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Review of Private Cell  Open in new Window.
Review by very=deb_sampson Author IconMail Icon
Rated: 13+ | (4.0)
You've got nice rhythm, and an interesting narrator for this poem. The weaknesses I saw in it are a few cliche phrases and one misspelling.

Suggestions:

"gleeming"--it should be spelled "gleaming".

"My heart's a flaming ember,
Ever burning, so distraught."

--When you said you were trapped in your own "petard", i.e. "explosives case", I thought that was a very strong metaphor. However, these lines which I quoted above fall into cliche a little too much, and the metaphor may be lost to your readers. "Heart" should be used sparsely in poetry--it's lost effectiveness through overuse. I suggest illustrating the explosiveness of the narrator in these lines--is the "ember" lighting the wick? And is guilt the ember that lights it, or gut wrenching regret? I suggest bringing the metaphor to life by shying away from general words like "heart" and putting in words that show specifically how he's feeling.

"Even while memories loom
And I drown in bloody tears."

I see "bloody tears" used a lot, in both poetry and fiction--I think you'd have a stronger poem without it, because people become inured to metaphors after they've seen them so often. "Drowning in tears" is also overused. I suggest that you may want to clarify "even while memories loom" with something that distinguishes the memory of the murder from the positive memories he's just finished describing at that point.

"Sunlight on hair" is also an overused phrase. I don't blame you for using it--cliches are so popular because people find them appealing. However, at a certain point, the words no longer have a unique effect when people are reading--they no longer sound original.

Good luck with this, and good job with using a fictional narrator for your poem--that makes your job as a writer harder. Rhyme adds another element of difficulty to it, because it's always tempting to use extra words or cliches with rhyme, in order to make it fit into the structure. So, it's an ambitious undertaking--a brave thing to throw into the ring. Good luck in RAW!
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Review of 'Dante Alighieri'  Open in new Window.
Review by very=deb_sampson Author IconMail Icon
Rated: E | (4.5)
It seems to be a metaphorical exploration of free-will versus fate. I like "choice-woven riggings" with its double meaning of "high quality" and "choice" in the free-will sense. I also like how you wrote it without breaking from the metaphor--it could be read literally and still make sense.

And of course, naming the vessel "Dante Alighieri" is a strong choice, since he's the author who wrote an epic about journeying through hell, purgatory, and heaven while still alive.

I really only have two suggestions:

The rhythm in this line seems thrown off by "accomodate": "to accommodate or deny capricious winds." Maybe try "yield to" instead?

The other suggestion is that perhaps you might want to lengthen the poem to develop the ideas you're dealing with. Perhaps now it depends a little too much on the readers' familiarity with Dante--though I'm familiar with Dante, I've read other works where mention of an artist or text I don't know leaves me in the dark somewhat.

Best,

Deb
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Review of Admirable Women  Open in new Window.
Review by very=deb_sampson Author IconMail Icon
Rated: ASR | (4.0)
Though you and I differ religiously, I admire your essay. To be able to sit back and think of how women have influenced you over your lifetime, and to think about what your influence will be, is an admirable thing. Regardless of their religious persuasion, anyone who seeks a purpose in their life probably tries to think of things this way now and again--I know I have.
As a tribute, it seems heartfelt.

There are a few grammar errors:

You said, "It’s no wonder that she is one I remember so well and so fondly as one touched my life in a grand way."

It seems you omitted "who" in "...one who touched my life in a grand way."

In the same sentence, you may want to try some active verbs in place of the passive ones. For instance, "It's no wonder I remember her so fondly, since she touched my life in a grand way."

Other minor mechanical suggestions:

You may want to spell out "7" as seven, and to put the titles of the other stories you mentioned in quotation marks(i.e. "Pray Without Ceasing"). You may want to say, "My mother," instead of "My Mother."

The transition from talking about Marcia Jones to talking about Helen Murray was the only thing that really distracted me from the flow of the piece. When you first mentioned Helen's name, my first thought was that you must have mentioned her before in the essay--this sent me scrolling back to the beginning to see what I had missed, but then I discovered you were mentioning her for the first time.

You said, "In recent years, Helen Murray has taught me many things about faith." Perhaps it might read more smoothly if you insert a description of Helen's role in your church parenthetically after her name. For instance, "In recent years, I've learned more about my faith due to Helen Murray, a particularly kind older woman who is active in my church."

