Jay J, in his short review, captures the magic of a local bakery in "Baked Magic."
Without passing "go" Jay J. goes directly to the essence of the bakery -- its physical properties, its coffee and pastry, and its customers. This may be just another bakery, like thousands of others, but under Jay J's careful observation and keen description it seems special and, yes, magic.
"Baked Magic" would be satisfying and enriching for its descriptive quality alone. But, like many of the pastries, there is another layer here. This contribution may be read as a metaphor for the value of the color and texture of diversity, particularly in New York City.
This is a captivating and worthwhile contribution.
The story is straightforward and quite linear in presentation. Generally well told, the story builds to a final championship match which The King, undefeated, vows will be his last contest. The style, spare and matter of fact, serves the story well. Mr. Jay likes to use sentence fragments and perhaps in this short piece uses a few too many. Otherwise his technical story telling is very good.
The author suggests that the end of the story is not quite up to the standard set by the rest of the story. Unfortunately, he is right. The story just ends, with the King winning the match and retiring. Mr. Jay asks for ideas and, since he asks, I will respond.
The best sports stories are metaphors for conflicts more significant than the outcome of an athletic match. There is no underlying conflict, no subtext, no greater meaning in this story. Perhaps the rival needs to be, or to symbolize, some more important conflict. Sibling rivalry can be compelling. Perhaps The King had a brother who was a star at everything, and The King needed to step out of his shadow. And perhaps the rival is that brother or some symbolic embodiment of the brother. Perhaps this victory is what King needs to be free of the pressure to live up to the brother. Often the competitor in sports stories are ultimately foiled either by their own strength or by the primary vulnerability or weakness of the hero.
These devices need to be set up early and woven into the story. The problem, then, may not be so much with a weak ending as with the absence of a good set-up earlier. With the right set-up the end may almost write itself.
I hope there is something here you can use to make a fine story even stronger.
Often pasta is only a vehicle for eating a delicious sauce. In eggs benedict the egg is just the sidekick for the bearnaise sauce.
In "The Zooming Tomato," by Tim Chiu, a cherry tomato has the title role, but it is really just a supporting actor to the star of the poem, a beautiul workplace friendship. The little tomato escapes from its salad to bound off the plate and table onto the floor. Mr. Chiu expands this insignificant event to illustrate an intense friendship formed at work. Mr. Chiu's artistic poem wrings humor, companionship, and comfort in on another's presence out of this unassuming snapshot of a fugitive tomato.
"The Zooming Tomato" packs understanding into a simple chance event. It breathes insight into the dynamics of a meaningful friendship. This understanding, this insight, this interpretive genius is art and the essence of creative poetry.
"The Mysterious Outsider," by Becky H. Snead, is the beginning of a longer piece to follow.
While this piece has some strong redeeming features, there are far too many errors of spelling, grammar, and syntax. I do not usually do line-by-line edits in public reviews, but I will point out the following errors in the first paragraph alone:
"Arcoss" instead of "across"
"mere" is strange syntax as an adjective for house.
"idlity" should be "idleness"
"livly" should be "lively"
"a child that has yet learned of his future journey" should be "a child who has not yet learned of his future journey"
I will often ignore one or two typos or similar errors in an otherwise good piece, but here the nature and number of errors cannot be brushed off. This piece needs to be spell checked, grammar checked, or edited by a careful third person.
Getting past that, the writer has good potential. She narrates in a clear linear style. Description is spare but adequate. She imparts an ominous aura and grabs the reader's interest.
The story and its writer have fine potential which could be easily achieved with careful attention to detail.
"Father Lie and Pregnant Sin Visit Camelot," by A.T. Miller perceptively and penetratingly review Sir Thomas Malory's account of "Camelot."
While much of the piece suggests the disciplined methodology of academia, this is not a work intended for scholars only. The language, alone, makes the point. Gawain, Gaharis, ant Gareth "sneak up on the lovers and bust them." The work reviewed "is an interesting spin" on Camelot. There are no third source footnotes or references. The usual academic hedging found in scholarly work is absent. No, this is just a good essay written for Everyman who might enjoy this sort of thing.
The legend of King Arthur has inspired many reviews. I have seen credible reviews from such diverse approaches as Freudian, the Jesus Christ model, and the classic Tragedian model. All have merit and all have deficiencies. As does the Malory conspiracy formulation which Miller reviews so well here.
This site (WDC) benefits from thoughtful and careful discussions of the traditional themes of literature. I believe that attention to this contribution, and others like it, will be of great benefit to the serious writers among us.
"The Valley," by Jaye P. Marshall, contributes a creative and imaginative tale of a Utopian alternative world. A fleeing and injured thief, formerly a trusted bank employee, finds himself in the new world.
