Hi. I am Taher. Congratulations on winning the "story of the week" at the "WDC Frontliners Discussion Forum" . This is a lovely story with a message. I liked the way the caterpillar "grew" both in size and in character/confidence as it changed into a butterfly.
As Aaron mentioned, the story has a good balance of story-line and perfection of language, although, to be honest, I would think of punctuating this a little better than it is at present.
This is Taher. This is my first visit to your port. On first look, I was impressed by how simple and clean your port looks. Small titles, almost all items top-rated, hardly any folders and items of different types.
This is probably from the days spent at the ranch. Forest fires are a natural disaster on par with some of the worst land disasters like earthquakes, volcanoes etc. You use "personification" to make "normal" a visitor that hardly ever visits the ranch. In that respect, in this, the 21st century, almost all over the world, "normal" is on a perpetual vacation ... or, if you see it my way, the "abnormal" is fast usurping the territory held heretofore by "normal" and will soon usurp its name too.
Thank you for showing us what a fire in Nature can do.
Responding to a word prompt with a beautiful story as usual ... all in a day's work, right? (More puns intended here than I care to declare publicly ).
I liked the story very much. You have almost become the eight-year-old boy as he runs, first here, then there, as he strives to make it in time for his grandfather's blessings! As far as the use of the prompt words is concerned, I think the best use award should go to the use of the word "windmill" which has been used very imaginatively! The next prize will go to the way the word "crow" was tied in, as it allowed for adding at least another 55-60 words and also infused humour into the story.
Hi. I am Taher, and I am here to review this poem on a mother receiving news of her son to be a father soon because the poem was one of those highlighted by SHERRI GIBSON in her "Simply Positive Forum".
I envy you your poem writing skills. You have a good grasp of cadence and rhyme both, and I predict that you will have a good future as a poet-writer. I liked the ditty very much and could not find many faults with the wording, rhyme or meter.
Congratulations! You have ended very saliently too.
Hi. I am Taher, and I am here to read about the one-sided love that he feels for her in this poem because the poem was linked in the "Simply Positive Forum" run by SHERRI GIBSON
After reading this easy to understand poem (a positive in my opinion), I was a bit confused by the second stanza. In this stanza, while the first 4 lines refer to the things he has done or not done to the girl, the last line suddenly shifts the P.O.V. (point of view) to the girl's action. This is confusing and bad for the poem. Do rectify it if possible.
The other thing that bothered me is that although this is not listed as a song lyrics, there are too many words that are written as they are sung - for example, kissin', huggin' and lovin'. Why drop the final letter? And if that were done once, it was understandable. You keep doing this repeatedly. I think that is a bit odd, even if acceptable to you.
Other than those two things, this is a properly written poem and free from major mistakes.
I think you can create magic with your fingers and your talent at enhancing the photos. The entire album has the colour of love and liberally sprinkled memories all through its images. My favourites are the sleeping pictures! They impart an angelic glow to the faces of the children.
Hi. I am Taher and am here to review this item as part of the items submitted by SHERRI GIBSON for review in the "Simply Positive Forum" that she moderates.
Life is so simple and yet so mysterious! It brings so many different emotions and experiences into our daily existence. We are never privy to what next will happen to us, as God carries us through paths that are, as per our destiny, both easy and tortuous, long and short, tiled and gravelly. We all have to die one day, and rather than mope over our eventual mortalities, why not celebrate togetherness, friendship and camaraderie.
I appreciate your item for the message that it conveys to us, the readers.
Hi there. I am Taher, and here to review yet another item from your portfolio! Only, this time, I am a part of the challengers who are out to raid over 25 items in two days or less for SHERRI GIBSON's "simply Positive Forum".
Nicki, this is a very good story! You have used all the ingredients of a successful drama/action item such as suspense, short, terse dialogue, highlighting important stuff with italics, and a breathless narrative style interspersed with a flash-back that makes the reader want to read down to the last line even faster.
Good work, keep it up.
Taher
P.S. Is "ice" the slang for some sort of a narcotic drug?
Hi. Taher here to review your item for SHERRI GIBSON's Simply Positive Forum Weekly Challenge.
You are a truly gifted writer and this item demonstrates this in ample measure! Your sense of humour, too, is manifest in the way you allude to the rabbit-toy in a very endearing way, using the P.O.V. of a child to enhance the affection readers will invariably have for the stuffed toy and its proud chef-mother, a.k.a. Nanni.
I am greatly encouraged by your work and inspired to write a child-friendly story such as yours.