I like how you included the details about basic advice for living--learning how to be fair to friends, how to make others happy at work, and how to add vinegar for flaky pie crust. For me, that adds to the general appeal of the piece, because it's not just about religion, it's about your entire life.

Best of all, nothing about your tone in the piece sounds self-conscious--that's what makes it so worth reading. You're asking real questions, seeking real answers, and putting yourself out there on the page--and as different as my life is from yours, I still appreciate that.

Best,

Deb
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Review by very=deb_sampson Author IconMail Icon
Rated: 13+ | (4.5)
Harry,

I've been mostly away from the site for a few months, and now that I'm back I read this. I still owe you two reviews, you know, after all this time!

As in most of your poems, you deal with a serious issue--in this case racism, not just its existance, but the horror of its impact as a part of government policy. And you also made a good point that's especially relevant today--we cannot classify our human capacity for atrocity as something confined to the distant past. We need to remember enough of the past to avoid blinding ourselves into any sort of repetition--no matter what happens.

Life is not worth living if we exchange our humanity for brutality.

Reading your storem(combination story/poem) I found myself interpreting it as I would a non-fiction essay, at first. Then, going back to see the subtle rhymes, I marveled at it for a moment, and decided that yes, it does create a unique effect that is like a heightened essay. Heightened structure underscores heightened importance, in this case.

I've commented on various aspects of your storem structure before, so I won't repeat that. I do think that it works well for this piece.

Best,

Deb
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Review by very=deb_sampson Author IconMail Icon
Rated: E | (3.5)
I can see why you got both positive and negative reviews for this. The storyline is strong and involving, and even gave me chills at one point. There are few grammatical errors, though I do recall an out of place comma and a large chunk of text that should probably be broken into paragraphs. (That chunk of text begins with "One night, the youngest son was awakened...")

The main problem in the story, and the probable reason for the negative reviews, is that you're telling instead of showing. Aside from a little at the beginning, there's scarcely any dialogue. Though the plot is well constructed, as a reader I only know the characters through a summary of their life events.

There are places where the story seems to drag. Perhaps this is happening because we know from the beginning that the focus is on the bridge, rather than the characters. The characters' lives are never mentioned in specifics, or in ways that would tend to show individuality--they seem two-dimensional, with the supernatural aspects of the bridge and the ghosts in the forefront.

So, in short, I'd suggest to go to the drawing board and paint in details of the characters so that they are at least as important as the bridge. Make us, as readers, know the brothers aside from "type" characters. Make part of the excitement of the story finding out about the characters and their feelings toward each other. Give them quirks. Give them faults. Give them dialogue.

In the end, you may have something very special indeed. It's good to have a grasp on plot--to me it indicates that you probably planned the story before writing it, which is a good sign. Now, it's time to expand it in terms of character, and with a story that reads somewhat like a novel synopsis, the sky's the limit.

Best,

Deb
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Review of Visits Matter  Open in new Window.
Review by very=deb_sampson Author IconMail Icon
Rated: E | (4.5)
Excellent article. I'm glad you posted it here, where more people can read it--Alzheimer's disease and dementia will eventually effect almost all of us personally. I'm currently caring for my grandmother at home, and I agree with what you said about emotional needs and the need for companionship. It's absolutely true, and depression is a very real issue--Imagine someone who has prided herself on independence all her life, someone very smart, who suddenly finds herself unable to do the things she used to before. Companionship means that the person can find interest and joy in the present; she doesn't get caught up in anxiety about what has been lost.

Suggestions: It was disconcerting to me when you wrote "BUSINESS" in all caps in the first sentence. I understand why you did this here, and throughout the story. You must have wanted to further protect the privacy of all involved by not stating the name of the assisted living facility. However, perhaps some preliminary note, or some made up name for the facility would work better in the article.

In the last paragraph, you said, "...your loved ones will be benefitted from your visits." This might read more smoothly if you changed it to, "...your loved ones will benefit from your visits."

All in all, good work, and keep writing.

