

Using both today and childhood as endwords forces the poem to refer to both time periods in the same stanza each time, complicating things and making it harder to fit complete thoughts into contiguous spaces, and forcing more repetition than just communicating the content would require if another form were used. Also using days as an endword contributes to the problem at a lesser level.

Tears roll down my eyes thinking of those days,
--> The fluid doesn't become a tear that can roll until it leaves the surface of the eye. it can be: roll down my cheeks /or/ it can be: roll from my eyes

I am engulfed completely by darkness,
--> this placement of the adverb "completely" focuses on what thing(s) does the engulfing. putting "completely" between "am" and "engulfed" focuses on the extent of the engulfing.

I am deceived by my love of childhood.
--> "my love of childhood" reads first as meaning "I love childhood". A more precise preposition would be better.

Oh, how I crave for light in my darkness!
--> crave doesn't take a "for"

Who knew you would abandon me today -vs-
Snow stirs doleful feelings 'til today. +
My darkness wiped out, light shimmers today.
--> These lines contradict each other. Unless this is hinting about suicide/madness, in which case it needs more support.

--> It doesn't seem like the abandonment happened that same day. If it happened the same day, one wouldn't say ['til]. It seems like there has been quite some time since the abandonment:
          pass my days.
          Christmas has come without us together.
          my nigrescent days.

--> The poem doesn't provide a reason on the page for the "positive" outcomes in the first and last lines of the poem. This missing reason would be the "present action" of the narrative, which is normally more interesting to the reader than the backstory.


Keep writing!