I saw this in the Fantasy Newsletter of 12/19.07. Yeah . . .I am behind in my reviewing! The first word I would use to describe your story is "enjoyable." Through the whole story, you do a great job of showing, not telling. Your story is realistically written. I could visualize everything that is happening. The second phrase I would use is that is needs a little something more. Namely, what is the massive shadow? Sid goes from being unconvinced to seeing the shadow, and then the story skips way ahead. I would trim some off the beginning and the middle of the story, and fill in the gap, as it were.
My other observation is that you should capitalize Route Six. Through the whole story, you have it in lowercase.
I saw this in the Fantasy Newsletter of 12/19/08. Congrats on being featured. A lovely story, written in an old-fashioned style, so that one can actually hear a kindly uncle-ish voice doing the narrating. I could visualize the entire banquet, the kind, wise old man, all the villagers, and the pompous Mr. Chang.
Suggestions/Corrections:
1. [great quantities of simple food was prepared.] - Was should be were, to go with plural "quantities."
2. [until he should choose to unveil it.] - I suggest "until the time he should choose to unveil it."
And the true, wise, and wonderful sentiment at the end; it seems no one goes or lives by that anymore these days.
I saw this in the Spiritual Newsletter of 1/31/08. Congratulations on being featured! What a sweet tribute to an online friend. I wish someone would write a poem like this about me. I am sure Sarah is thrilled by her tribute.
Suggestions:
1. "Extremely" - has three syllables and if you read the first stanza out loud, that is one too many for a smooth flow. I would change it to "very" or "highly."
2. "she has a true feeling" - Strike "a." She has true feeling is more accurate.
3. "our poems and our rhyme" - Should be "and their rhyme." We don't have the rhyme, the poems do.
It made me happy to read the tribute. A kindness like yours is a great example.
I saw this poem in the Spiritual Newsletter of 1/24/08. Congrats on being featured! I applaud the theme of this poem - using the winter for self-reflection so we may be ready for spring. The metaphors of seasons apply to life. My very favorite lines are the fiftn & ninth stanzas.
To improve this poem, I would combine the first two stanzas into one stanza. Then, you won't repeat seasons/seasons/we wait/we wait/we wait. I would replace "skeltered" with another word that fits better.
I saw this in the Poetry Newsletter of 1/24/08. Congrats on being featured! Your poem is lovely and serves as a prayer. It is true that we all have His path engraved in our hearts.
From a technical point, the words on the end don't exactly rhyme, but to change them would dilute the heart of your message.
I saw your poem in the Poetry Newsletter of 1/24/08. Congrats on being featured. I was really surprised when I saw your brief item description. I also have a poem in mind from Tatiana's perspective. Amazing how great minds think alike!!! I honestly thought I would be the only person to have this idea.
Your poem is great. It explains what the tiger may have been thinking. It points out that the wall was too low and the man taunted her. And, you say it was a tragedy for all involved. I would not recommend any changes. It leaves powerful emotions in the reader.
When I do my poem, I will send you a link to check it out.
I saw your story in the Author's Newsletter of 1/17/08. Congratulations on being chosen as an Editor's Pick!
Awww, poor Rose! I will NEVER look at candy the same way again! I did have a craving for a bag of colorful chocolate candies, but now I totally sympathize with candy. My craving is gone! (But for how long?) How interesting that you used Shakespeare quotations. Would the second one be: "Anything to buy me some time?" I don't think it's "I'm made of chocolate!"
Corrections/Suggestions:
1. Do not hyphenate "cookware."
2. Hyphenate "clothes-strewn"
3. "seeing the fruit Cameron flourished" - Should be "brandished."
4. [The pocket was on it's side] - Strike the apostrophe in "its."
I saw this in the Fantasy Newsletter of 1/17/08. Congratulations on being chosen an editor's pick! Your poem is exceptional. I got lost in your description of this land of dreams and flowers. I think many frazzled writers would love to spend some time there. But . . would you want to come back? That is a question that lingers in the reader's mind.
A few grammatical errors are keeping me from rating this a five.
1. Second line: Strike "that."
2. Fourth line: Consider changing "glow" to "grow."
3. Firstline, second stanza: Change "form" to "forms" to correspond to the singular noun "music."
4. 3rd line: Change "angel's" to "angels'." More than one angel is playing "trumpets."
