Young Writers Society

Hello there,

first, I'm very sorry for your loss -- dog's can be such good companions. I'm glad you were able to make a poem in your dog's tribute.

So I have a few thoughts on your poem.

First, I think overall the poem could be a bit more concise in order to give a more impactful message. For instance, there were a few pieces of information you give that felt a bit random and maybe distracting from the overall message of the piece.
The two places I saw this were 1) The detail about the wedding and 2) the detail about the corgi being bulky and slim (for some reason that just read really awkwardly to me, although I know that is how corgis look).

I notice you capitalize the beginning of every line, for me this made the lines that just had one word seem a bit stilted but gave them a lot of emphasis. You may want to experiment with different capitalization methods to make the story run a bit more smoothly without creating that tension and break at each new line with a capital letter - here's an article about capitalization in poetry if you'd like more ideas: Capitalization in Poetry

My other small critique is that I would love if you developed the imagery a bit more. You use the image of the cornfields like 4 times in this piece, but it doesn't really change. I would love if you added more visual details either about the dog or the surroundings. Also I think sharing some memories that the speaker had with the dog might be a wonderful way to build even more emotional connection for the reader.

Overall, I could tell this was a heartfelt piece and that is certainly what poetry is supposed to be (in my opinion). Thank you for sharing your poem! Please let me know if you have any questions with my review.

~alliyah

Hi! I'm gonna *try* to give you a helpful review today!

So this is a gorgeous poem, but the first thing I notice is that there are no separate stanzas, but I don't know why I'm even saying anything about that because I can't format! xD

I get the impression that I should know what a Blue Merle is, but I don't so for now I'm just assuming that it is a breed of corgi. I can't quite tell whether this is a real dog or the image of one that already, um, passed. Bulky but slim seemed contradictory, but it works at the same time.

Well, I'm going to stop talking now. Great poem and keep writing!

Hello there and happy RevMo (even if I am a bit late to the reviewing party)! I, a bold Knight of the Green Room, am here today to review you.

With that said, first impressions first, I noticed that the lines of your poem are quite a bit spaced out, and it looks like you've run into a formatting snafu with the text editor. There are a few ways to fix this, and this article goes over multiple methods in-depth, though this one is also really good.

As far as the poem itself goes, this was very literal, and very much on the telling side of the show-vs-tell spectrum. One example of this is how the only concrete descriptions we have of the dog in question is that she is a blue merle, she has short corgi legs, and her back is silvery in color. The other physical description of her being bulky but slim is too vague to really visualize, especially since those two descriptors are usually polar opposites and not used together.

This appears to be a more personal poem, so I don't want to get too much into critiquing the structure, but I think this piece would definitely benefit from more specific descriptions that will help your readers visualize what a blue merle is without actually stating that she is a blue merle (mainly because not a lot of people will know what a blue merle is unless they're familiar with coat variations).