Hello again, Alexis! Here is your second for the "Invalid Item"  package you won! Since I chose an older poem last time, I thought that I should go with a new one here.

Some things I Like:

You mixed your line lengths very well here. Mixing really long lines with very short lines with no mid-length lines... it can be tricky. This is not awkward at all and flows well.

The piece is very emotive. The emotion comes through here quite well. The second stanza is the most powerful from an emotional standpoint for me. To be honest, it screams 'frustration' to me. Not sure if that was the intention, but it is strong.

This, by the way, is a much better example of a poem that does not need punctuation. It is loose in flow, the smaller lines can and do relate to both longer sentences here and there (overlaps in meaning)... it is a clear case for no punctuation.

Observations & Suggestions:

"Mental beating tears" -- Love the 'mental beating' here. It's a great phrase. That said, there are no cues for the reader as to whether 'tears' is supposed to be crying 'tears' or rips and 'tears'. That bothered me at first. No suggestion for change... just thought I would mention it.

"My flesh is all a tingle" -- Minor but important here... your flesh is not one tingle. The word is "atingle"... one word. My browser spellcheck hates it, but I promise you that it is a word AND is the word you want.

So, the time and description here drives me sort of crazy. It all seems to be in the present, but there is progression in the description:

"Today my gown is white"
"Now not so new a smudge"
"Tonight my gown is red"

Yeah, this is confusing. I would consider staggering these time frames so that they will make more sense to the reader. I do love the progression of the gown... excellent. But that time frame is all kinds of ineffective.

Similarly, I was turned off by the first stanza's "Today my gown" and two lines later "Now not so new a smudge". Nothing happened. It felt to me like you literally said "My gown is white. Just kidding! It's black and blue". It did not work for me at all, and had I not wanted to review your most recent poem, I would have quit reading right there. That would have been a shame because the poem is actually pretty intriguing.

I love the final line "Bleeding / Dead / Poverty won". That "No one listened" lacks the power of the others. Like, who cares if no one listened when compared to bleeding and dead and poverty winning? By comparison, it sounds like a mild case of middle-child syndrome rather than a powerful type of warning. I would cut it, personally.

The internal rhyme that suddenly stops in the fourth stanza? It did not go unnoticed. If you want to use something as distinct as internal rhymes (not even slant rhymes!), then you have to keep doing it... otherwise, it looks lazy and sounds weird.

Overall, I quite like many lines in this piece. You managed to make many of the short lines resonant (like that 'and more' in the third stanza ). The piece is emotive and has intriguing phrases throughout. The aspect that really lets the poem down is the time ("Now, Now, Today, Today, Tonight") that seems to be at odds with the progression of the poem. The other things that I mentioned have easy quick fixes if you choose to do so, but I think that making the time/progression align without having to revise extensively... that would require a delicate hand. Good luck if you choose to do it! I really think the poem is worth the time though-- it is an excellent start.



My review has been submitted for consideration in "Good Deeds Get CASH!" .