You may already know that live oak isn't hyphenated.
IMHO, the "I shrugged" paragraph bears too much exposition, specifically the "It's because" sentence. Such short and limp explanation robs any quality of mystery or longevity. Maybe you covered it in another part of the story, but I’d like to hear about a relationship between the trees, the wind, and communication. And even more so IMHO, I’d like to see the trees communicate on the wind—complex emotions and images, not words.
The other two points I stumbled on were ‘smart girl’ and ‘ordeal’. Working with the excerpt, smart girl just feels out of place, but maybe I don’t know enough about the ‘he’ character.
‘Ordeal’ just doesn’t humanize with me. I think it’d work better with a short sentence alluding to a traumatic event.
Last, the dialog seems one sided. As if the conversation were predestined as an explanation and not dialog.
As a poem, I think you're trying to stuff in too many details with too little info. I think you'd do better with more imagery... and maybe using essay format.
As a political statement, I think it's unbalanced. It's no secret that we're addicted to oil, built our economy on it. Though oil companies profit from its sale, we must have it as there is no readily available replacement. The only bright spot is that $70 oil is spurring a resurgence in alternative energy sources.
As a leader, George W. and company accomplished much under difficult circumstances. When Clinton left office, there were 5 countries openly hostile to the US that sing a different tune today: Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, North Korea, and Iran. Today, we have intelligence agencies cooperating internationally; banking regulations are choking extremist's financial resources.
Last, Memorial Day is a day of remembrance for service members that ensured we had the freedom to disagree. Best of luck to ya!
IMHO, weak static verbs plague your writing. Strike "had been" and "was" from your writing. Your first two sentences begin with "had been"--static verbs. Static verbs tend to sit there--no action. Throw some action verbs in there.
Your writing abounds with wonderful descriptions, an excellent strength. I like how the protagonist's problem appears early.
Two things I noticed. First, you tend to be very literal when describing time, e.g., 11 days or 8 hours. Try to replace with other terminology like fortnight, or dawn to dusk, afternoon, morning, etc.
Some of your sentences were wordy. Trim the sentences by using stronger verbs or possessives. Example: Derek and Razalon secured the canoe lashings while Riadiah and Edwina collected the herb sacks. From your original sentence, I replaced "were securing" with "secured", and I replaced "the lashings on the canoe" with "canoe lashings".
I have two real comments for you, first, passive sentences. They rob richness from your text. You can find most by searching for the word 'was'. Although there are instances where the term is necessary, most often it's a beacon for a weak sentence.
Your first 'was': ...the small scientific outpost was called Joshua. Instead, try something like: Access to the Joshua outpost required the highest security clearances.
Second, dialog. The interplay between heads of state seems more appropriate for mobsters or pool hall flunkies. Some of the language strikes me as glib. So they've found an old newspaper in the desert, I don't think any leader would move without some solid proof of its credibility. Miranda and the Jinn are another example. In short, too much exposition delivered in the dialog.
Eisenhower swears? This seems incongruent for a devoutly religious man.
Best of luck to ya!
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