My Home- Alaska

Huh. I see it’s already been edited superficially in the first way that I would have suggested, but I am going to echo Rydia here in saying you need to take it even further. She’s already given you a lot of extremely helpful suggestions, so I will sit here and shout “listen to her!” and give you a little bit more to chew on.

Please do take all the questions out. You’re wondering, but we don’t need to know that. That’s what you were feeling like when you wrote it, but that doesn’t necessarily have to directly transfer to the page. What needs to transfer is your raw feelings and emotions. That’s what poetry is REALLY good at, and why we continue to pursue this form even as prose exists to support articles.

You want to evoke the love of Alaska in people who have never even been there.
You want to teach them the taste of salmon even if they’ve never let it pass their lips.

I’d suggest, to get into the frame of mind necessary to pull this out, a lot of associative writing in preparation. Write down every word you can think of that relates to the taste of salmon.

I once asked someone to describe cake frosting to me when I was tutoring. It’s simple. Everyone knows frosting, and we use it to describe other things, but how do we describe cake frosting? He got into the vanilla, but that was too obvious. What about vanilla? How does is shine? What does it feel like? He finally got to compare it to a melting candle, which seemed reasonable to me. Reach for these cross-material comparisons to get us all in on the love that you’re trying to communicate. Use similes and metaphors to compare the unknown to the known so we can come to know Alaska.

In addition, try crossing senses. What does the taste of salmon feel like? By using more visceral comparisons, you get the reader’s body involved, and they’ll feel your poem more than process it.

Good luck. It’s so difficult. We use words to describe things that in reality have no words, so it’s an effort to do any of this.

PM me if you have any questions or comments on my review (‘cause I don’t get notifications of replies to reviews), and if you post another edit. Good luck, good luck, good luck!

Hello! We met briefly before and I decided I'd like to review a piece by you and your poem was sitting there just waiting to be picked on.

1. I'm reviewing the edited version as you've made some lovely improvements and that seems like the best way to go about this!

2. At the moment your format is very question and answer and that's nice but I'm not sure it's as effective as it could be. I'd like to see this poem be more active with lines that are a little shorter and more poetic. You're knew to poetry so I'll not try to blow your mind as this is something you'll pick up in steady steps, but my number one piece of advice is: make ever word count. You get a limited number of them in poetry, far less than you would in a novel or script, or even an article. Because of this you'll find poets construct their lines in different way and they condense their sentences until only the vital components remain.

Let's have a look at one of your lines...

Smell of the ocean that drifts to my porch and lingers on my clothing.

Hi there.

Welcome to YWS. I hope to see you around here more, and more of your writing, too. =)

I like that you take time to describe things. Some young writers make the mistake of skimming over things that could really make powerful images. You have detailed language. I especially like "lingers on my clothing." It's the kind of small detail that really makes a poem a poem.

That being said, you've still got a ways to go to make this a really solid poem.
Repetition is a poetic device, and used in small quantities, can supplement a poem. In this instance, however, it distracts the reader from the important part of the poem: the lovely images at the ends of the very long lines.

It's actually quite an easy problem to fix. If you take away the "Why do I love it so much?'s" the "Maybe it is the's," the "It could be's," and the "Could it be's," it becomes a more poetic and manageable list of images.

"The soft bed of moss that
covers the ground,
the ocean scent that drifts
to my porch to linger on my clothes,
the abundant salmon living
in the streams"

that is an example of how I would rewrite your first stanza. It's not perfect, but you are the author, and it's your job to find perfection in this poem. I suggest listing the images, and making them escalate into your last line: "Home. Home sweet home."
Also, while the wording of many of your images is quite lovely, you use a cliche in the second to last line. "Home is where the heart is" is a saying that is old and tired. Find a new way to say these old words that makes the reader gasp in appreciation (or at least sit back from their laptop and go "huh. Interesting").

It was a pleasure to review your piece. I hope to see more of your work around this site. Happy writing.

Why do I love it so much?
Maybe it is the soft bed of moss that covers the ground in the forest,
Maybe it is the smell of the ocean that drifts to my porch and lingers on my clothing.
Maybe it is the endless supply of salmon and that I practically live off of it when I'm there.

Why do I love it so much?
It could be the kindness shown my all who reside there,
It could be because I love my family and friends that live there,
It could be anything.

Why do I love it so much?
Could it be the intensly snowy winter that most who live there despise?
Could it be the feeling of the salty wind that throws my hair around in the skiff?
Could it be the simple fact that it is home and that is where my heart will always be.
Home. Home sweet home.

Hello!
Sorry that your whole things in here but my computers been doing this for weeks but it should soon be sorted out.

Anyway I'll review now!
I've always liked Alaska its a beautiful place.

You've used a good variety of descriptions and words and this is shown in your vocabulary.
The bigger your vocabulary is the more you're writing will benefit.

I loved the home sweet home ending and I shall be certain to like this piece of work.
Well done