it's all melted away.

puddles everywhere!

Ed, a review.

I always enjoy the voice you have in your work.

silented1 wrote:Its cold out now, the wind strips me
of my fingers as my arms fold and smack
together.

I like the scene you give us Ed, the sense detail that I feel myself. Now, "the wind strips me/ of my fingers" is odd here, especially with all of the "me" and "my" pronouns that overtake these lines with the only imagery that supports the body of this speaker, being weather. Nature. You create this relationship of nature changing the ideal, or past state for the speaker. There is not so much loss, but change occurring. How exactly is the wind stripping fingers away though? Your usage of "fold" and "smack" are the right ideas I believe, but, I'm left wondering how exactly this 'stripping' of fingers is only smacking and folding. When I think of stripped fingers I think of fingers physically being torn off and removed.

I remember summer, fireflies wrapping
their red glow into a cricket's song, hanging
there in the air, together.

I like calling back to the time before. Very good in presenting your reader very familiar states of being, as well as with familiar aspects of these seasons. My only criticism here is you need to do justice to your images: the glow of fireflies wrapping into cricket's song, hanging in the air, together. "into" and "together" do very little for these images, and they also do very little in how your speaker relates to the season of "summer".

It was a time when the ruffles of a rabbit
stired dead leaves from bushes, as it ran
away from a fox and then froze at my feet.

Now you start to lose me a little. What exactly are the "ruffles" of a rabbit? This modifying adjective takes away from the motion you could describe that shows the "stirring" (spelling), of the dead leaves.

I saw winter before me, shaking white hairs
from its sheding body, each time one landed
it got a little colder, the sky and ground
slowly merged through the snow.

"sheding", again watch your spelling. Also, you use body in relation to nature here when before you simply referenced your speaker's body. Is there anyway you can tie these together? Show age in winter in both your speaker and nature?

Its black eyes watched the apple in my hand,
waiting for the gentlest wind to bring the fall.

I let go of summer when the fox sprang
from the bushes, and by the time it hit
the ground, the rabbit was gone.

"Its" is too general. I know you mean the rabbit/fox and spring/winter here, but "its" is such an unlovely word. Far too much ambiguity in my honest opinion. The nature and speaker states of being are strained enough as your progress because it moves from "this is the speaker's experience" to "this is the season" to "this the animal as the season" to "this is the metaphorical animal standing in as the season". Now, I like how you take us to the rabbit being gone, the apple falling, the sly and dangerous fox ushering in this cold new feeling. However, you use words that aren't quite making this poem connect to those emotions and experiences we have invested in "winter", "spring", etc.

One thing to consider is, how is the apple impacting the overall sequence of the poem? What does it embody and represent? How does this influence the rabbit and fox? What importance does it have to your speaker? The gradual shift of seasons is fine in my opinion, but watch your diction so that it matches the tone and emotion you want to give us. Avoid overly vague words also, the ambiguity isn't needed with animals and symbols that can become vague themselves.

That said, you're off to a nice start Ed, keep it up. Feel free to ask me any questions.

I love this. The melancholy, almost wistful tone, is great for a poem about entering hard times. I like the way you used the rabbit as a sort of symbol for things lost. I thought that was pretty clever. If there's anything I would suggest you improve, it is that I found the syllabic content of the lines odd. You kept it pretty consistant, which was good, but the way that the last line was always shorter than the first line annoyed me for some reason. Maybe it's just a picky thing with me. Other than that, I loved it, and it was beautiful. Keep up the amazing work, and I look forward to reading more of your stuff.

Hello! Here as I said I would! 8D A bit later than intended, but I'm still here!

So I definitely think this is one of your best works here. I very much enjoyed this, the imagery and where it was going, and it's a very much an improvement from what I've read by you before. I'm particularly excited with how you're tying in the fox and rabbit with the theme!

Its It's cold out now, the wind strips me
of my fingers as my arms fold and smack
together.

