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251
251
Rated: E | (3.5)
Well, it's a nice introductory paragraph. You tell the beginning of a scene, for the important part seems to be right at the end, her recognition of the friar. It's too bad you stopped right in the middle.

Your sentence
"The liquefaction of her hair indicating stale blood, following her every move, her every motion."
doesn't mean anything. Liquefaction is something solid turned liquid. Stale blood is no longer liquid but more solid. The rest of the sentence seems to mean that she is bleeding and leaving a trail of blood behind her, but this has nothing to do with liquefaction. So what seems to be a major part of the beginning of your paragraph is in dire need of correction.

It's nice to use big important words, but you have to know HOW to use them.

Your item's introduction is complete gibberish. "hey hexlcbkfgbnfgnghfxbcjgnv fdgdffdgfg fg dfgfdgfd fgfdgf fgdgfd fgfgdfI" certainly doesn't mean a thing to me. I have no idea why you have written this. Cute tricks like this may get a reader every now and then, but my bet is that most will not even open the item. If you were trying to show us what an uneducated Christian talks like or how he writes, this could also be insulting. Either way, in my opinion, your gibberish device doesn't help your item.

Keep writing,
alfred
252
252
Rated: 13+ | (1.0)
The story here may or knot be interessting. It may or knot be a teen genre. I'm two old to no that any more. I forgetted.

It is riddled with spelling and grammar errors and even if you are 14 years old, you should know how to use the SpellChecker and Grammer Check on your computer's software.

Normally I fill my reviews with help correcting the mistakes, helping a flailing writer learn how to do things properly. In the first paragraph alone there are between 8 and fifteen errors, depending on whether or not I'm counting missing commas.

Did you take the time to proofread your work? If you don't care enough about it to make sure it is correctly written, why should I bother reading it? When you place your work in public for mature writers to read, you cannot rely on the catch-all phrase "everybody writes that way." If this is a representative example of the way American youth is writing today, then we must collectively fear for tomorrow.

Keep writing, having exploitable ideas is important. But you cannot keep hiding behind the fact that you "don't know how to write". You'll have to learn to do so properly one day, so why put of till tomorrow what you can do today?

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253
253
Review of All Poets  
Rated: E | (3.0)
The basic grammatical construction of your poem is erroneous. When you use the past subjunctive form, If I were, you must use the conditional and not the future tense with it. So your phrase
"If all poets were poets,
heaven will be groomed, "
is to be properly written "...heaven would be groomed."

To properly master the English language you need to correct this throughout the entire poem.

You have several errors in your text, a verb or two improperly conjugated, improper plurals and a few typos. A writer can never edit too much. You should not count on your readers to do the correcting for you, their job is to appreciate the best poem you are capable of putting before the public.

Also, your introduction is misleading. You have not mentioned professions in this poem.

Keep writing,
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254
254
Review of Close Your Eyes  
Rated: ASR | (4.0)
I think there is are many lovely phrases in this poem which is well written.

You have a leit-motif running through the poem, your "I'll be the/that" lines. You use them irregularly and there is one stanza which does not use the phrase at all. One stanza in which every phrase begins this way. And other stanzas where you have "I"ll be..." This at once gives a unity to the poem but where that unity is broken stands out like the proverbial sore thumb.

In contests, one judges the content as well as the way the content is organized. In this poem you write quatrains which have a consistant ABCB rhyming pattern. Within this framework you have another repetitive element which has no symmetry. I think this may have been a reason your poem did not place higher.

It is certainly an element which bothers me when I look at the overall form of your poem. I think it would take very little editing to rewirte certain phrases so that they remain within your leit-motif.

Keep up the good work.
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255
Review of LOVE POEMS  
Rated: E | (4.5)
This is a very contemporary sounding poem and coming from your pen, Khalish, I am pleasantly surprized. It is upbeat and the language is completely modern.

Your form is perfect, the rhyming words varied in their sounds and I have not complaints with this at all.

I do not appreciate the line "Impure love is but a vice." There is something in it which grates on my personal sensitiviies. In my mind it doesn't work in either of the two stanzas where it is placed.

In the line "Lover may advance or lag," since for metric reasons you cannot write A LOVER, I would put "lover" in the plural to improve the flow. After all, you are speaking in this poem about love, and it takes two to tango!

A great read, thank you,
alfred
256
256
Rated: 13+ | (4.0)
What I like about this poem, Khalish, is the subject matter and the way you have expressed it.