I choose to interpret the Utopia as a slice of heaven. That view explains the central character's miraculous healing, the absence of a manhunt scale search, the perfect health of everything in Utopia, and the absence of aging and other ravages of time. Under this construction the central character was killed as he fled the police and another part of his being entered Utopia. His conversion, however, was incomplete and he elected to leave. Upon leaving he immediately forfeited the heavenly Utopian benefits and quickly withered and died.
The art and craftsmanship of story are superb. The beginnig generates excitement, interest, and conflict. Then the mood changes. Suspense builds in a new way": what is the nature of this new world, and how will the central character reconcile himself to it? The ending remains true to the premises of the story and satisfies the reader.
All in all, this is beautifully done and is a model of the art of storytelling.
Does "Raising Kids Alone" sound like a heavy contribution? Not when Magoo writes it. This is a witty, light, humorous piece where the single mother is a chicken. That's right, a chicken. And the no-good cad of a male is, naturally enough, a rooster. "Raising Kids" parodies the cliches of the unfaithful male with a roving eye and the deadbeat dad. There may be a lesson or a moral in there, and there probably is. When I get done laughing i might even look for it. Or maybe just enjoy it again for what it is -- a delightful bit of fluff.
"Vickie," by Georgiana, tells of a casual encounter on the beach. As it turns out, the young woman on the beach was dying. She left the young man a painting and a note with her thoughts on death.
There are some flaws. The first sentence begins the piece with a error: "Many people to the beach for a variety to reasons." I'm sure the author meant to say something like, "Many people visit the beach for a variety of reasons." I prefer not to fill public reviews with line-by-line edits, but this first sentence illustrates a variety of grammital and syntax errors. Georgiana could improve her contribution with more attention to detail before posting.
The piece does not present much tension or conflict. The narrator observes earlier that the girl has some disease, and it turns out that he's correct. The receipt of a painting and a note is hardly a resounding literary event, except that it is unclear when in this casual meeting the young couple exchanged personal information, i.e., their addresses.
Aside from the mildly novel concept of this contribution, it is not particularly noteworthy.
Nice job. Noticed off beat style with hardly any articles. Dawns on me -- no words repeated. Not an easy trick.
Fun, witty, wry, sweet and sour. Kudos. Generates question: Could I do that? Struggling, now, for characters. Within reach and stretching. What a challenge.
There are some odd elements in this poem: "pissed that I am here," "feeling trapped," "bound her," and "locked in my mind" clearly convey a restricted feeling. A "drifter" is a person without roots who is just traveling through, without any ties. A true drifter might have feelings of rootlessness, but he would not have the feelings of restraint and restriction expressed in the poem. This is more than a conflict between the title and the content of the poem. In the first line of each stanza the poem proclaims that the narrator is a drifter.
Further, there is no clue as to why the poet feels so solitary, angry, and confused. In fact, he suggests that he does not know why.
The angst comes through, as do the feelings of frustration and helplessness. For clear articulation of those negative emotions I give the poet credit. But despite claiming three times to be one, a drifter he is not.
Deedee brings us "Magenta and Green," a heartfelt tribute to nature. She cites the joys of natural colors and garden-grown food. There is a nice comparison of the narrator's values as against the rising price of gas and concrete ground.
The narrator's case for her natural values is clear and convincing. She writes with an intense but appropriate emotional tone.
But there are some problems. I believe "Tomato's in patios pots" should be "Tomatoes in patio pots."
Deedee rhymes the third and fifth lines, the seventh and ninth, and the tenth and eleventh lines. This inconsistent pattern, together with the absence of any recognizable meter, give the poem a choppy and awkward flow. It is almost as if the rhymes, when they do appear, are unintentional and accidental.
So, while the content of this poem is quite strong, its presentation requires further work.
"Kind Words," by Brit, represents a "feel good" love story in a positive way. A girl in a fragile relationship comes across a note in a book. She calls the author of the note to offer some support. As she exits her own troubled relationship, she begins a new friendship with the person who wrote the note. The two main characters have parallel lives: both are ending bad romances, both feel bad about it, and both feel positive about their prospecs with each other. There is even a moral here: a random kind word can reap rewards of its own.
The action moves along without any wasted words. The dialog is spare, but realistic and on point. This is a fine little slice of humanity, nicely thought out, and well-presented.
Reading Tim Chiu"s "My Heart Pounds With Joy" frustrates me. I feel like I am prospecting for gold and finding some choice nuggets, but the mother lode is just out of sight. There is something there I am not quite getting. Mr. Chiu is a consistently outstanding poet so my suspicion is that the failure is more mine than his.