Best,

very
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Review of Circus Circuits  Open in new Window.
Review by very=deb_sampson Author IconMail Icon
Rated: E | (4.0)
I really like the originality of this and the ideas it hints at, especially in the lines, "the pursuit of kinesiology/a more physical theology." I think the health of the body and the health of the mind are linked; sometimes a great sense of euphoria and spiritual well-being, and goodwill towards others can come, just from feeling physically well.

You have a lot of ideas here about your thoughts of life, but to me the metaphor leaves your intended meaning unclear. Your mind makes up the clouds; and I thought perhaps "Life, Liberty..." were included in your thoughts. However, life, liberty, etc., are described as land that the clouds waft over--does this mean that your thoughts only briefly touch on these, and can't stick? Is that why you long to be like the computer, allowed to crash?

The juxtaposition of many metaphors in a small space confused things for me. For instance, when you said, "Wafting like grains of sand/upon layers of land," I was unsure whether "layers of land" was a contination of the sand metaphor, or whether it described the clouds floating over land. The meaning would be different if you meant the sand drifted over layers of land, rather than meaning that the clouds floated above land. It would mean a much more intimate connection to the thoughts of life, liberty, and physical exhilaration.

I'm not sure what you meant by "layers of land". Earth below Earth's crust?

All in all, I think this has a whole lot of meaning and potential, but it's somewhat obscured in meaning right now, for me.

Best,

very
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Review by very=deb_sampson Author IconMail Icon
Rated: ASR | (4.5)
I think this is a really great Cramp entry, though as a story it may suffer a bit because of the contest length restriction. It has a strong theme, with a sympathetic main character and details that move the story forward instead of stalling it.

The ending seems a bit awkward to me--it seems there's not enough time to move away from the flashback and into the present. The emotions are so strong in the flashback that shifting so quickly into the "moving on" stage of grief in the present is a little jolting.

A couple of typos:

In the last two paragraphs of the flashback, you have "use" instead of "used" and "everyday" instead of "every day".

Good work, and keep writing. *Smile*

Best,

very
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Review of Zealots  Open in new Window.
Review by very=deb_sampson Author IconMail Icon
Rated: 13+ | (4.0)
Harry,

Sorry for my delay in giving the rest of your reviews! I see you have written some new poems in the mean time.

I agree with most of the sentiments here; I think you have some exceptional lines too, such as "zealots march to a disharmonious song" and "placing the welfare of mice over men".

Like your other poems, this one seems to mix prose and poetry, with a rhyme pattern that is there but doesn't call attention to itself.

Issues and criticisms that I thought of while reading:

--It seemed strange to me that someone would commit rape in the name of religion. Islam would not condone this, even if under certain circumstances, jihad is condoned. And yet, many people, supposedly acting in the name of religion, have committed atrocities their religions forbid, supposedly in the name of religion or religious war. The Crusades come to mind, and also the tortures of Catholics and Protestants(depending on who happened to be in power) that took place in post-Medieval Europe. The pograms against the Jews in Russia, and the Holocaust, came to mind; and also the conflicts(sometimes very brutal), between Hindus and Muslims in India.

--The poem seems to be about current or near current events; events that many people are thinking about with relation to 9-11, and recent(or relatively recent) movements in the U.S. There's no problem with this, with including these things; but perhaps this perspective limits parallels that can be drawn concerning religious zeal and violence. Concerning widespread national and religious zeal, the past may have better parallels than the present(i.e., the Holocaust, the genocide committed against Native Americans, etc).

--It is interesting how you bring up the theme of religious or political zeal causing people to justify crimes against humanity; but I think there is perhaps too much of an "us versus them" in the poem. Ourselves versus the zealots; people who have compassion, versus people who have none. But we are all people here, all with beliefs of one sort or another: if the Nazis could come to power in 1930s Germany, what are we capable of? Human beings of all sorts have a long, long history of violence, usually caused by some mixture of cultural ideology and greed. We, as humans, are less likely to be violent if we are comfortable, if we feel safe, if we live in a time of plenty.

As you said in your brief description, this definitely is a "thought-provoking political poem". Good luck to you as you continue to work through these issues in your poetry.

Best,

Deb
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Review of The Ticket  Open in new Window.
Review by very=deb_sampson Author IconMail Icon
Rated: ASR | (4.0)
Kurt,

It definitely held my interest and it's well-written, but there seems to be something missing. Though the plot is solid, I feel like I don't know much about the characters. What I do know about them is just on the surface, so my interest can only be held by the plot, not by the people.