5. Fourth stanza - Change "heart's sole" to "soul." A "sole" is the bottom of a foot.
I am marking this poem as a Favorite. Let me know when you revise, and I will change my rating to five stars.
I saw this in the Poetry Newsletter of 1/17/08. Congrats on being chosen as an Editor's Pick. Awww, your poem makes me feel nostalgic for when I used to love snow. That was long ago. Now it is more of a nuisance. The last stanza is my favorite. That is so touching.
My suggestion for improvement is to work on the rhythm. Reading your poem aloud, the rhythm is not balanced. You should have each stanza have roughly the same amount of syllables per line. When you read it, it should flow.
But your imagery is lovely. I like how you equate snow with an angel with white wings.
I saw this in the Poetry Newsletter of 1/17/08. Congrats on being chosen as an Editor's Pick. Your poem is really cute and is so true. We poets just can't stop making poems in our head, writing them, and then thinking of even more. Now, if we could only find people as excited to read them as we are to create them!
My only suggestion is that in the final two lines, you use "nothing" twice. I would change the first nothing [Nothing that I was searching for] to another word choice.
I saw this in the Poetry Newsletter of 1/17/08. Congratulations on being chosen as an Editor's Pick!
Your poem is lovely. A little girl in a photo lives in an illusory universe, not knowing at the end she will be an old woman with bursitis.
I don't quite understand the line about the Holy Grail. And I wonder if instead of "her words" you could put "events." For surely, she is a silent image and has no words. The events of life do surge and ebb more than words do. Once you say words, you cannot take them back.
This review is for the "Invalid Item" by A Guest Visitor What a sweet, wholesome little story. There is not enough attention paid to the deaf community, and I am thrilled to see a story with a hearing-impaired individual as a main character.
I have a soft spot for elderly "grandmas," so I fell in love with Mary Ellen. I love the prayer included here, the love of family, the recollections from a simpler time. Your story had the flavor of an episode of Little House on the Prairie or The Waltons.
I think you can strike "made of wood" because porches are not made of any other material, especially back in 1940.
Again, put apostrophe after " parents' " to indicate to whom the voices belong.
I believe "wraparound" should be one word.
"enjoying each others company" - Insert apostrophe after "others' " to indicate possession.
In the fourth paragraph, you use "sounds" thrice. Substitute "noise" for some variety.
"or loose her eyesight." - Should be "lose."
[starring her in the eyes] - Should be "staring."
[significant hearing lose] - Should be "loss."
Please continue to write. You do have a sweet writer's heart, and I would like to read more of your work.
This review is for the "Invalid Item" by A Guest Visitor . I love the title. It conveys so much emotion that you figure the piece is intense and you will be able to relate. For who among us has never felt that emotion, whether someone betrayed us or maybe we were really jealous.
Your poem is a perfect length, not too long or short. I am not sure about the blue font color. Maybe red would better convey hate. Blue is kind of relaxing, but that is just my opinion.
Now, your speaker is very angry. She is condemning him, almost cursing him. I am really wondering, what the hell did this poor man do? She says he made her "feel blue." Hmm. Is that enough reason to loathe him? Incidentally, if you want to mix up some synonyms, without repeating hate and loathe, you could also say "revile" or "detest." OK, he took away everything she held dear. What does that mean? Did he rob her? Did he kill her family? The end needs to be stronger.
If it were my poem, I would change "making me feel blue" to "making me hate myself." If he was an abuser who whittled away at her self-esteem, then that would make sense for her breaking away from him and cursing him. I would also change "it's you I no longer dream of" to "it's you I'm no longer dreaming of." If you read the poem out loud, the rhythm is much better that way.
Thank you so much for working so hard to make this frenzy happen. You have a big heart.
I saw this in the Author's Newsletter of 11/29/07. (Yes, I am behind in reading my NL's!) Congrats on being chosen for an Editor's Pick. That is always so great.
I really enjoyed reading the "diary" of M.A. What resources did you use for her life? Have you seen the film directed by Sofia Coppola? I have not but want to.
One spelling mistake in the entry "I Want to Marry the Count" is Broussard has three 's's.' So it looks like this: Brousssard.
