Hello Chris Breva . I'm Charlie and I'm helping to judge Round 73 of "Invalid Item" , so I thought I would leave a bit of feedback on your poem. Thanks for sharing your writing with us. I hope this review finds you well.


Title/General Thoughts/Subject Matter: I was totally intrigued by this title and had no idea where it was going to lead. I like the idea of calling the little girls the 'real witches'. When I first learned about the Salem Witch Trials in school, I felt so bad for all the people who were executed because of the actions of these girls. The impact has really lasted, too. People refer to things as a 'witch hunt' all the time now and I think the memory of this kind of keeps people in line because no one wants something like that to happen again.


What Worked: I enjoyed the storytelling you did in this poem. If I didn't know anything about the subject at hand, your poem would have been plenty of fodder to get me started. It actually makes me want to go read again about the witch trials that took place. I also agree with your perspective that the girls just wanted the attention and they didn't see these people's lives as meaningful in any way. It's sad, really.


Technical Issues/Suggestions: I think some of the lines could use a bit of tightening. I didn't really love the imagery or idea of young/youth used back-to-back in those two lines in the middle. All the ellipses were a bit strange there as well. I also think you need to either go full punctuation or no punctuation throughout the poem. I'm a fan of punctuation because it allows the poet to tell the reader where to pause to get the best flow out of the poem, but no punctuation at all is also an option. I'm not a huge fan of the in-between thing where there are full stops, but not all the time and a lack of commas.


Final Thoughts: Overall, I think you did a great job of telling the story of the Salem Witch Trials and who the real witches were. I think the poem could be tightened up a bit, but I enjoyed it overall. Thanks again for sharing and good luck!


Best wishes,





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