Hi! I'm judging "Invalid Item"  for Round 68 and thought I should give everyone some feedback on their aubades!

Favorite Aspects

I think that choosing to use 'marriage morning' for an aubade is clever. Is there ever a time when someone would be more adoring of their lover? Perfect for the form.

Language / Word Choice

I think that you used words that get your point across. Very little of it seemed out of the ordinary, but for a first attempt at the erotic, it definitely serves its purpose.

Flow / Rhythm

The flow is pretty good for the most part. I might consider light revision just for smoothing out the flow and removing excess words. For instance, the first two lines are a little bit awkward in flow, and the sound is slightly clunky because of the structure-- "the blank blanks the blank / the blank blanks the blank".

"Sun peaks through the curtains
the scent of morning dew wafts [through] the room"

Changing 'into the' to 'through' helps the flow a bit, breaking up the structure helps. There are lots of options for minor tweaks that could work very nicely, but you could really use the extra beats to add detail as well. Another example:

"Sunlight peeks through curtains while
scents of morning dew drift 'tween pane and sill"

The 'tween may work well if you intend for this to be set in the past-- giving readers and immediate note that says "Yes, this is going to be archaic". The "morning dew waft" is a difficult phrase to work with, which is the only reason I tweaked it. It has an odd, tongue-twister rhythm (perhaps 'float' instead of waft or drift?).

Anyway, you get the general idea here I think. There are plenty of opportunities throughout to cut the clutter and use the extra space for other things that might intrigue the reader. Feel free to use or discard the examples I used-- they were really just that... examples.

Technical

This could read as though he is just staring at his love remembering the night before, but it doesn't. The past tense just reads past tense, not as a memory. It seems a subtle difference but it makes a big difference. This poem isn't so much about admiring his love in the morning sun as sleeping with her the night before. Not an issue for the poem but a note on the form.

The mention of corset threw me a bit too, by the way. A wedding dress has a corset pretty often, but it would come off with the wedding gown not one after the other. It was the first hint at anything old-- the only other mention of anything that seems old is being a virgin on her wedding night (seems a bit old-school to me). Both could be happening in the modern era, but the first doesn't seem like it... so it gives the piece a weird "when is this happening?" sort of quality for me.

Effect

I think that this is a nice draft. It could be more polished, but the sentiment is there. The idea itself is great. I would definitely keep revising this one. Well worth the effort I think. Thanks for the entry, and good luck with the contest!



My review has been submitted for consideration in "Good Deeds Get CASH!" .