All Other Feelings

Mornin’, Llamas.

This piece is short and quick, so I’ll keep my review the same. I’m not too familiar with the sensation of racing [because I’m a turtle on the inside], but I do get the familiarity of running and succeeding in a running goal, so that’s what I’m going to connect with in this piece. With that in mind, I have to say that you’ve captured some very nice sensationalism in this piece, giving us sights, sounds, and smells.

I love poetic smells.

Now, you do use “smell/stench/smell” all together in the first three lines, which is a very daunting start. My first advice for you is to change two of the three to keep your word choice from being redundant and even annoying to the reader. Keep in mind that you have the ability to make the scents come through without actually saying “smell/stench/scent/aroma/fragrance”. Good poetry will be able to do that, so have a go at refreshing your word choice. The scent of leaves usually mixes with petrichor for me, so that’s a natural sensation that I don’t need to be told about to feel.

In your second stanza, I’m a bit wary of how prosaic your flow gets in the latter half: “The colorful strip of trees in the background makes me want to go faster, but I’m too tired to go any quicker.” It feels like something straight out of a short story, so I’d definitely consider trying to change this up to bring in more imagery and senses instead of just saying things flat-out. Later on, you get better about this.

I love the feelings you throw into stanza five—the racing, panting, almost aching feel of crossing your goal/finish line/cones/whatever. But that ache comes with victory because you’ve completed something, and that’s a great feeling.

Stanza three is a bit prosaic for me as well. Try to skim things down and refine your ideas to where they’re less tell/more show. Use that as a general rule of thumb in all works, and you’ll get better by the day.

Let me know if you have any questions,

-Lumi