The title and the last stanza certainly project optimism and joy. At the same time, the narrator communicates a loss of focus and frustration of expression. If I had to give an interpretation, it would be that the writer finds himself struggling, and perhaps burned out, but is ready to lean on past success and spiritual faith to surmount his difficulty. That's my take, and I state it without a high level of confidence.
The structure and craftsmanship of presentation are, as always with Mr. Chiu, superb.
"Recipe for Vampire," a seriously underrated story by EvilDawg, contributes a non-formula confrontation piece. It keeps unfolding, surprise by surprise, until its oddly gratifying resolution. The narrative is succinct, the dialoguesounds authentic and moves the story well. We get a nice idea of the three central characters from what they say, not from adjectives and overt descriptions.It is a nice technical piece of craftsmanship and a good entertaining read with only one ("bye" should be "by) minor error. This is my effort to bring justice to an undeservedly low GPA.
"The Legend of Lost Lake," by ProsperousSnow, fully engages the reader with its nice pace, realistic sounding dialogue, and overtones of mystery. ProsperousSnow advances the plot and bolsters credibility with nice touches foreshadowing the other-worldly ending. Mark's eyes seem to change color, the flowers bloom oddly, and the lake changes color, for example. The author crafted this story carefully.
I don't usually do line-by-line edits, and I won't do so here. There are, however, four little mistakes:
1. In the first paragraph: lakes needs to be lake's (it is possessive).
2. In the next paragraph: next her hand should be next to her hand.
3. Further down, "Do you love Rodger," needs to be "Do you love Rodger?"
4. Late in the story, your not dangerous should be you're not dangerous.
I feel a bid like a curmudgeon pointing out minor blemishes in an almost perfect story (that won a contest) but, hey, it might as well be even better.
"A Fire Burns in a Faraway Land," by Billy, laments the state of the world insofar as environmental protection and poverty. Strong imagery reinforces a powerful message. It is not clear who the "you" is to whom Billy assigns responsibility, but I think he probably means we all share responsibility. I guess so, maybe, in a macro sense, but the poem is much stronger in articulating the problems than in indicting anyone for causing it.
It is a 14 line piece with a nice, consistent, A-B-A-B rhyme. The meter is very ragged. One or two lines might pass as iambic pentameter, but the meter is really all over the place and the poem does not read well aloud -- at least I couldn't get it to sound right.
"True Love," by Xander Hampton, expresses the author's strong value attached to true love. The passion is there, all right, but the conclusions are boubtfull and not very well supported.
First, the poet purports to speak with great authority on a subject with which he, admittedly, has no experience. Perhaps a poem on his yearning for experience might be more within his area of expertise.
He says true love is invisible to some and taken for granted by those who have it. These assertions e questions. I suppose, in a sense, true love is invisible to all since it is not, literally, a visual phenomenon. Why does the poet state that those who have true love take it for granted? A couple hours on this site will quickly negate that unsupported allegation.
Then the poet cites darkness, peril, blood, and sorrow appparently all because he has not known true love. He may desire a love relationship, but darkness, peril, and blood are not convincing as conditions of the loveless. Well, maybe darkness. But peril and blood? The author needs to go out and meet some people.
Finally he says love is to be treasured (he misspells it tresured) but some can't see (he missspells it cant) that love is the only important thing. The ONLY important thing. I don't think so. How about integrity? Loyalty? Reliability? Intelligence? Hard work? Friendship? World peace? Religious conviction? On and on and on. True love is a commendable value, but it is hardly the ONLY important thing.
I like the enthusiasm and verve of this poet. He might, one day, be a superb writer. Right now he needs to think more carefully about what he writes and pay attention to the details.
"My Dog," by Lupus, is a cute little effort about the author's dog. As "poetry light" it provides a few moments of distraction and amusement. But this is a superficial poem without any significant insights and no particular poetic art. There is no rhyme or discernible meter.
Can we demand more from poetry? Probably not, but this kind of contribution does not merit the same consideration as more thoughtful or artistic work.
"Just Friends," by Numbhearted21, speaks of the emotions of a person with an undeclared love for a friend. We learn at the end of the poem that the object of the love already loves someone else, compounding the problem.
The rhyme scheme is good, but the meter is ragged to non-existent. There are a few awkward word inversions such as: "My name I long for you to say" and "For your way to my heart you did find." Avoided this kind of Yoda speak should be.
In conclusion, the emotional quandry comes albeit through a poetic expression that needs work.
"Speak Out On the Morrow," by Winston O'Brien, in a series of rhetorical questions, nicely articulates the risks (and a few of the rewards) of taking a risk and speaking out on controversies of the day. Most of the questions seem to be slanted toward taking a pass instead of weighing in on the issues.
