Hi there vampricone6783! Lim here with a short review.
I thought this was an interesting little collection, with quite a bit of delight in it, as well as some insight, especially in the poem on skeletons.
Subject, Themes, Narrative
The seasonal poems each seem to capture a particular mood for the season they address. The one on fall has a spooky atmosphere, whereas the one on winter has a heartwarming nostalgic sort of atmosphere. I felt a bit jarred by the transition from season to season at times, as each seems to begin and end in a wildly different way. For instance ‘Fall’ ends ominously, saying that “the time for laughter and smiles has been replaced”, but then ‘Winter’ begins suddenly cheery again.
‘Skeletons’ was my favourite in terms of narrative. I hadn’t expected the turn in “..and maybe,the skeletons cry in their coffins”, so it was interesting for me to read. I like the mystery that is built up around skeletons, despite there also being concrete details there about how they cry and laugh.
‘A vampire’s love’, as well as ‘Demons and their secrets’ have the same general narrative as skeletons, but I found them a bit more predictable.
Language and Imagery
Some of the images in the seasonal poems made me smile, for instance, “a yellow,lemony ball “, “like polka dots in a child's painting” and “a golden brown luster”. The last one in particular makes the food sound delicious. I felt a little jarred reading the inferno imagery in the summer poem, as it seems to imply a very destructive connotation but the rest of the poem seems very cheery. I also noticed there seemed to be a lot of similes being used one after another. Do you think there are other ways you could describe something like a snowflake besides similes?
In terms of favourite lines, I really liked: “Winter is cold, but it has its blessings.” – it’s simple but somehow sweet.
As for the spooky poems, the image “an awful,high-pitched,chittery sound” was really vivid to me and made me imagined the kind of sound effects video games usually give to skeletons. The line “We cannot deny the fact that we too,will become skeletons.” also made me feel spooked and was delightfully ominous.
The last two pieces feel a lot more like a short story rather than poetry. They kind of remind me of flavour text in a game, or a wiki entry for a fantasy series.
They will give up their humanity for them,turning themselves into demons of the night,leaving their family and friends behind,forgetting the life they've always known in order to provide for others.
This is all literal, without much of a rhythm, so it gives me the impression that it’s exposition for some other story.
Structure and Sound
Some of the tense changes I found kind of confusing to read. For instance, in “Flowers are blooming and the sun shines.”, “Flowers are blooming” is in present continuous tense while “the sun shines” is in present simple tense, yet they are both bound by “and”.
Behind those sharp claws,evil snarls,and ugly claws,lie secrets.
I wasn’t sure why ‘claws’ was repeated twice here?
There were some sound devices here and there that I liked.
Skeletons scare us all,with their leering faces and long,sharp claws.
The consonance and assonance in “sk(eletons), sc(are) . . . l(eering) . . . l(ong) . . .”, as well as the partial rhyme between all/claws was really neat.
Kids walk on dead leaves that crunch under their feet.
I liked the rhythm in this line. There seemed to be some regularity there with “kids walk” and “dead leaves” both being pairs of stressed syllables, so there was a beat that carried through this part of the poem.
That’s all
Hopefully some of this feedback was helpful, and feel free to ask for clarification or extra feedback on anything.
Cheers!
-Lim
Points: 26604
Reviews: 470
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