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Printed from https://www.writing.com/main/profile/reviews/pshepard
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6 Public Reviews Given
6 Total Reviews Given
Public Reviews
1
1
Review by Shepard
Rated: E | (3.0)
Hi Richard,

I came across your poem in the monthly no form contest. In reading this entry, I thought I would offer some feedback, one quill shaker to another.

Good theme... loss of love, classic! The Autumns and Winters of relations... solid!

It sucks to get older, it sucks to feel the years passing, everything really sucks when you've misplaced your person. Genuinely great emotional communion with your fellow humans (I like to think thats the end goal with poetry... that brief deeper intimate connection with our readers)

Thing to consider with this piece. You may want to remove the repeating stanza. The theme and imagary that is nicely catpured in the main content, is really overshadowed by a little too much of your not so subtle point.

Repition like this can be a good tool to build tension or set rhythm in a poem. The frequency of the stanza is a little too tightly packed and creates more of an anxiety that is not quite same kind of emotional discord the rest of the piece sublimely portrays. Its sort of like emotion canceling emotions dualing for my attention. Consider experimenting with removing all, or some, of the flashing neon stanza and see how your piece reads.

I forgot where I picked up this writing tip a while ago (or how it was originally phrased) but it was essentially: great writing invites the reader to walk intimately with the author as opposed to forcing them into the van at gunpoint.

On the other hand, I re-read the poem a few times, ignoring the aforementioned stanza, and it is really touching otherwise. Having walked in the season you are portraying, you captured the color and the sense of that kind of monotonous re-lonelyness well.

Just some observations. Hopefully food for thought at least. Thanks for posting. I'm giving 3 stars, I think it has the gist of a solid 4 - 4.5 with some revision.



*Gold* My review has been submitted for consideration in "Good Deeds Get CASH!.
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Review of YOU  
Review by Shepard
Rated: E | (1.0)
Its usually exceptionally poor form to use all caps. Unless this is slam poetry, which still probably should not be in all caps.

You are essentially screaming theses otherwise tender words at the reader. Not sure if that was your intent, but all caps is almost universally regarded as a really big no-no.

Regards,

P. Shepard
3
3
Review of TIME AND SPACE  
Review by Shepard
Rated: E | (2.5)
First, I love the topic, and was really excited to see a poem about physics! Huzzah on the bravado!

It was a good read for the most part, but your meter started to destabilize at the third stanza with:
"We do not realize that we
Create all that it is we see:

That meter is pretty forced and caused me to come to a full halt on the next stanza:
"That time and space
Not only do not bend"

I can see where you are going, and the content is great, but this poem would be really difficult to read out loud. I think if you work on it just a little more you could really elevate the quality by focusing on the readability.

2.5 stars for now... let me know if you decide to fix it!

Warmest Regards,

Paul Shepard
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