I struggled with this opening stanza. I think it's a wonderful start for what you're going for here -- don't get me wrong! Set up that horrifying winter scene before delving into the summer memories. However, I think the metaphors are what confused me. It took me a few reads to finally come to the conclusion that the speaker's hands were getting frost-bitten from the wind and was folding his arms together to protect them. xD There's probably a better word for "smack," since arms don't smack together when you're wearing layers and layers of clothing. And.. that might actually do it. You could consider replacing the "strips" bit too, but I understood that one much better than smacking arms together. I literally pictured a human holding out their arms and smacking them like the energizer bunny!

I remember summer, fireflies wrapping
their red gold glow into a cricket's song, hanging
there in the air, together.

The fireflies I know of glow yellow. xD So that confused me a bit, but I think using "gold" would make for some awesome alliteration. I don't really know if that's a great idea or not? But I think it sounds cool. xD *naive* But I love this set-up for the summer! It's so awesome. There's a bit of a case of comma-happy, but it's nothing to concern yourself too much over, if at all. 8D

It was a time when the ruffles of a rabbit
stired stirred dead leaves from bushes, as it ran
away from a fox and then froze at my feet.

This was amazing fun, and I really love this picture. I just don't think rabbits will stop at people's feet when they're busy running for their lives. 8D

I saw winter before me, shaking white hairs
from its sheding shedding body, each time one landed
it got a little colder, the sky and ground
slowly merged through the snow.

Now, I loooved this stanza, particularly how it got colder with each hair shed from the rabbit. That's really, really awesome. 8D I don't know if I liked how we now see the same rabbit in the current winter scene. Like... the transition is weird? from summer memory to winter present. The same rabbit is there in both cases, and we didn't meet this rabbit 'til after the memory--well, actually. Maybe that works out pretty well! I guess the concern is that the speaker is there the entire time the seasons change. My logic just kinda fails there. xD And sssso, that's probably me overthinking it. /jabbers

Its black eyes watched the apple in my hand,
waiting for the gentlest wind to bring the fall.

I'm not sure what this means in relation to the poem. :c I'm sorry. xD *lame* Where'd the apple come from? And why is it waiting for it to fall? It's in the speaker's hand, in which case, it's not waiting for it to fall off a tree to indicate winter is here.

I let go of summer when the fox sprang
from the bushes, and by the time it hit
the ground, the rabbit was gone.

I just really love how this ended. xD YAY WHITE RABBIT. <3

So you have some really good moments in this! I think with some tweaking, you'd have a fabulous gem. It's a wonderful, clever piece you have. I'm glad I got the chance to read it!

Keep writing!

Jabber, the One and Only!

Hi there, Ed. I haven't seen you in a while.
I liked this. It's always refreshing to see simplicity in poetry, while most poets use long words and complicated sentences. I always enjoyed that about your poetry: you got to the point, but nothing was lacking.

Its cold out now, the wind strips me
of my fingers as my arms fold and smack
together.

I remember summer, fireflies wrapping
their red glow into a cricket's song, hanging
there in the air, together.

I wonder if you meant to end both consecutive stanzas with "together" or if it was just a coincidence? I would take the "together" in the second stanza out. It really doesn't do anything there and just seems repetitive.
But wow, "the wind strips me of my fingers" and "fireflies wrapping their red glow into a cricket's song"... Not only is there very strong contrast here, but your imagery is fantastic.

It was a time when the ruffles of a rabbit
stired dead leaves from bushes, as it ran
away from a fox and then froze at my feet.

I agree with Mustard; I have a hard time picturing the "ruffles" of a rabbit. But I liked that you used the word "froze" in an image of summer -- further contrast and it really helps tie in the two seperate ideas of summer and winter in this poem.

I saw winter before me, shaking white hairs
from its sheding body, each time one landed
it got a little colder, the sky and ground
slowly merged through the snow.

That comma after "body" should be a semicolon. I like how the rabbit is a metaphor for the seasons (now I see just exactly how "froze" in the previous stanza works, which makes me like it even more).

Its black eyes watched the apple in my hand,
waiting for the gentlest wind to bring the fall.

Not really understanding what the apple is referring to? I just don't think this stanza is even necessary. It's just there and it doesn't really do anything for your poem.

I let go of summer when the fox sprang
from the bushes, and by the time it hit
the ground, the rabbit was gone.

