the birdcage (around the city)

This is pretty good... for a rookie

yellow canary cabs
shuffle around corners
to other corners

well, you know the form. In a poem this short, every word has to be perfectly placed, and this stanza displays that you have an eye for structure and a mastery of language. In other words, this stanza stands out as probably the strongest, in image and in energy. The repetition of corners worked really well: you painted an image of endless corners, like the NYC I'm pretty sure you describe.

and pushpin hydrants
spray a fine mist
onto the sidewalk

this stanza is the weakest. you don't need 'and' in the first line, the second line is just awful compared to anything in the first stanza. Spray, fine, and mist? Its just too obvious and it lacks the quality of what you've written before. and onto the sidewalk just seems boring.

where newspapers
clump together
like wet feathers

i don't think you need the 'where' in the first line, otherwise I like how you come back to the bird image, that works really, really well.

Well, Hannah pretty much nailed all the stuff I'd tweak with it, but in the end this remains an excellent, strong work. You don't stray from the theme and your descriptions are unexpected, though lovely. I can't wait to see what you post next! Thanks for sharing this with us.

–antimelrose

Thanks for reading Biffle and Classy!

This is a really interesting concept! Where'd you get the idea? A dream? Anyway, as captain.classy said, the first stanza is good but the second one just confuses me. I loved how you described the newspaper, pure genious. I hope you have a LOT more like this up your sleeve! Kudos

Biffle

Thanks Hannah! I agree with your title suggestion. Totally. Also, I've been inspire to expand the piece with more bird-like metaphors. Maybe you'll see the re-draft later.

Hi, Sealegs! ^_^ I've seen you around so I thought I would stop in to review~

First of all, I like this idea. However, after looking back at the title, I think you could do without the part in parentheses. It helps to clear it up for the reader, that's for sure, but I think that it would be nicer if you could make it more subtle and perhaps just put a few more hints into the body of the poem.

One thing that I noticed that I liked right away was in this stanza:

where newspapers
clump together
like wet feathers

I must say, I really enjoyed this!

The first stanza pretty much clears up any confusion the title has given off.

The second stanza kind of adds to the confusion. You were talking about birds, and suddenly you migrated (pun intended) to pushpins and mist? What does that have to do with birds? Be sure to stick to your original metaphor when you're writing metaphor poems.

The third stanza does so great for the visual aspect of this poem. I could picture the wet feathers and newspaper. Just beautiful lines. Well done!

Keep writing, Classy.