•-• • -••• • -•-• -•-• •- (Rebecca)

I may have mentioned your poem around the site recently because it's still one of my favorite poetry ideas Que!

Hey there, Querencia!


Oooh, Morse code; I wish I understood it better, but you do a great job of providing translations here (even in the title, you specify the Morse code for Rebecca). It serves masterfully as an extended metaphor, holding together the entire poem in a sturdy frame. Though such connections are best demonstrated towards the ending, the rest of the poem is no less impressive. The opening stanza does its job well - it begins the metaphor and specifies its relationship to the poor state of the narrator, whose life is fractured enough that it can be represented in scattered code. Afterwards, the second stanza adds a lot of emotional weight, thanks to the ever-familiar, extremely well-known SOS, indicating the depression/suicidal thoughts of the narrator. A common theme in literature, you take a unique spin on it by relating it to dots and dashes, and I applaud you for doing such.

The third stanza, in comparison to the others, is more disconnected and longer, but also effective. The narrator's direct comparisons to the titantic grant a blunt tone. However, as she's chosen to enter a path that she knew would lead to their own demise, whereas the crew/passengers of the titanic were blissfully ignorant of their own peril, your narrator becomes more sympathetic and a tragic figure. The latter may have had no choice but to sail, indicating that an even worse option than depression might have originally awaited her. Hence, her plea in the final stanza is particularly heartfelt and strong (though, admittedly, I'm not sure that "letters" is appropriate, considering that this is Morse code, which has its own terminology, although letters, given the metaphor, could refer to the narrator's actions and words to convey a cry for help, as she clearly knows what the Morse code means. So yeah, it works pretty well, actually.). *** --- *-* translate to, aptly, S O R, as you expand upon in the last three lines. The growing personal nature of those last lines is my favorite part, ending the poem on a final note that exemplifies her struggle to escape that sinking ship of her land by the efforts of as many helping hands as she can muster, while also tying it back to the title. I hope that she can find the help that she needs, or at least find her spirit. So, all in all, this is a remarkable and sad poem, and I enjoyed reading it from start to finish; well done!

P.S.: This is my 50th and final review for RevMo, so now I'm going to run around and scream in joy.

The morse code idea is so cool

I love the concept of this poem -- I honestly want to steal the morse code idea now! Very clever. I feel like you could have worked a bit more of it in even without even using the code itself (for instance by talking about dashes, or on/off, or switches etc). I don't think that the last stanza where you change up the code is very accessible to readers who don't know morse code. It's also a bit difficult to have flow in a poem that has symbols -- I'm not sure how to remedy that except maybe putting the word versions of the code in parenthesis like dot dot dot dash dash dash dot dot dot etc. The Titanic also has a lot of other language and imagery pieces that could be worked with and is a perfect metaphor to go with the morse code details.

Overall the concept for the poem was really neat, but for me the actual flow of the poem was a little difficult and I think you can really emphasize the morse code bits more by using dashes and dots as like symbols. The two middle stanzas aren't quite as strong as the first in terms of working in morse code details and flow.

"all i ever learned was" -- is a bit awkward of a way to begin the stanza. Changing it to "i never learned more than" or "all i can say is" might be a little less clunky. The last three lines too just sound a bit awkward to me when reading outloud. The speaker for some reason comes off as a bit whiny rather than desperate. Maybe because the focus keeps going to others rather than speaker's emotions. The other line I had issue with was "but that's not how it went" -- for me this line just reads again like the speaker is correcting the reader rather than just describing their life which doesn't make it easy to connect with what the speaker's describing.

I liked the last three lines a lot where you connect the titanic and the morse code bits together -- I also thought the minimal punctuation choices were perfect for a piece like this.

Good luck in future editing and writing!

~alliyah

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, I believe the biggest weakness of this piece is that it relies so heavily on Morse Code, and while I do think it's a pretty nifty thing to employ in this piece with how it ties into the erratic feeling cited in the first line, it makes this poem inaccessible for those who have no knowledge of Morse Code or only know SOS in it.

