Summer

Hi there, Jkwriting.

Here is my honest opinion. It's filled with good intentions.

If you're going to title this work summer, I'd expect this poem to be filled with more summer images. It doesn't have to be too many, but perhaps if you want to keep the poem as it is, you should find a more appropriate title for it. Perhaps "End of Summer" or something to that effect.

You use images in your poem, which is a good start. I like that you compare unlike things and make connections, but some of them need a little work.

For example, an eagle represents bravery, courage, beauty... basically, good things. However, you say that you wish qualms could spread like eagles' wings, and the comparison of eagles to qualms doesn't make sense to me. I think you should find a more appropriate bird to compare your qualms to. Perhaps a scavenger bird, like a vulture, a raven, or hey, even a magpie. =) Basically, I think that a bird with a more negative connotation would serve the poem better.

Though I know that you're using a fixed pattern for this poem, many of your rhymes sound forced. I think you should figure out what you want to say before you write the poem, and add rhymes after. Don't let the rhyme scheme control your language.

An Ottava Rima is a poem of eight eleven syllable lines (unless you intend to use the version used in 1600 England, which uses ten syllables per line). Not all of your lines contain eleven syllables (most contain ten, but they all need to be the same); if you're going to advertise a poem as a certain form, try to adhere to it as much as you can.

I hope that this review was helpful to you. Happy writing!

When deep within my heart, afflictions ring,
I gaze to the sky, and to myself I think:
If my qualms could spread like an eagle's wing,
And fly to the sky's limit, soar past its brink,

I'd be free, would sing, could do anything,
With summer's promising skies, orange and pink.
But the first leaf falls and I feel a chill.
Dreams shattered, hopes scattered, a paining shrill.