As far as commenting on the rhyming part of the terzanelle form, I think you have taken a great risk using so many ee sounding rhymes. Many writers will use imperfect rhyme to pair -eed words with -eat words. You have correctly paired the -eed and -eat words, but the two are uncomfortably similar for my taste. Then you use immediately use a simple end syllable of -ee which is just too much like the two preceding rhymes for my personal taste. This gives you eight out of the nine central lines in the poem ending in an -ee voyal rhyme. It almost looks as if you forgot the rhyming pattern.

But, it has been highly rated by a great number of people over the years, so who am I to complain?

alfred
257
257
Review of Don's Song  
Rated: E | (4.0)
You have written a lovely poem, although if the first line did not exist this could be just the description of a dream, mentioned in your poem.

Three lines bother me:
*Bullet*His labored breeze no longer gently sways the living grass,
This is the only place in the poem where you personalize the metaphor with death and I'm not sure of the adjective HIS.

*Bullet*"The final time it seems,"
Because you've mentioned the playwright above, I would write the final ACT.

*Bullet*"Remains."
This verb, closing the poem, at first seemed only to refer to three lines earlier, "a pleasant dream, indeed...remains." I interpreted the end of your poem this way because "a pleasant dream, indeed" lacks a verb.

This, of course, is not the correct reading of your lines, which are included here:

""A pleasant dream indeed
The chance at last to sleep, to rest,
And, although no longer seen by quickened few,
Remains." "

The correct connection for "remains" is "The chance at last to sleep, to rest, remains." But it took me a long time to figure this out. This good connection, in my mind, is obscured by the conjuction AND, which I would eliminate, for in my initial reading I caught "the chance to sleep, to rest AND […] remains," which I took for meaning "to remain". But your phrase still didn't have a verb, so the conjugated form "remains", I originally placed back with "a pleasant dream indeed," because this subject is much stronger than "the chance to sleep…"

So much confusion because of one unnecessary word!

After twenty minutes, I figured out the way the lines connect - better late than never - but your line "and, although…" sufficiently interrupts the flow for me to have been confused long enough to have misinterpreted the sense of your intention with these words.

Why does this bother me so? Because you have a very straightforward poem and at the very end there is an uncertain element in the flow which comes at the most crucial moment of the poem: the ending.

Since I'm going on and on, I would add " although no longer seen by A quickened few," although I'm still not sure what this line means. A quickened few - a lucky few? Those present to see this last breath of air and the poetry behind his life?

A very interesting poem. I enjoy your simplicity.
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258
Review of Clocks  
Rated: E | (2.0)
Well, you have an idea, you've put it into black words on white paper. Now you need to finish it. The "to be continued" will be a promise kept, I hope.

However, I quote:
"...surface tckeld [TICKLED?] his fingertips, it was as if an unknown ghost had entered his body an [AND?] filled him..."

Revise, edit and revise again. I notice you are a brand new member. We have a spellchecker available in the item toolbar at each editing session and you may copy/paste from your computer. It is not necessary to write directly online as one does in a chat room.

These are silly errors and writers should not count on their readers to correct them. That's a sure way to have a very low rate and for people not to comment about your literary content but only on the form which is lacking.

Keep writing. It's the only way to learn how to do it.
alfred
259
259
Review of Beautiful  
Rated: E | (3.0)
I don't know how many views you've had. The story doesn't work because you have described Fiona as non-human. There are no humans with three eyes and four noses. If you want us to take your story seriously, you, as an author must be serious.

Make her fat, give her a bulbous nose, make her flat-chested, make her eyes be crossed behind thick glasses, make her poor and poorly dressed in rags, and we will recognize her. You do not need to spoof in an exaggerated fashion her bad looks in order to make your point.

As for the morale, I did not get it. Don't expect your readers to have your intelligence - i.e. to know automatically what's going through your head at the moment you write your words. All authors know more about their characters than their readers do, simply because they are the products of their imaginations. Without treating your reader as a moron, it is always best to spell out too much than leave out details, assuming incorrectly that your reader is following every train of your thoughts.

The idea for your story is good. No, it cannot be presented to the public too many times for we have been educated to only look at the outer beauty. You have not told the reader about Fiona's inner beauty. Just that Eli sees it. Does she collect flowers, does she take care of wounded animals, does she know the answers in class but is too timid to say them? These are all things which will establish her inner beauty for the reader. As you have her described, we can only feel sorry for her ugliness; you haven't given her many qualities to admire, inspite of her ugliness.