Hi. Taher here, once again to review something from your port. I am amazed at your portfolio items that have so many things drawn from your own life's experiences! This item, too, is one that recounts your personal experience on one night almost 50 years ago.
Interesting to know that you had the courage, back then, to walk alone down four blocks to sleep inside a church! I don't think I would have quite had so much courage at that age. That is what makes this item unique. It is a reminiscence, but it is more: it renews faith in the courage of a human being, it inspires a non-believer to turn to God in times of peril and for you, it perhaps acted like a cathartic, helping you to purge the pain of an old, yet remembered event from your troubled life.
I aim to read all the items in your port ... over a period of time, of course.
Hi. I am Taher, and am here to review this poem as a challenger for the "Simply Positive Group" run by YOU. Thank you for permitting me to review this very interesting poem.
It has all the ingredients needed to describe the Halloween season! I liked the way you have distilled into its 17 lines the entire gamut of stuff from the real to the imaginary that make up the cultural and social compass of Halloween as it is celebrated in the United States!
I found the number of lines 8 in the first stanza and 9 in the second. Perhaps it was intentional. Perhaps not. I liked the poem overall. You have dropped a few articles and apostrophes here and there, but that can be put down to poetic license!
Hi. SHERRI GIBSON asked us, the challengers for her "Simply Positive Group" to review the item you have written on Autumn, but as I have already previously reviewed it, I am taking the liberty to read this piece.
Judy, your life has indeed seen several downs and ups! All through, as you point out in this essay, you have kept your faith in God and come through with hardly any problems. The recounting of all the major upheavals of your checkered life serve to encourage readers to repose their faith in the Almighty! For this reason, and for the immensely personal nature of this item, I am overlooking the several errors of grammar and punctuation that this items contains! (If, however, you so wish, I will be glad to point them out to you privately in a mail.)
I am sure, that with the faith that you have in God, and the prayers of your well-wishers and friends (like me) on Writing.com and in the outside world, you will also overcome the current problem that you are facing with your health. A new miracle will then have to be recorded here and we will all welcome it with a re-reading of the item!
Hi. Kate had suggested four items for me to review and this is the last one in that list. I will browse through your port to read a few more.
A very good take on the picture prompt! I wonder why you decided to break up the story into separate headings. This reads like an essay rather than a story. Tobias and Kendall's character development was so-so, but the description of what they go through was done very nicely. Obviously, you were hampered by the word limit, else, I guess this story could have gone on for a few thousand more words!
Thank you for sharing this with us.
The final word in the last paragraph should be "Not" and not "No", I think.
Hi. I am Taher, once again here to review you. I am appending the signature of Simply Positive, but, let me tell you, you could count this as a review from the WDC Frontliners, the Showering Acts of Joy and the Angel Army too!
As a Pediatrician, I can say that you have gone over most of the points that relate to childhood obesity. Did you know that post-mortem studies on pre-schoolers who died in war or bombings showed that those who were obese already had atheromatous plaques formed in their blood vessels by the age of 3? Shocking, isn't it?
You seem to think that childhood obesity is a problem only in developed countries. Well, it isn't so any more. There is rampant obesity in the cities and metropolises in all countries - places with access to the McD's and KFC's of the very same USA that WDC is a part of! Children are, as you rightly point out, exposed to chips and burgers, mayos and creams, desserts and fries, from a very tender age. Obesity development is not surprising!
Thank you for highlighting this very real problem. Nowadays, Pediatric specialities are developing in a new direction called "Prevention of Lifestyle diseases in Childhood". Your article will help many parents who often ignore obesity in the children. In fact, parents in India often come to me if their child is slim and say "Please make my child healthy (obese...!)".
Hi. Taher here on behalf of Kate. She pointed me to this one too. Am I glad she did, for your recounting of the Vikings' homestead reminds me of what we, in India, still follow TO THE LETTER. We still have joint families, in villages, our girls still get married early, they still do all the household chores, they still weave, embroider and paint, they still stock food for the winter (although ours aren't that harsh), they still make herbal medicines and so on. It is a pity that modern civilisation has discarded these very beautiful human values and the things that make for a resilient and sustaining society.
We are seeing higher food prices, inflation, a recessionary economy, terrorism (a result of unemployment and frustrations combined with religious fanaticism) and several other evils because we have truly forgotten the meaning of the word "community" in practice.
I can tell from the way you go about describing the sights and sounds of the autumn season that it really is your favourite time of the year! Hi. I am Taher. I got the link to your item courtesy your friend Kate - Writing & Reading. Actually, she won 5 reviews from me in an auction, and chose to gift them to you. Along with this item, you will find me browsing through some more, and I think it will be my pleasure to do so.
