Hello! I am the poetry judge for the "Invalid Item" . I try to provide each entry with some feedback. This review is for your benefit only and does not necessarily have implications for placement in the contest, as it is not a comparison with any other entry.

Favorite Aspects

I grew up in Maine... I can relate to the scene painted here.

Language / Word Choice

"as we journey through" / "traversing through" - The two uses of "through" so close together sounds needlessly repetitive.

There is a fair bit of filler in here as well:

"seem to just drift" - No need for "just". It weakens the strength of "drift" and doesn't add anything to the line that "seem" doesn't already do.

"Day after day we are forced to endure" - Passive voice. "His dry winds and arctic rain force us" is active.

"It seems our journey will soon come" - The "it seems" is conversational and unneeded. "Will soon come" is a split infinitive... "soon will come".

There are lots of these oddities scattered throughout. Keep an eye out for them if you revise. There is a bit more wordiness than needed too. I appreciate that you utilized your vocabulary, but the endless use of "50 cent words" gets a bit tedious. In the end, it makes the whole piece seem very exaggerated.

There is also some overuse going on. Using something like 'merciless' and then 'mercifully' stands out like a sore thumb. "Journey" appears 5 times, which again, is just too repetitive to hold any power by the end. The "Our journey concludes" and "our journey has concluded" on back-to-back lines is particularly ineffective.

Flow / Rhythm

The flow is alright for the most part, though it does fall into a typical fiction/common speech rhythm from time to time.

Imagery

Most of the description in the piece is not actually imagery at all. It's sort of a surprise for this type of piece, but there was not a whole lot of imagery here. Snow blowing in the wind... a bit of light. That's it really.

Indigo

I think this is a decent first draft. It was fairly enjoyable, though a bit tedious by the end, due to the language used. It is much better to go too far and pull back than to write something boring and then inject it with life though, so you shouldn't have a very difficult time revising if you choose to do it. There are some solid phrases in here, but it could use an edit just to cut the filler and repetition and to make sure your grammar is functional. It's a fine entry though! Thanks for entering, and good luck in the contest!




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