Now the fox... Is that a metaphor for time? I'm not really getting what that's referring to either. But now the apple... is that summer? (I'm assuming that's what was hitting the ground?) I like the "I let go of summer" bit, but I think you have too many symbols (rabbit, fox, apple) and it's not really clear what they all mean.


That said, I liked the tone of your poem, the melancholy of time passing into another season. This poem especially struck me because it snowed where I live yesterday (yup, snow in October).
Anyway, it's good to see something again from you, Ed, and I hope to see you and your writing around more often.

Hey Ed. I haven't talked to you or seen your work in like a year now. Woahh. I saw this on the homepage and I figured I'd take a look.

I really liked this, it's interesting. The way you put this is just great. I can't really explain it. I like your style of writing, the voice, the description, I just love it. I'll be checking out your other work and hoping to see more.

- Justis

I love your writing. This is new for me, being a new writer. I find its something that inspires me. I put my life into my work, no matter what its like. And from the looks of it so do you. You write something that all of us can relate to, and I like that. Keep up the good work, and if you possibly have time, could you take a glance at my first peice of work?
Thnx always,
~rosey

Hello there,

This is a nice piece you have. It's one of my favorites I've read in a while, actually. As a result, I don't have quite as much to say as I would've liked, but I have a few things.

The first thing to watch is your flow and word choice. You do a good job overall, and the edits you've done made big improvements, but there are still a few odd points.

the wind strips me
of my fingers as my arms fold and smack
together, I shiver.

Here it's not so much your word choice as your punctuation choice. The comma creates an odd clunky flow here, because the thoughts are separate, but we try to put them together because they're in the same sentence. I personally prefer:

Its cold out now, the wind strips me
of my fingers as my arms fold and smack
together.
I shiver.

Making it a period creates a pause which works better with the flow and feeling this section is working for.

It was a time when a ruffling rabbit
stired dead leaves from bushes, as it ran
away from a fox and then froze at my feet.

Again, this seems like too much for one sentence. It's conceptually fantastic, but the length distracts from the power of the image.

The other word-choice issue I encountered is that you have a whole new layer of depth available with your descriptions, but you aren't using that layer. Your adjectives right now are descriptions of what you want to describe, so they complete their basic job, but if you make your descriptions themselves joined with the meaning of the poem, it will give your message that much more kick. Your adjectives are as important to your concept as any other part of your poem, make the most use possible out of them.

It's interesting what you have here, with the human isolation that tends to accompany winter imagery next to the personification of season and inclusion of non-human animal relationships. It's beautiful and effective. Your poetry seems to have grown during your time away. I would love to see more of it around.

Cheers,
Shade

Hey there! I'm Tennis, newly returned long-time YWS-er, after a two year hiatus. Poetry is my specialty, and the title of your piece intrigued me. Thus, allow the reviewing to begin!

Its cold out now, the wind strips me
of my fingers as my arms fold and smack
together, I shiver. Interesting image of arms "smacking" together

I remember summer, fireflies wrapping
their glow into a cricket's song,
weighing on me with the humid air.

It was a time when a ruffling rabbit I love the description of a rabbit as ruffling. It fits perfectly.
stired stirred dead leaves from bushes, as it ran
away from a fox and then froze at my feet.

I saw winter before me, shaking white hairs
from its sheding sheddingbody, each time one landed
it got a little colder, the sky and ground
slowly merged through the snow.

Its black eyes watched my hands,
waiting for the slightest movement, the gentlest
wind, to bring the fall. beautiful stanza

I gave up and let go of summer when the fox
sprung from the bushes. And by the time I hit
the ground, the rabbit was gone.
what an ending!

Overall:
This work is a piece of art. I'm going to keep rereading it because I've fallen in love with the poem. I hope you don't mind if I take a look at some of your other work. I have absolutely nothing negative to say for it at all, and the little piddly things I pointed out are nothing serious and were probably just typos. I love it when I find a poem that I can connect to and utter to myself out loud on YWS, it just goes to show how many talented individuals there are out there. Keep writing and I will keep reading. Once again, congratulations on sculpting such a fine conjunction of words that flow like a hidden stream.
10/10

- Tennis