I was just wondering what it means to live in an autumnal paradise. Your descriptions are so fantastic that I daresay it must be exactly like the way you show it to be. I can just imagine you in your childhood, running helter-skelter, jumping into, first, this mound of leaves, then, that. The visual delight that fluttering leaves create must be a sight to see. I think you could use a digital camera to shoot a picture of your granddaughter or some other child doing this, and then post the image in this item.
You put in an extra apostrophe in the first paragraph ...
Aside of that, I detected no other problems with the item.
This is a nice format that you have constructed on WDC. It must have taken a lot of time to create it. I am encouraged to try something like this in my port as well. I liked the way you used the metaphor of open and closed doors to convey the sense of continuity in the poem. Thank you for sharing this poem with us.
I came across your name after almost five years and was glad to learn that you have married and have a daughter as well ... any more kids? Remember me? This blog had a promise of evolving into something interesting, but you seem to have abandoned it. Has it been resurrected somewhere else?
Hi. I am Taher, a reviewer who has come to this item from SHERRI GIBSON's "Simply Positive Forum".
Nila, I don't know but I think sometimes it is wiser to forget the past and wipe the slate clean so that one may forge ahead and carve a better future. In that respect, I disagree with your final stanza. At the same time, I appreciate that different people have a different way of approaching the unknown, and for some, keeping in touch with the past, howsoever tenuous, torturous or difficult it may have been, is the only way.
Thus, I respect your point of view and have accordingly rated this poem a 4.5 ... it is indeed very well written and has a good form, and no errors.
Hi. This is Taher, a reviewer who found your poem among those highlighted for the week in SHERRI GIBSON's Simply Positive Forum. I think this is the true meaning of a heart-felt soliloquy. You have, in under 30 words, summed up the meaning of introspection, reconciliation and peace.
I liked the short words, the small stanzas and the small line-lengths, as also the final feel of this very effective verse.
Hi. I am Taher. Of course, you remember me. You so kindly reviewed so many of my items. Now it is my turn to do this review. I am one of the challengers in the Review challenge of the Simply Positive Forum run by SHERRI GIBSON.
This is such a touching poem. I was impressed by your short but complete descriptions of a nice human being who God beckoned early in life to His abode. I am sure his family pines for him day and night. However, and I am only saying this as an aside, not meaning to demean his memory, they have to move on now. The children have to look upon their mother as a 2-in-1 parent. The mother has to let go of the grief and do her best to raise her children well. This might be the best homage the family can pay to the memories of their departed father/husband.
I am Taher, and am here to review this song courtesy Sherri Gibson's "Simply Positive Forum". First out, let me admit that this is the first time I am reading a song that is meant to be written to Country Music. I hail from India, a country that has few admirers of English Country Music; we do have our own variant in one of the Indian languages like Hindi or Tamil.
This is such a beautiful song! It has been written with just the right words and has just the right rhythm for people to listen to it and enjoy. You have shown the singer to regret why he let his beloved walk away; I say that this is what happens in most affairs of the heart. When the jolt comes, it is always shocking and makes the victims numb.
I am Taher and am doing this review as one of the activities of the Simply Positive group. This is a short poem of maternal love, a love so everlasting, so complete and so real, that I felt immediately the tenderness in the words.
I would love to know why so many lines in the poem were written repeatedly. Other than this small snafu, I found no other problems with your work
You are a master of words, but also, a very sensitive human being who, through his power to bend words at will, uses that power to further the cause of helpless creatures, such as the hump-back whale, as you have done in this item.
I am reviewing this as part of Sherri's Simply Beautiful Forum, where I have participated in the challenge.
Your absolutely scientific explanations are right on the dot. Your surmise that these calls are mournful calls to others to take heed of their environmentally precarious situation are probably, as you say, poetic licence, but even so, they have a ring of truth for those who will care to listen.
Hi. I am Taher. This review is part of the challenge I am taking for Sherri's Simply Positive Forum.
I have to say that the way you went about telling us (the readers) about the way life is viewed by a child and how it is viewed by them after they have grown old was really creative. I was interested in knowing how you coloured your circle, and your poem went about doing exactly that.
I was unable to understand why the circle of seasons speeds up as we age. Perhaps we find that our time on this planet is running out? Perhaps it is our impatience to get things done? Or is it that the pace of this planet's inhabitants has undergone an inexplicable secular increase and we are unable to stop this thing.
I enjoyed the poem very much, especially the last few lines which held out hope and despair in equal measure.
Thank you for sharing this poem with us!
- Taher
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