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Hi Deanna,

I was running through the list of stars looking for someone to get my last review for our M2M duties, and pow! there you were. A fellow Star, a fellow SAJ member, and a past reviewer of my feeble works and yet I have not returned the favor. So, I opened your port and did what I always do first, read the BIO info. I find it helps me to understand better what the author may be looking for in a review. Like myself, I am most interested in opinions about story-lines and my character building skills. But I often see members here in WDC that use our forum more as a social network. (And why not it seems safe and most of the members tint there opinions with compassion and encouragement.) This being said it doesn’t make much sense to give someone my opinion on there plot. If they have used their latest posting to vent their frustration on the most recent discourse from FOX, CBS, or CNN. Then there is my self-imposed rule that if I click on someone’s port to write a review, I must read and comment on something in it. I do not go to another port because I found their content difficult or not my usual preference. I think that to grow as writers and reviewers we must embrace both the easy and the not so easy. Perhaps the not so easy may be even more important. We gain strength from working against resistance. If we only take on the easy then we will not grow.

So now I bet you are thinking, oh my this bozo (age telling here he was a clown from many years ago who did a saturday morning kids show) is going to tell me something is wrong with my portfolio. But that assumption would be completely erroneous. (Though a little more depth in your Bio would not hurt.) The surprise for me was that you are a poet, I started looking down the list of files and they were all poems, I got a bit frightened has I know little to nothing about poetry, so I feel ill equipped to comment on it. I can give the author a review of my emotion, but nothing on form, structure, rhythm, or rhyme. So there I was facing my second biggest fear, when Ding, Ding, Ding! I spotted “Where the Name came from.” So, that is how I got here! I know this has been a precarious road so far, and it’s okay to say, “Joey you are a buffoon, hold still while I find the delete button.”

I was impressed with the concept. I had not though about posting a short about where the user name came from. I don’t know why. I have seen many names on our forum and wondered just that “Why did they pick that for a handle?” And I must admit I remember thinking that same thing sometime ago when you reviewed one on my pieces from the SAJ garden. My name is so dull I think I must think of something new for myself.

So, now 427 words in six paragraphs, all full of interesting facts, perhaps interesting is the wrong word, I think Scary as hell is a better descriptor. Moreover, I think you are wise for your age(politically correct or not, at twenty-eight years you senior grants me enough experience to recognizes wisdom)

Giving yourself a remainder to be thankful for what you have. If only we all did that more often in our daily lives. That concept not withstanding, the idea of three-foot worms inside me definitely makes me itchy and I will think of it every time I go to the faucet for weeks to come. I have not done Facebook yet, (I barely have time to do the stuff I love, much less start a new siphon of time.) and I guess I missed the story of wearing meat suits. But no less your admission of where the name came from was wonderfully expressed, thought provoking, and easily read.

Now I am the worst on the subject of SPAG but some like it pointed out, (I do most times, but its not as important to me as other things.) But, for some reason I can see a missing or extra comma in someone else’s work (never in my own, you might think me a sixth grader.) so here are a couple of things I saw that may or may not need a tweak.

So, you want to know where the term "Itchy Water" came from? (This seems to me more declarative and maybe should have a period instead of ?)


Sure we talk about conservation, but it is nothing like that in the developing countries. (I think there should be a comma after Sure(,)

In America we don't discuss one of the biggest problems developing countries face: the lack of water available for its people. (comma after America(,)

It came from my desire to always be thankful every time I turn on a faucet, every time I flush a toilet, every time I take a shower, or water the garden. (In, this sentence the word always is not needed, it is synonymous with the meaning of “every time”, and you would then do away with the split-infinitive.)

This is not speculation, this is fact. (I think here the comma after speculation, is not needed or could be better stated as: This is not speculation(.) (T)his is fact.

I never want to have water that is polluted, water that makes me itch. (In this one you use your ‘passive voice’ which is okay, but since you have already explained that the itchy comes from pollution why not just say, “I never want to have water that makes me itch!”)

One-fifth of the deaths in children is caused by diarrhea from drinking contaminated water. (Here I debate with my self as to whether the subject is the number argument “One-fifth” or the “deaths” if it is the number then it is singular so is would be correct, But I think the subject is really the deaths which is plural, if that is the fact then the ‘is’ should be “are”. I could tell you more definitively, if I had not scheduled my English classes for the same period as my naptime back all those years ago. It seems I was not as good at multitasking as I thought I was.

I hope that there is something within that you find worthwhile, as that was my intent. And I will come back later, I am trying with the help of my friends to learn something about poetry. Maybe Pat our new 20012 Quill award winner will take pity on me and teach me something about how to write somewhere other then the restroom walls. Which is, my current level of competence.

Have a great day, but don’t drink the water!