This is a pretty simple enough issue to fix: just add annotations or an explanation of the code used at the end so that readers who don't know Morse Code can see what the dots and dashes stand for without having to run elsewhere, because if you send your readers running for Google, they might not make the return trip to your poem.

With that said, considering one of the ideas mentioned in this poem is not knowing enough Morse to signal SOR, I'm wondering why SOR is in Morse because it's contradictory to present it in Morse when the narrator just before then laments about not knowing the letters.

Overall though, that aside, the ideas flowed smoothly, and I think you did a good job developing them throughout this. I particularly liked the contrast to the Titanic, and the modified repetition in the ending really works.

Hi there! Here to leave a review

Firstly, I really like how you've structured your poem. The very first line, "my life feels erratic" perfectly mirrors the erratic and randomised structure the poem has. It makes the poem feel like an illusion the story and therefore conveys the message of the poem more strongly.

"i'm drowning."

Drowning in what? This is a little confusing and ambiguous, but it leaves room for many different interpretations. I would suggest, however, making it a little less ambiguous and reference to what the narrator is drowning in. Is it an emotion, her thoughts etc?

Also, I know I've seen it a lot with poetry on the website, but using capital letters will create a much more sophisticated and neat-looking poem. I'm a bit of a grammar nazi, and so all types of grammar have to be perfect, but this is up to you. Adding capital letters where necessary will, in my opinion, create a more polished overall look.

The last stanza is a bit confusing. It starts off with "i wish i knew the letters", but somehow she knows what "••• --- •••" stands for as she goes on to say how she wants it to change. This doesn't make sense, but I'm sure if you spent time rewording this section, it will make more sense e.g. if she does know what "••• --- •••" stands for, then alter the first line as it contradicts it.

Other than that, I really like this poem. It has a lot of emotion within it which allows for a deep connection between the narrator and the reader. I hope my review has helped you to improve.

KayLou1609

Hi there Querencia. This is Kays here delving in for a review on the last day of RevMo and the last day of Review Week so let's not waste any time at all since I woke up later than I'd like to have today and delve right in.

I realize that I don't know Morse Code and I'm reading this piece anyway but I'll try my best to decipher the meaning. What I'm going to suggest to make this more accessible both to the general public and reviewers is to add in the meaning of all these dots and dashes for those who don't already know Morse Code and for those who don't want to learn all of Morse Code to understand this because that is a little problematic for a single poem. I realize that as the author, you understand what these dots and dashes mean but the rest of us probably don't unless we've taken an interest in that before so perhaps put the meanings of the dots in dashes in italics beside those lines or perhaps put the intended lines if the dots and dashes were in words in parentheses beside or underneath them because that's greatly helpful.

I also realize that I assumed this to be an S.O.S. signal and for the title to be S.O.S. (Rebecca) and not the Morse Code part and then (Rebecca) which to be honest I can't tell who Rebecca is. Is this a real person? I hope this Rebecca isn't real. My first most logical thought of who Rebecca is at this point however is a character from your Last Man Standing novel since I've seen people write poetry based off their own novels before which is always interesting and I'm sure readers of that novel can appreciate that if so. I can see that the first set of Morse Code stands for 'I'm drowning' and the second stands for...'save our Rebecca'? Although I have to say that wasn't all that clear at first.

I'm drowning...literally...is this in the perspective of the boat? I also didn't realize that at first but as of now that seems to be the case seeing as Rebecca is...the person on the boat and the speaker...is the boat? Maybe this isn't your Last Man Standing after all but I do have to say that the themes and intended interpretation are hard to find without digging into the work and I'm not even sure if I'm correct because that's my own interpretation of this. There's a bit of a lack of imagery although the Titanic simile is nice there's not a whole lot here--more sensory details to add in with the voice of this which is the main part driving/powering the poem at this point would be nice.

While I like the concept of this, there's room for more clarity and there's also room for more imagery and with those two added in I can see the execution being even stronger although the clarity isn't...that bad? I like subtle hints and I like judging from context clues and I like mystery but this took me a couple of reads to understand which is something that I wanted to let-know about. Anyway, nice job on what's done well and I hope my interpretation isn't deadly off but we'll see, haha.

If you have any questions, don't be afraid to ask! I hope I helped and have a great day.