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Public Reviews
1
1
Review by J. Nixon Author IconMail Icon
Rated: 13+ | (3.0)
Overall I liked this quite a bit. I think you can do better in a few places but I'll go over that below. Big picture. Probably shouldn't capitalize the lines that aren't the beginning of sentences. I'll edit below. Also 'The night is thick with you' is a really solid line. But unless you want to end each stanza with it I don't think you can use it in the next to last stanza when you cap the poem with it at the end. Just seems like you're cheating and not coming up with a good line.

As always I'll just make my edits and comments in the poem and please feel free to heed/ignore whatever you like. Each of us has our own creative voice. I would suggest not getting too hung up on 'what you think' that's one lesson I learned over time and it never hurts to be reiterated.

The night is thick with you.
The air is a cigarette, it intoxicates
my senses.
I carry it deep in my lungs and breathe it
out, in, thick, smoky.

-i like the imagery but cigarette is wrong. you're talking about smoke, not the delivery mechanism. you're talking about the way smoke fills and moves and attaches itself to the very air so that you can't get away from it. I know you mean smoke. So that's what I hear when I read this. But you need to tell me that more clearly.

Walking downtown, I hear nothing
but you.
Ringing guitar chords from a bar,
a whiskey drenched singer cries
out in rapturous masochism, his song
carries itself to the street
stagnant.

-I was confused at first because I thought you were actually lusting after someone and the noises of the city were cancelled out. But instead you meant that each of the sounds reflects that all-encompassing lust. I think you can tweak this slightly to get more to your point.

The night is thick with you;
Two lovers on a park bench, they
Reek of you.
Their kisses form a union of passion, fiery
Red under a streetlight from heaven.
They kiss, but I am thick with the night of you.

-I think you got cute on this stanza. It's got the potential for real dripping passion here as you give us our first glimpse of lovers. But then you fall back on the repeated lines, so forced at this point... 'the night is thick...,' 'union of passion, fiery / red'... 'but I am thick with the night of you.' I think you're trying to be poetic in this stanza and because of that it is your weakest. I would cut the entire thing unless you can make me feel the passion in the lovers and it's effect on you. I'm hoping you didn't switch the words just to tell me you have a chubby. 'thick with the night of you' No. Not in this poem the rest is too good for this.

How I wander in your night,
your sweet, slumbering eventide.
It grabs me, and pulls.
I feel your arms about me
in the air, sheets tossing and turning
and how the night is thick with you.

Overall I liked it. You gave a pretty concise rendition of lust. Other than some small and some formatting changes I think you have a nice piece here. If it weren't for the unreadable next to last stanza and the capitalization I may've gone to 3.0 on this one but I think you have more potential than you're showing in some of the lines here. Take you're time, it's not a race, you just have to work at it :)

Cheers!
James
2
2
Review by J. Nixon Author IconMail Icon
Rated: E | (1.5)
Just a few thoughts before I get in to it. Welcome to writing poetry. It's easy and it's excruciatingly difficult at the same time. I don't want to overwhelm you with stuff but just some quick things at the beginning. you don't capitalize a line unless it starts a sentence or you have a grander scheme. I see neither such thing here so I'll make those changes in my rewrite to follow.

Your title could be better. "Crumbling Celestial" sounds oddly blasphemous to me...
There are several small grammatical issues 'isn't' in your first line capitalized is glaring. I would recommend a quick editorial read a couple days after you write it before you put it up for review. But I am harder on myself than you should be. :)

It's hard to give you a lot of feedback because I feel like you are constricting yourself to a formal rhyming structure for no reason other than to do so. You will probably find this is a difficult hindrance to expressing your creative potential line by line. Before I go through this line by line I recommend you read it out-loud to yourself and take notes on anything that did not sound AND read well. Poetry is meant to be beauty in words. It's not achieving that if it's author isn't trying. I think you have it in you to try.


I'm just going to pick out lines I liked for now that seem to have potential. I would recommend some free association writing to get around your desire to 'be a poet' in your early works.

Winding ever higher to the skies,
No railing there resides.

Part of this road that once did lay.

Till one day the road shall die,
And no souls ascend the sky.

And mankind will curse the name,
Of their ancestors who are to blame.

If you feel mad that I cut most of your lines please don't. The poem I took to workshop last week was over 30 lines and I came away with 3 that were worth keeping. This is what makes poetry difficult, but it wouldn't be worth it if it were not. Welcome to the club and keep 'em coming! Cheers!
James
3
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Review of Spring Time Again  Open in new Window.
Review by J. Nixon Author IconMail Icon
Rated: E | (3.5)
I like a lot of the lines you have going here but I'm not sure why you've restricted yourself to this structure and rhyming/syllable scheme.

Seems like some lines would work better if you went straight to them.

2nd line 2nd stanza. Just isn'treally doing anything for you.
Sounds much better

"The smell of a new season, as it blooms and blossoms with bold hope,"

I would look for ways to drop the pronouns. Your use of I seems unnecessary. I'm not sure how open you would be to changing up the line structure but for some reason I loved the sound of the 1st stanza if re-read. I can't tell if your rhyming structure is on purpose or convenient. I'll leave that to you and just give you my thoughts toss aside or not regardless.

Spring time again,
and optimism shines
through the trees that form a sun.
Birds chirp and tweet, and there's no sadness,
or ache in my heart when the day is done.
My spirits lift and my shoulders feel lighter,
then, a lull in the laughter, and again quieter,
there's no turmoil in my head,
no sad eyes at bitter things done,
or said.

Like I said feel free to like or dislike anything I had but I felt like you had a lot of great lines but you might be over burderning yourself with form and rhyme. Best of luck on the rewrite. :D
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