Hello Debbie Sellner . How are you? I'm Charlie and I'm here to welcome you to WDC with a review of your poem, "Invalid Item" . Thanks for sharing your writing with us. I hope this review finds you well.


Title/General Thoughts/Subject Matter: This poem is about a subject that is near and dear to a lot of our hearts here on WDC. Many of us have dealt with and continue to deal with depression. I think it's a good subject to write about because the discussion of mental illness should be more open and honest. Plus, it can be cathartic to write about, so I like to see people getting those feelings out through their writing.


What Worked: The general mood and tone of this poem seemed to work well for what you were describing. There was a lot of dark imagery and this idea of being 'consumed' which is so often how people describe their experiences with depression. I think that even if someone hasn't experienced it for their self, they'll be able to understand what you're talking about how it might feel to be in the grips of it.

My favorite lines were:

I lay my head down
Giving into the darkness
I will soon be free

I thought it was a good way to end the poem with a 'fade away' tone that people tend to have when they give in to their depression.


Technical Issues/Suggestions: A couple things I might suggest...

First, I think this poem needs some punctuation. It's free verse, which I love, but the lack of punctuation makes it hard to follow the rhythm of it sometimes. Especially in instances where there are three consecutive things without any commas, like:

There's nowhere to hide
Broken damaged and scarred

I think this would read a lot more smoothly with those commas in there to separate each thing so that the reader knows they're reading a series of things as they're reading instead of having to figure it out after.

The second thing I noticed was that there is a lot of repetition in the imagery and words used here, to the extent that it almost becomes redundant at times. In such a short poem, 'darkness' is used 3 times, 'torture(d)' is used twice, 'broken' is used 3 times. You get the idea. A lot of the descriptions are repeated throughout the poem. My suggestion here would be to either find some new ways to describe what you're saying, or cut this poem down to make it more concise.


Final Thoughts: Overall, I enjoyed reading this poem. I think it's a good subject matter to muse on and I'm happy to see you getting that out through your writing. I think there is room for improvement with word choices and phrasing here, as there seems to be a lot of repetition in descriptions. Thanks again for sharing with us!


Best wishes,





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