Your lines are witty, without extra words and with some nice dialogue. I like your "psychic hotline" scene--nice comic touch.

I'm looking forward to reading some of your longer stories; I have a feeling that with more time to know the characters, I'll enjoy those more. I can see from this story that you have real talent as a writer.

Best,

very
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Review by very=deb_sampson Author IconMail Icon
Rated: E | (4.0)
Harry,

I like the dignified melancholy of this poem, and I think the free-verse form works well here. The rhythm and tone are consistant and match the theme--the poem is very distinctly your style, colored by your open-minded philosophy, imagery, and determined perseverance even in the face of a less than optimistic truth.

--I think the tone seems laid back but formal at the same time. You have some really wonderful turns of phrase here. I like the part about happiness being like a firefly clutched in the hand, that might either be crushed or fly away, depending on how tightly you held it. I also especially like "It is the rare elixer that the drinking thereof/makes the journey worthwhile."

--The reason I rated 4 instead of 5 is that some of the imagery--not all of it--seemed a bit cliche. The way you wove it in is distinctly yours nonetheless, but still it's more refreshing to read about the firefly(new image) than the footsteps in the sand(old image.)

Keep up the good work. *Smile*
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Review of The Beast Within  Open in new Window.
Review by very=deb_sampson Author IconMail Icon
Rated: 18+ | (4.0)
Harry,

For the message of this, I'd give you a 5, for saying the truth, no matter how disturbing it may be. I think you're right--we need to protect each other from the brutal side of our own selves.


Suggestions:

This suggestion may be sounding stale now, since I've said it in other reviews, but I think this poem suffers from filler words--words that are excessive because the meaning could come through without them.

Ex: "Far from the Hollywoodized movie fiction/where the British spirit triumphed over/the brutality of their Japanese captors/in reality the Japanese guards sadistically brutalized/and murdered their British and American prisoners."

--I think this could read more smoothly if you avoid repetition. Look at "brutally" and "brutalized", "Japanese captors" and "Japanese guards", and "British spirit" and "British and American prisoners".

--Also, perhaps you meant "Englishmen's spirt" rather than "British spirit"? When you use the pronoun "they" in the next line, I think you mean it to refer back to "British spirit", but the parts of speech don't work out right.

"But this is modern times."

--Perhaps change to "But these are modern times."

"Today is 2004."

Perhaps change to "It's "2004" or "The year is 2004"? I'm suggesting this because "today" suggests that you're going to mention a specific day of the year, rather than the year in general.

"The scary truth is that..."

--I suggest taking this phrase out. The declaration that follows could be more powerful if you say it without warning or excess words. Readers already will be scared by it, and know that it is the truth from your perspective, without this phrase.

Good job on a subject that is hard to write and think about. It's hard to face this side of human nature.
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Review of Summer Gold  Open in new Window.
Review by very=deb_sampson Author IconMail Icon
Rated: ASR | (4.0)
Harry,

I think the detail in this poem is its strongest quality. I can really imagine the corn in all it's stages, from the field to the freezer, and I like the way you kept the image of "fleeting summer gold" without glossing over the negative reality of flies, worms and spoiled kernals.

The weakest point in the poem, I think, is the overuse of passive voice verbs.

Example:

"With a twist and a tug/each ripe ear is freed/then carried from the field/to be sold at the produce stand."

"Is freed" and "to be sold" are passive verbs--verbs that leave out the person performing the action. Compared to active verbs, they can sound a bit vague, and they end up adding in extra words to the lines. Perhaps rewrite so that the farmer "frees" and "sells" the ears. (I know that the lines as they are suggest that he "frees" and "sells" them; I'm just suggesting using those active verb forms.)

The passive verb problem occurs in the second and third stanzas too--nearly every line contains "are". Readers might imagine the scenes more easily if the poem shows who brings the corn home, husks it and scalds it.

I suggest trying to remove "the" whereever possible in the poem. Your strong descriptions will come through more sharply if there's less filler, and "the" can be cut out of poetry more easily than in prose.