There are many details which, once added to this story, will make it stronger and hopefully give you a few kindhearted readers who will review or rate it.

alfred
260
260
Review of Shadow  
Rated: E | (4.0)
This is a nice poem, maybe a tad too short, but you say everything with simplicity and sincerity.

I have only one change to offer :
"but neglect, it is"
The IT IS is awkward here. Since you want the extra emphasis, not having written "but neglect is", why not try "This is" or "That is"?

Keep writing!
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261
261
Rated: 13+ | (3.5)
You've written a poem of love and longing and it worked very well until the mega-line:
As they buried me underneath the ground where I lay.
This marrs the visual, rhythmic and poetic aspects of the poem you set into motion until that moment.

Can you not take this sentence and build it into its own stanza, the surprize stanza, so that it matches the rest of your poem? Then, you'll have a great poem.

Keep up the good work.
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262
262
Review of Iron and Ore  
Rated: E | (5.0)
This is a lovely poem, about nostalgia and reviewing one's past. The word choice is excellent, colorful and your imagery is striking.

You do all of this with a simplicity and conciseness which makes the poet in me jealous. Bravo.

One tiny detail - if I have understood the poem correctly, would it work to write the following?
"It took years to RETURN here."
I think this would be a better verb. Your original "get" implying "get back" is a weaker word.

An excellent read and one I would recommend to my fellow poets here on WDC.

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263
Review of The scarechosis  
Rated: E | (2.5)
Even if you are trying for some dramatic effect to heighten the terror your character feels, you must write proper English. That means a space after periods and commas. Beginnings of sentences must have a capital letter. This lack of respect for the reader's comfort makes your story (which I didn't understand anyway) impossibly hard to read.
I wonder if you took the time to proofread this?

Here on WDC we are not obliged to write online like one does in chat rooms. We can copy/paste text into windows from our computers and take advantage of spellcheckers. Although we have one here at our disposal.

Keep writing, but make sure you have a text which says exactly what you want it to say, with proper punctuation, capitalization, spelling and presentation. If you are serious about your writing, readers will take you seriously.

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264
Rated: E | (4.5)
This is excellent. Your grandmother had a talent with words. It is moving and the pastoral descriptions in the opening are sublime.

It is common practice here on WDC for the reader's comfort to single space between the paragraphs. There are several other places where you need to go back into the text and realign the lines so that there are no line breaks in the middle of sentences.

Thank you for sharing this story. Unfortunately, there are many women in the world, millions too many, who could write the same elements, if given the chance to express themselves.
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265
Review of 7 days of sorrow  
Rated: E | (4.0)
This is a beautiful poem, maybe about suicide after a lost love, maybe about not finding God's promise, there are possibilities for interpretation.

You have many little details which could be revised.

*Bullet*On the day of love,
I saw sun rising
You write THE day in the first line, I would keep the form constant with THE sun in the second line.

*Bullet*Even birds are falling from the sky.
I will fall in temptation
Personally I tend to avoid repeated words preferring the richness of synonyms. "Even THE birds plummet from the sky..."

*Bullet*Escaping, and leaving ashes behind.
All without a sound.
Death falling from a cliff will not leave ashes. "Escaping, not even leaving ashes behind..." would be one solution. "Wet ashes" might be another.

*Bullet*Iron hand doesn't know mercy.
Neck will break in half.
I don't like your lack of articles here. "AN iron hand, or Iron handS DON'T" and then "MY neck..." Although these words are more or less understood, such abbreviations of the proper syntax make your poetry flow a bit unbalanced.

*Bullet*He's breaking my wings for a long time now
"He's BEEN breaking.." is the correct verb here.

*Bullet*What asleep, shall be brought to daylight.
I do not follow your use of "asleep" for dreams. At least that is how I read this line. You need to be precise with your word choices if you want the reader to follow the path you have in your mind.

*Bullet*On 7th day, sanity is gone.
Locked in walls of hidden castle,
Once again there are three articles missing here. In free verse, without a restriction in line length, you do not need to eliminate the "obvious" words. Poetry is all about line flow.

*Bullet*Glowing, while breaking us up.
This line still needs work. I do not follow your path.

*Bullet*But not touching ground.
Even mud on my face can't hide happiness
Here is an example of where you may choose to eliminate the articles. Mud and happiness are plural and abstract words, and the lines read just as well as if you had written "Even THE mud on my face can't hide MY/THE happiness." Although between you and me, I don't follow this line either.