I saw this in the Poetry Newsletter of 12/12/07. Congrats on being featured! The theme is lovely: I have a very similar poem in my port: "Invalid Item" by A Guest Visitor
I think you should title the poem "Summer Night" or "Summer Nocturne." You concentrate on moonlight and stars. Or you could transition more, using more imagery from sunset, so the poem would actually be about twilight.
I saw this poem in the Poetry Newsletter of 12/12/07. Congrats on being featured! I love the title and brief description. It made me eager to read. I love the last two lines - they are beautiful, original, and highly poetic. The rest seems more like being trapped . . . well, this is the only analogy I can think of - in a refugee camp! Summer in the city is not so bad that you smell blood.
Of course, I happen to like the city, even in summer. Maybe you have a different perception, and people who are country mice will relate.
I saw this in the Short Stories Newsletter of 12/12/07. Congratulations on being featured! I can't believe Christmas has come and gone. But like you said, Jesus is the reason for Christmas, and he does not abandon us.
I found myself agreeing with every word in your piece. I feel the most powerful part is the final paragraph, when you have the reader envision your birthday when people ignore you. And the brief description - what a great hook.
This sentence should end with a question mark: [After making cookies, why not deliver them to your neighbors and nursing homes. ]
I hope many read your piece and take the messages to heart.
I saw this in the Short Stories Newsletter of 12/12/2007. Congratulations on being featured! Cute Chrstmas anecdote you have. Is this from your experience? For suggestions, at the end, should it not be "our" basement as I presume he is still living with his parents? And, is a six-foot tree really "tiny?" Seven feet isn't that much of a difference.
I can't believe Christmas is over. Thankfully, we still have engaging stories about Christmas like yours to cheer us up.
I saw this in the Spiritual Newsletter of 12/19.07. Congratulations on being featured! Short, simple, and to the point. A lot of people don't realize Winter Solstice is occurring. It just passes them by and they don't realize the days are gradually getting longer. It was better when people were more in touch with Nature.
I saw this in the Poetry Newsletter of 12/19/07. Congrats on being featured! Your rhythm for this poem is precise, unusual, and intoxicating. Those adjectives also describe the poem itself.
The one suggestion I have is to change "chill" to "stoke." Desires burn hot, not cold, and only heat can transform gold into dust.
I saw this in the Poetry Newsletter of 12/19/07. Congrats on being featured! How could anyone rate this poem less than five stars? Excellent job personifying winter as an old Inuit, and giving readers a taste of another culture on top of the world.
Did you miss a spelling error? "Artic" should be "Arctic."
I saw this in the Poetry Newsletter of 12/19/07. Congrats on being featured! Your poem is beautiful, so touching and so true. You portray the silence and loneliness of the cemetery so well. I never thought about it from the dead's perspective.
You close with a somber message that gets the point across really well.
The only suggestions I have for improvement are to replace the few cliches with some original, creative poetic language. What I feel is cliched is: deadly quiet, all the memories we make, and possibly "harsh, cold morning light of dawn." You don't have to say "morning" and "dawn" in the same line.
Great poem; I will make it a favorite and feature it in an upcoming edition of the Reviewing Newsletter.
I saw this in the Spiritual Newsletter of 12/26/07. Congrats on being featured! This story started out kind of slow, but ended up being more poignant than I expected. I really feel for Dan, and wonder what his life might have been like had he married Sherry. But what is great about this story is that Dan doesn't go there. He lives the life he has now. That is true for many soldiers. They don't waste time with regrets and might-haves. They are thankful and also live in the present moment.
I suggest that you hyphenate reddish-brown, and eliminate a couple of cliches, which are "restful embrace" and "enslaves his desires."
Thank you for an enjoyable story, full of dreams and tense action.
I saw this in the Spiritual Newsletter of 12/26/07. Congrats on being featured! It is nice to once again read something of yours. A poem that seeks to reconcile Muslims and Christians using Jesus as the central focus - I never thought I would see such a wonderful theme in a poem.
I don't think people who really follow Jesus bomb or committ crimes in His name.
I saw this in the Spiritual Newsletter of 12/26/07. Congrats on being featured! I love this story. Ellie and Brad are such realistic and well-developed characters. The way that they met and married so quickly, the fact that they are extreme opposites, the doubts about their relationship that they are having on this Christmas day, all ring true. My husband and I are also opposites. They say you can't change someone after you marry them, but if you follow Ellie's example, maybe it is possible after all.
Sincerely,
Lotusneko
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