The Escape

Hey there, this is a neat poem! I like the slightly old-fashioned wording and setting, especially the first stanza, although I feel like there could be some more detail there - what exactly are the memories that "smell sweet"? Can you be more specific than just "sweet"? (Give me more imagery! I want to be pulled into this poem, to feel like I'm there.)

Now, I was very confused the first few times I read this, because the poem starts out describing this castle as being a pretty nice place. The narrator says that it's their castle, which implies that they are in charge of it and therefore not a prisoner, and it's full of "memories so sweet", so it seems like it must be their home. Because of this, I didn't think anything of it having an iron gate, and when I read the line:

where I made my great escape

I thought it must mean that the narrator had escaped from somewhere else and had come back to their home, this castle. So I was very confused when the next stanza seemed to be describing that same castle (because no other place had been mentioned yet) as being a claustrophobic, prison-like place. I would recommend getting rid of the stuff describing the castle as nice (you could maybe use it to describe the new place the narrator is going to), and either explaining why the narrator's castle is so awful even thought they're in charge, or just having the castle not be theirs. It might also be good to reword the line "where I made my great escape" to be more clear, something like "from which I finally escaped" or "I will escape from here", or keep that line as it is but change "for the halls" in the next stanza to "from the halls".

I like the second stanza, especially the way you made the lines short to make them feel as claustrophobic to read as the narrow halls they describe. However, I'm not sure why you've capitalized the words "Narrow" and "Tight" (also "Escape", "Blistering", "Light", and "Land" in the later stanzas). I'm guessing you wanted to emphasize them, but the random capitalization is just kinda distracting, and the words themselves should be strong enough to be important on their own.

The third stanza is a bit odd for a number of reasons, the main one being that you switched from past tense to present tense halfway through. The first time I read the poem through, I thought it mean that the guards are sitting there, falling asleep while they wait for the narrator to escape, but the narrator has actually already escaped (they described their escape in the past tense in the first stanza). I recommend you pick a tense and stick to it for the whole poem, or, if you actually do want to describe the guards waiting for something that's already happened, make it much clearer that that is what is happening. You could say something like "while I ran through the forest, the guards still stood waiting, unaware of my escape". The other thing that confused me here is that these guards weren't mentioned at all before this part and are never mentioned again, but if the narrator feels imprisoned in the castle then being guarded is going to be a big part of that. It might make sense to mention the guards earlier on in the poem, maybe say that the iron gate is guarded and won't let the narrator leave, that sort of thing.

The fourth stanza is nice, I really like the alliteration of B's and S's and I especially like the phrase:

splashes of Light

although I will say again that I think the capitalisation of "Light" is kind of off-putting and unnecessary. One thing I noticed is that you use punctuation in the one line

Summer's Blistering. Burning. Beats.

but you don't use punctuation anywhere else in the poem. It generally makes a poem feel more cohesive if you use the same style throughout, so if you want to use punctuation here, it would make sense to use it normally in the rest of the poem.

The last stanza is a nice conlusion, looking towards the narrator's new destination, but it kind of feels like it comes out of nowhere - I didn't know that this "Land" even existed, but the narrator seems to have heard of it before, and was perhaps planning to find it all along. Also, where did this tower come from? Upon rereading, I can guess that you must be talking about a tower in the castle, but perhaps that should be mentioned when describing the castle, or just say that the land was "a blur from the castle". Also, I don't really know how to imagine this land other than that it's big (and I like the use of the word "expanse", it really helps with the feeling of sudden freedom and possibility that the narrator must be feeling after escaping).

Overall, this is a cool story poem, but it would benefit from more imagery and other poetic devices like the alliteration you used in the fourth stanza, and some rephrasing to make it more obvous what is happening in the story. Also, perhaps it could elaborate more on why exactly the narrator wants to escape, and why they haven't escaped before now (is it the guards? or they used to like the castle but only recently realized that they wanted to leave?). All right, hope this is helpful!

Hi there @Redbox275 I am here to do a review on your poem, Now lets get started.

What I am not shore about

Okay I am not shore what to think of the first line, its not really making much sens to me, I think it mite be the way you spelt the very first word, I'm not shore.

Atop a hill my castle stood

okay it was this line I am going to put it in suggestions and see if I can ficks it a bit to make it better then it is right now.

Suggestions

1: At the top of a hill my castle stood
What I like about it

okay other then that one thing this is really good I think, I like your sens of riming things that is really good, I like reading poems with really good detail and riming, and I feel like that is what you had here, Nice poem you don't really come across a lot of poems that are really good with riming like this, I feel like it all mad a lot of sens, it was just one line that needed work I feel, also I hope that the suggestion helps you.

So that is all that I can say, If i came a cross as being to hard on you I am really really sorry about it, I do not mean to be harsh about the poem here, pleas for give me if I did, So keep up the grate poem writing I think your grate at it.

@EagleFly out to seek and kill