*Bullet*Thousand doves can't erase, Here though, you need either "A thousand doves" or "ThousandS OF doves..."

Aside from these details, and many are related to your desire (at least it seems to me) to reduce the word count in an attempt to be more poetic, the body of your poem is well constructed and you express your emotions with a limited scope, but I personally like the restraining.

Keep up the good work,
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266
Rated: 13+ | (4.5)
From the title, the reader guesses what you are going to write about. I would have preferred a surprize. What you have written is powerful. You make no judgements, you just show. Excellent work.

You have changed the title once on this poem. I am not sure you have found the right one yet. The line "suffer the little children" is a good one, although for me it also has a connotation that big people just have to suffer through having little children. In any case, I would end the poem with this line, or some revision of it. Doing so will plainly state your position as part of the body of the poem and not just the title.

I wonder, yet again, about finding a more neutral title. I agree, 27 reasons that make me angry" was not right either. But "suffering 27 times again" might be another answer. Titles are so important. (And just for the purists, there are not 27 acts of suffering mentioned in your poem.)

In the body of your poem, only one stanza really bothers me:
a tub
filled with scalding water and one
tiny
unprotected
arm
I don't like the spacing of the last three lines. The tiny burned hand in the following stanza is just as hideous, yet you don't give it the over-punctuation you do with "tiny unprotected arm." I would write these three words on a single line.

And true to myself, I am sure you could find a substitute for one of the two "tiny" which in my opinion are too close together at the end of the poem.

There is still a bit of work to do, but you have nine tenths of an excellent poem.

Keep up the good work,
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Review of Tiananmen  
Rated: E | (4.0)
This is a beautiful poem. There is not much needed to make it perfect.
In Tiananmen, there was a real need, for defiance. This need was clear worldwide. The need you evoke here in your poem needs explanation. I am hard pressed to understand why the sister was taken out of a stable family environment. As it is stated here, it is an aberation. Unless the child was going back to her natural parents. A stanza explaining what happened before the poem's drama will strengthen the link you want to make with Tiananmen Square, I think.

At the end, you mention a specific time. This bothers me because it is an unnecessary detail. Since you are using free verse and not hampered by line length, you could use something like "after dusk" or "after dinner." Or the other solution would be to place the defiance in the driveway at a specific hour of the afternoon therefore balancing the "At 9" at the end. I would also write out nine.

Lastly, I'm not sure of the end. I like that you have broken the couplet rhythm for your conclusion. My first reaction was that I would not personally have brought the poem back to HIM in Tiananmen, but said something like "why didn't this tank stop for me?" But now I'm not sure. But that was my gut reaction.

A wonderfully poignant story about the love that takes place even when there is no blood bonding sisters.

Keep up the good work,
alfred
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Review of Do you notice?  
Rated: E | (4.0)
This is a well written poem about marriage. You have used a form in the first three stanzas that places your question in the first line. I would have maintained the form throughout the entire poem opening your fourth stanza with the question. Your rhyming scheme was perfect.

I personally tend to avoid the laziness in repeated words. In your opening lines you write:
"This powerful and safe feeling,
The feeling you feel in my company,"
While this represents typical conversation, poetry is a way to express ourselves in a more colorful way, using synonyms, meter and rhyme, things we do not do daily when speaking or when writing certain types of fiction where dialogue is more important than descriptive passages.

So I would get out my synonym dictionary, if no words come to mind, in order to replace at least one of the "feelings."

Other than this very personal detail, you have a well crafted poem.

Keep writing,
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269
Review of Sensing You  
Rated: ASR | (5.0)
Wonderful, Darth. Intellectually poignant and very well thought out. It's been a while since I've read any of your poetry, and you always have the knack of surprizing the reader with your diversity.

I tiny thing bothers me in your line :
"And love is all of this".
In my opinion it would be stronger to write
"And all of this is love."

Excellent work,
alfred
270
270
Review of Heaven  
Rated: E | (4.5)
You've written a very moving poem about the simplicity of life as you knew it as a child.

For me personally, your poem goes two stanzas too far, for the force of your fourth stanza coming to a halt with the words "welcomed us to heaven on earth." is hampered by the busier stanza about life in the city and the sadness of your return home, to find everything gone astray. The choice of a decrescendo at the end is of course yours, but when your crescendo leads brilliantly to the most peaceful moment in the poem, I question the utility of the rest of the poem.