Overall, good work on a unique and vivid summer poem. Keep on writing your poetry!
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Review of An Angel On Earth  Open in new Window.
Review by very=deb_sampson Author IconMail Icon
Rated: E | (4.5)
Beautiful tribute, Harry. I'm sure your wife Linda is as lucky to have you as a husband as you are to have her for a wife.

Taken as a whole, I think the poem flows beautifully. The wording is natural, and I like how you envisioned the angels.

However, the fifth staza seems awkward to me compared to the rest of the poem.

You said, "To experience human emotions and to have free choice/leads some angels finally to give this desire a voice."

--The wording here seemed unclear to me. I think "Experiencing human emotions and having free choice..." might work better grammatically, but it still wouldn't read quite right. They are longing to experience human emotions, not actually experiencing them, right? So, experience can't be what leads them to say they desire the experience, can it? I really think it's important to clarify the wording here--I'm not sure what you meant to say.

All in all, I enjoyed reading this--keep up the good work!

Best,

very
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Review by very=deb_sampson Author IconMail Icon
Rated: E | (4.0)
I like your storm metaphors--the hail like "white nickels", the lightening like flashes of artillery signaling an upcoming battle.

I also like how you captured a sense of the power of nature while maintaining a human perspective of the storm. In the first stanza, your description of the storm on radar was particularly effective.

Suggestions:

--I think some of the energy of the storm is bogged down through excess words.

Example:

"A line of green marred with splotches/of yellow and red..."

--"A line of green" could be shortened to "A green line"; "marred with splotches" could be shortened to "splotched".

You said, "Now they can but wait powerlessly in the darkness..."

--This line, in the sixth stanza, seemed a bit repetitive of the lines before. Perhaps replace it with a bit of detail of what the people do in the dark, in the storm. Do they light candles? Bring out flashlights? Hide under blankets?

You said, "Man and beast alike breathe a sigh/of relief for their safety, satisfied/to have outlasted the storm."

--"for their safety" is probably unnecessary, because "to have outlasted the storm" shows the same idea more specifically.

--Are they relieved, or are they satisfied? The feelings seem different to me, but I think "relief" is the stronger emotion. Perhaps rewrite to leave out "satisfied"?

*Star*That's it for suggestions. Overall, good work on a realistic and emotional storm scene. *Smile*
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Review by very=deb_sampson Author IconMail Icon
Rated: ASR | (4.5)
Harry,

It was a pleasure to read your storoem. You've combined the narrative detail of flash fiction with the concentrated emotional appeal of poetry. The Alzheimer's theme affects me, since I've been caring for my grandmother. I think it's an almost universal theme--the gradual loss before the ultimate loss. I like the message of the poem--that we should be there for our loved ones, caring and loving, after the onset of Alzheimer's.

Suggestions:

--I noticed a couple of lines whose meaning seems repetitive:

"Their marriage had seemed a perfect dream/for sixty years..." and

"After six decades of sharing marital bliss."

--Both lines discuss the happy marriage, and how long it lasted. Perhaps leave one of the lines out--perhaps replace it with a line showing some other detail of the marriage?

--The second line of the fourth stanza ends, "Now his," and the phrase continues in the next line. Interrupting the phrase there, at "his" seemed a bit awkward to me--line breaks imply pauses, but a pause doesn't seem to work there.

You said: ...he answers softly, " I love her the same.

--There's a spacing typo there--you'll want to delete the space between the quotation mark and "I".

*Star*Otherwise, good work on a well-written narrative poem with an important message. *Smile*
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Review of Louisville  Open in new Window.
Review by very=deb_sampson Author IconMail Icon
Rated: 18+ | (4.0)
This piece definitely reached me. I've never read anything like it before, and it has a definite emotional impact. It's frightening. Despite the horror of what the band members do to Frank, or perhaps because of it, it definitely achieves what I think you intended--to discourage downloading music from the internet.

Suggestions:

--The beginning seems a little bit unreal to me. Why does Frank immediately assume that authorities are after him when he hears a loud noise outside? There are any number of other conclusions. What does the loud noise sound like?

--Why would the Maniaca members watch Frank in particular? What clued them in, and what made them hate him more than the others who also downloaded their music?

--Using a blank line between paragraphs would make it easier on the eyes.

--There's a recurring quotation error, that occurs in the first paragraph, and also later in the story. The example in the first paragraph is:

"They found me." Frank whispered.