This contribution might come off as a bit more passive than intended because of the tendency of the author to use a weak verb with a gerund instead of using the stronger verb. Examples: "these unwatered seeds are thirsting reprieve." "rain dampened beds are beginning to dry," "white wings are melting apart," "he's feathering downward." And there are more.
How about, "unwatered seeds now thirst for reprieve," "rain dampened beds may begin to dry," "white wings surrender and melt apart," and "he feathers toward earth" as stronger writing?
If passive verbs and frequent use of forms of the verb "to be," i.e. am, are, is, was, were, etc., permeate this author's work he should try to use more active verbs.
"Weeping at Bear River," by Lawrence, powerfully chronicles a massacre of Shoshone Indians. Lawrence spares nothing in his vivid descriptions of the carnage. The powerful flow and rhythm of this piece re-inforce the relentless and inexorable nature of the attack. The brutality and inhumanity come through loudly and clearly, but with an almost clinical quality. This contribution reminds me of some accounts I have read of the holocaust. Perhaps the United States treatment of Native Americans is our own holocaust.
JungaJunga brings us "Two Weeks Late." The narrator is pregnant and is ending the relationship with the father. The primary message of the poem is the narrator's expression of emotions: anger, resentment, disappointment. In her statement "I feel nothing for him," I get a certain sense of resignation from her. This statement, though, seems at odds with tearing apart the flowers he sent, packing his suitcase, and stating "He is not sorry enough." There is still a lot of emotion between them, reminding us that there is such a fine line between love and hate.
Structurally there is no rhyme and no metric pattern. JungaJunga chooses to write without punctuation or capitalization except, curiously, for the first word in the poem and the first word of the third (middle) stanza.
After several readings of Taylor Peppers' "The Strangers" I am not able to decipher who is "we" and who is "they" in this contribution. I could make a case that the "theys" are immigrants, or political opponents, or adifferent social class. The list goes on. There are plenty of clues, but they are too obscure for me to claim to have it figured out with any confidence. I like to be able to ascertain the meaning of a poem, but I must confess that this is beyond me. Maybe that's my fault, maybe not, or maybe there's no meaning to discern. I have been told by one subject of my reviews that it is unimportant that a poem should have meaning. To him, maybe. Not to me. I never did like Jackson Pollock art, either.
The poem boasts some rhymes, sometimes a bit ragged, but still rhymes. Some of the lines have a clear iambic quadrimeter meter, but the poet abandons that as often as not.
Based on my review I can only rate this a 3.5 and I do so without apologies. That being said, my mind is open to an argument that I may have under-estimated this poem.
"The Martian Girl," by Magoo, presents a first person search for love from the point of view of a girl from Mars. Presented in four line stanzas with an A-A-B-B ryme pattern, the poem has no consistent meter or syllable pattern.
It is a cute poem with some imaginative ideas about frustrations an alien being might experience. The last frustration, parental disapproval, was defeated when the Martian girl's mother realized the earth boy was wealthy.
This is Poetry Lite. Its only value is brief diversion and a smile. That's OK. It better be OK because I have written some lightweight stuff myself.
"Scent A Meter," by Dan Sturn, provides a fresh and light perspective for a serious protest against the required use of rhyme and meter in poetry.
Sturn makes some good points. One of the best is that he understands the "rules" and can follow them at will. He, then, breaks the rules out of artistic choice and not out of ignorance. I'm not completely sure why, but for me there is a big difference between the poet who knows how to follow the rules and the one who does not.
Poetic devices are like tools in a carpenter's chest. A saw may be the right tool, but so may be a hammer or a level. Rhyme may work to add a pleasing or entertaining sonic element. Meter may contribute to the sound or impact of a poem. This analogy applies also to symbolism. Metaphors and similes often artistically enhance and explain meaning. All of these devices are tools and not ends in and of themselves. Just as a poet may use these tools, he should be free to disregard any or all of them to make his own artistic judgment as appropriate to each poem.
Printed from https://www.writing.com/main/profile/reviews/dougrainbow/sort_by/r.review_creation_time DESC/page/8
All Writing.Com images are copyrighted and may not be copied / modified in any way. All other brand names & trademarks are owned by their respective companies.
Generated in 0.25 seconds at 12:17pm on May 05, 2024 via server web1.
View Portfolio
Visit Notebook
Send Gift Points
Awards
Badges
Send Email
Community Newsfeed
General Discussion
Sponsored Items
Book of Trinkets
Static Items
Books
Groups
Interactive Stories
Audio
Campfire Creatives
Community Notes
Crossword Puzzles
Documents
Folders
Images
In & Outs
Madlibs
Photo Albums
Polls
Product Reviews
Quizzes
Survey Forms
Web Pages
Word Searches
