This Time Today

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Hi i am poem; now here is your review.

I liked it, but it was a bit long, and seemed to drag out.
In the first stanza it took me a second to figure out what you were saying; could you be a bit clearer?
You did a good job staying in topic throughout the poem; very well dove for such a long poem.
Overall i really liked it.

Hannah -

This was an interesting poem. Though a few of your lines are fresh and stimulating, I think that you're walking a very thin line by using Shakespearean language and a rhyme scheme. I haven't read any of your poetry before. I don't know if this is how you usually write poetry, or if this was an experiment, or if you usually don't write poetry at all. Regardless, a suggestion: keep away from rhyming poetry. It's rigid and clunky and extremely difficult to pull off without sounding childish and bleh. I think iambic pentameters and villanelles and sonnets should be left to Shakespeare and Frost and their sort of ilk. I just don't get the same experience reading a rhyming poem that I would get reading a nonrhyming counterpart. It feels like your message was buried under the wordplay.

I got a strong impression of The Phantom Tollbooth from this piece. Mainly because you're decision to represent 'logic' and 'whim' as people (re: Rhyme and Reason). So it was difficult to treat this piece seriously. I also noticed that you were somewhat inconsistant with your use of Shakespearean language -- the first half seems written in a fairly modern sense, and then you start reaching for those wonderfully archaic words like 'fie' and cutting out syllables with the use of apostrophes. That was kind of annoying.

I see my logic behind bars.
I put her there,
her auburn hair,
her pale blue eyes like burning stars.

I don't like how you gave your logic specific physical attributes. It seems out of place and kind of jarring. Also, comparing eyes to burning stars has been done before.

"What now?" I say and turn the cranks,
"I should turn back?
We're at the crack
of Armageddon? Where's my thanks?"

I didn't like this stanza. I found the first line awkward. Consider, "I say as I turn the cranks". The rest is just kind of ho-hum.

Her strength drenched with betrayal, dew,
hes'tation's blood,
she envies mud.
My options have become but few.

I liked this stanza, except for the fact that you put an apostrophe in hesitation to kill the 'i'. It's a cheap, showy trick, serving little purpose. I'm not sure about the last line...

"Oh, Logic," then I sneer at she,
"I follow Whim
and worship him!
You won't prevail -- I have the key."

The fact that you said 'she' instead of 'her' is kind of obnoxious. Also, have you read the comic strip Calvin and Hobbes? If you have, then you know that in some of the anthologies, Bill Waterson does little story poems like this one. Overdramatic and drawn out. This is what this feels like here. It's a mostly boring internal dialogue, overblown and a little too exaggerated for my taste.

What lies she spits from thin, red lips
formed like a rose
'neath up-turned nose!
I see her falsehood in her hips.

Loved this! Great stanza! Except for the "'neath"...

"Fie, fie!" I whisper, turn away,
"You hateful hag!
Of fibs you brag!
I'll still love him, this time today."

Kind of a so-so ending. Leaves me feeling unfulfilled.

Sorry for being a bit harsh. I guess this just isn't my kind of poem. If you were being tongue-in-cheek, then you can discount a lot of the criticism I gave. I think that your fiction is great, Hannah, but if this is how you usually write poetry, I think you definately have room to improve. Reading poetry is the best way to improve your own. Try some Sylvia Plath. Out of curiousity is an 8-4-4-8 syllable structure called anything specific or is it a creation of your own?

Anyway, happy writing!

-Kylan

Wow, this is magnificent and I could totally understand what the narrator felt. I would write more but I have to go eat dinner so bye and keep up the writing. Once again this was a wonderful poem.

Hi Hannah! June here!

The rhyme you used in this gave this poem a semi-fun way of reading. The content of this seems somewhat on the sober side, but it has a slight hint of humor to it, thanks to the rhyme. Nice job .

Now. Let's see :

She screams and scratches at the steel

and yells at me:

"Please, stop!" -- her plea.

I put her on the torture wheel.

I know this is a totally nit-picky thing to mention, dear, but! The middle lines here kind of threw me off in this stanza.

I think that's because in dialogue, if we are to say something like: ' She yells at me, "Stop!" ', then there's no reason to add "she yelled" afterwards, is there? I'm not necessarily saying that this is what you've said here, but I think that using "her plea" like that is throwing a bit of deadwood in the pot.

However! If you threw and adjective in there, to describe her plea, then this would be perfect, although it would lengthen the line, dear.


Moving on...

Her strength drenched with betrayal, dew,

hesitation's blood,

she envies mud.

My options have become but few.

Now, dear, I understand that your main focus here was rhyme, but! The line She envies mud is sounding like it was thrown in there for rhyme and rhyme alone.

This could definitely work if the audience thought about it-- seeing that if she's imprisoned, and envies what she would normally hate, she would give anything to take its place, but, your preceding and following lines are easy to interpret and understand with little or no thought on their part, bringing a bit of confusion for us here, dear.

So! In my opinion, I think it should be substituted with a line that has more easy connectivity to the poem, dear. Need a rhyme? Go here: http://rhyme.poetry.com/



Overall, this was great. It's easy to see the narrator's disgust and angst in this. I think that the ending could use a little bit of polishing, dear. It sounds a little bit incomplete, almost as if the situation ended all too suddenly. More, I say, I want more!

Brilliant job with this Hannah; excellent rhyme, great play on words. Keep it up!

Juniper

Hi, Peanut here! I'm here to review your poetry today!

"What good," she asks, "will fighting do?
It still will fail.
Once more, you'll wail
and dredge up old wounds torn anew."

Instead of saying 'It still will fail', I would say 'It will still fail'. I think It sounds a little better.

She screams and scratches at the steel
and yells at me:
"Please, stop!" -- her plea.
I put her on the torture wheel.

My favorite stanza. I loved it! It was so passionate and emotional. I loved how you made it look like you were the bad guy instead of the other way around, yet, you were only doing it for love. How did that go? Kidding . Sometimes I can't help it. Sorry.

[spoiler]11/10... I absolutely loved it, and I didn't want it to end! [/spoiler]

Wow, I will not review this (sorry) but I loved it all! Thats all I'm here to say.