--Use a comma instead of a period after "me". This is always the case when a quote that would otherwise end in a period is followed by a quotation tag. (A quotation tag is a phrase that follows the quotation and shows who is speaking, and how. It is always part of the same sentence as the quote.)

Overall, good work; the story caught and held my interest, and is an unusual approach to the contemporary issue of music copyrights.
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Review of Nobody cares  Open in new Window.
Review by very=deb_sampson Author IconMail Icon
Rated: 13+ | (3.5)
Interesting way to portray the indifference of human beings towards others' distress; I like how creatively you designed this, avoiding cliche. I see the wolf as a metaphor for other attacks.

*Star*This is especially well-done, considering you are twelve years old; I could easily have believed an adult wrote it had I not read your bio first.*Star*

--I'm rating this according to the same guidelines I'd use to rate an older writer.

Suggestions:

You said, "You are in the forest, alone. It is standing there/It is gigantic, and is growling at you."

--I suggest saying what "it" is here; although you say it's a wolf later, the first lines of the poem are attention-getters or attention-losers. With the use of second person(you), it's especially important for the reader to be able to picture the scene.

--In "it stands there", "there" is vague. Where is the wolf? How close? Is it lurking behind a tree? Why has it paused in its attack?

--Why is the reader in the forest alone? What is he/she doing there? "The forest" is rather vague--what sorts of trees does this forest have, and what season is it? I think description matters a lot at this point in the poem; it'll set the scene and pull the reader in.

--Try to avoid verbs like "is" and "are" whenever possible. These verbs, called "verbs of being", tend to bog down a sentence with extra words; active verbs can energize a sentence.

You said, "No help comes/Nobody cares/Nobody gives a damn."

--Do people ignore the cry for help, or do they just not hear it? If you clarify that people hear, but don't act, it will make the point that "nobody cares". As it is, I'm imagining the scene in the middle of the forest, and I can't picture who would be around to hear. Friends? Hiking buddies, also in the forest, who walked ahead of or behind the "you" of the poem?

--There's a lot of repetition emphasizing that no one comes. You may want to use those lines to have the "you" of the poem listen for a particular person or people.

--You used active verbs and effective descriptions to show the wolf attack. Good job with that!

--The violence of the wolf attack may require a change of content rating--to me it seems closer to PG-13 than ASR.

Overall, good work, and keep writing! *Smile*
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Review of My son is a punk  Open in new Window.
Review by very=deb_sampson Author IconMail Icon
Rated: E | (4.0)
Very good piece; I really admire the way you ended this, with acceptance and love for your son, and the realization that he is becoming his own person.

Suggestions:

In the first paragraph, you wrote "My firstborn."

--This is a sentence fragment, and sometimes those can be used to good effect for emphasis, but in this case I think the phrase might sound better linked to the previous sentence.

You said, "...his dark brown hair, gelled almost to the point of cracking also sports blond highlights.

--Use a comma after "cracking."

You said, "The khaki cargo pants he is wearing..." and then "he happens to have on a shirt and tie at the moment...."

--Perhaps say "usually wears" to refer to the cargo pants, instead of "is wearing"--isn't he wearing something different at the moment to go along with the dress shirt and tie?

--Perhaps spell out the ages nineteen, seventeen, and three, instead of using the numbers; the guidebooks I've read recommend this for all numbers one hundred and under.

*Star*Keep up the good work; keep writing!
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Review of Body Conscience  Open in new Window.
Review by very=deb_sampson Author IconMail Icon
Rated: 18+ | (3.5)
Good points...I do think there's too much focus on appearances, not just for women, but in the general culture. Anorexia was a problem for many girls in my high school, too; focus on the body above all else perplexed me then, and it made me think people were throwing parts of their potential personalities away in favor of appearance.

Suggestions:

*Star*I think you may want to read-through and add-in or change punctuation in some areas.

*Star*The part about Kate Moss at the end was off-putting for me. The overall tone of the poem was understandably angry, but I feel like the anger at the end was misdirected, focused on blame rather than change.

*Star*I think your idea is to turn the negative emotions about our bodies into positive ones, and to place less focus on our bodies. I like that idea a lot. I think it might be better to put a little more stress on that, and less stress on the anger.