But that's only one man's opinion.

Thank you for the sensitivity you employ, through carefully selected words, which do indeed take the reader along your path of calm memories.

Keep up the good work
alfred
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Review of What Not to Write  
Rated: 13+ | (5.0)
As is usual, an excellent selection of good sense, well documented and well presented. Your articulate thoughts are well worth consideration and I think most of us have something to learn from the ideas you put forth so convincingly.
An excellent read, and the articles you plug, many of which I was not yet familiar, perfectly complement your ideas.
Bravo
alfred
272
272
Review of Dreamer  
Rated: E | (3.5)
What I liked
I like this poem. The general form is good and you succeed in saying what you want.

Your first stanza is fun, almost light and airy. It did not lead me directly to your second stanza, which was something completely different, and, I must admit, a certain disappointment. Although it too is well written, I am uncertain that the two belong together.

*Idea*Suggestions
There are, however details which bother my aesthetic sense.
*Bullet*"if I tried harder than anyone before me." The before me sounds forced. I would simplify with the obvious anyone ELSE.

*Bullet*muscles forged to hardened steel
born of iron will and lava hot desire.
Hardened steel is a catch all phrase. Iron will is too. Both of them right next to each other are too much, in my opinion. And since I'm here, I would hyphenate lava-hot. Unless you want the meaning to be lava like hot desire, in which case I would write it that way.

*Bullet*I dreamed that when I solved and cured
the sickness of bigotry and hatred,
all those around me treated each other
In the second part of this sentence, you need the same tenses - 'all those around me WOULD TREAT each other"

*Bullet*I imagined a place where differences
held hands warmly with the norm,
Here I don't like the common word "norm." Sure we all say it, but it's not a very pretty nor poetic word. Since you're not hampered by meter, I'll let you find your own substitute.

*Bullet*There is a noticeable difference in the quality of writing in your last stanza when comparing it to the preceding ones.
But that was a long time ago,
another life, certainly not mine.
Perhaps I was born a dreamer
with more imagination than common sense
silently searching for hope and goodness
in barren and hostile lands.
This is the kind of writing I would prefer to see throughout the poem. It flows and is not hampered by catch-all phrases or abstract words. It more resembles the opening stanza in its freedom.

Overall impression
There are many good things happening in this poem. I think maybe a bit more conscious control of what you want to occur in each part of the poem would help its overall layout.

Keep up the good work!

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Review of A Single Tear  
Rated: 13+ | (4.0)
Sensitivity, sincerity, simplicity. Three supporting elements which help you write a good poem.

I especially like the repeat phrase used at every couplet - so many young poets give up the formula at one moment or another and it ruins the poem. You have known how to use the technique to your advantage and you have done so in a convincing manner to create a poem with unity and balance.

Good work. Keep writing,
alfred
274
274
Rated: E | (3.5)
As a professional pianist, I appreciate this homage to your violin. It is sweet and sincere. The comparison with your beloved is not complete in my opinion. It is a tad too discreet.

I do, however, object to the following lines:
"within hollow chambers
of past failures"
for they don't seem to have any justification here. The rest of the poem is upbeat and although these are lovely lines, maybe they have their place in another poem.

And again, I have a good guess why your last line uses such a strong term of endearment, but I would not do so if describing the violin. We love our instruments and the joy they give us, but our "beloved" is a human being. In my mind, if you decide not change the ending of the poem, the last line should read "MY beloved."

And if, as I suspect, you are speaking about your beloved at the very end, you need just one more detail, well placed so that we are sure that you are speaking about the love of your life and not the violin. I am all for mystery in poetry, and write much myself which can be interpreted in many ways, but here your final line seems incomplete.

"Beloved song of my heart," is still vague, if that's what you're looking for, but there is enough in that phrase to point us equally in both directions.

All in all, you have written an interesting poem in which I discover more depth as I reread it to more accurately comment it.

Thanks for sharing,
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Review of The Window  
Rated: E | (5.0)
This is superlative in my mind.

It continues to send shivers down my spine. Beautifully written in a concise and sparse manner, but the emotion is overflowing and it has connected to some place deep inside of me that I do not know but makes me ponder.

The power of words is extraordinary and yours have done their job of catching ahold of this reader and not letting go.

One tiny error:
"The doctors ran tests. They pocked." You want to write POKED.

Without hesitation, I recommend every reader out there to take the time and read this small story.

My sincere compliments to the author
alfred
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