Keep up the good work!
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Review by very=deb_sampson Author IconMail Icon
Rated: 13+ | (4.5)
I really like the way you told your life's story here, all tied together with spring rain.

There were a few problems I saw in the first paragraph.

"The sky burst like the water balloons that we threw..."

Perhaps identify "we"--you and your friends? Or your brothers and sisters?

"The front lawn, with its seemingly millions of long thin grass blades..."

Perhaps leave out "seemingly". As I child, in your enthusiasm, perhaps you'd just have thought "millions".

"...like a sopping wet carpet that held water like a gigantic sponge."

The phrasing of the similes seemed a little bit awkward to me.

Perhaps say, "like a sopping wet carpet or a gigantic sponge"?

"Spring rains have a unique fragrance all they're very own."

"they're" should be "their"; perhaps leave out "very".

Once again, I really liked this piece; once I got past the first paragraph, it read very smoothly, and I was too caught up in the story to notice any problems at all--if in fact any problems exist.
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Review of Where did you go  Open in new Window.
Review by very=deb_sampson Author IconMail Icon
Rated: 13+ | (4.0)
Good work! I would have had difficulty writing this well at age thirteen.

Some suggestions:
You may want to leave out the final stanza--it repeats things that are said before, and the rhymes are more awkward here than elsewhere in the poem.

"Daddy's comming home..."

Write "coming" instead of "comming".

"What am I suppose to say?"

Write "supposed" instead of "suppose".

"Sometimes she asks me, 'Why did dad leave'?"

Capitalize the "d" in "Dad"; also, you may want to use double quotation marks instead of single ones.

A couple of times you have a space between the last word of a question and the question mark--take out the space. Ex: What's this? instead of "What's this ?"

Overall, good work, and keep writing!
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Review of Coffee Stains  Open in new Window.
Review by very=deb_sampson Author IconMail Icon
Rated: 13+ | (4.0)
I liked the way you handled this theme, though I think it may need more work to distinguish it from similar stories. The details are well done, but could be even better in some areas.

For instance, "Carla stood in the kitchen, a weary expression on her face." This falls a bit into telling instead of showing--similar to if you said "Carla was weary." Try to show what she looks like, and maybe add in some more character background at the same time.

"Coffee ran down the wall in the perfect image of a tombstone. She touched it. The coffee was cold."

The ending has the potential to reveal a lot about Carla's character, because it's impressionistic. The shape of the stain wouldn't be exactly like a tombstone, but it reminds Carla of one. But what does she see, precisely? Bits of ceramic stuck in the wall, and a slight indentation on the point of impact? Huge messy splatters, puddles? Showing a realistic image of what it seems like, and leading into Carla's impression could have a stronger effect than the tombstone comparison alone.

The second to last paragraph has what I think of as an "information crunch"--the telling(rather than showing) of information that is critical to understanding the character. Carla is "too scared to try again." But I would like to see the process of how she comes to this conclusion--flashbacks of pain, memories of nightmares, thoughts about a conversation with a friend in a women's protection center, fears that other men would treat her no better than Mark, etc.
The story is well paced and written without mechanical errors, or character and plot inconsistancies. Though it held my interest, I think it will have a greater impact if you expand it.
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Review of Time: Part 1  Open in new Window.
Review by very=deb_sampson Author IconMail Icon
Rated: E | N/A (Unratable.)
This is a really great, fast paced, original story that kept me wondering as I read. There are some grammatical errors in the piece, some of which result from the fast pacing, so you may want to look it over with a fine-toothed proofreading comb. None of the errors were very distracting, however, and none impaired the flow of the story and its comprehensibility.

There's a quotation error repeated a few times:

For instance: "This can't be real" He replies...

Correct to "This can't be real," he replies...

In other words, the quotation tag--the words that show who was speaking--should begin with a lowercase letter, not with a capital.
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Review of Price I Paid  Open in new Window.
Review by very=deb_sampson Author IconMail Icon
Rated: 18+ | (4.0)
I like your writing style, and the story was interesting--and unique, which is important. I didn't feel like it was yet another echo of a familiar yarn; it stands on its own. However, I think the story would effect me more powerfully, particularly at the end, if there were scenes showing why the narrator and Josie liked each other, and what their friendship was built on.
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