Hello, Winnie Kay!

I'm offering you this review in celebration of Earth Day, which is marked on the 22^nd April every year. Thank you for being aware of our planet and the environment.

What I liked

The image that welcomes me onto the page is sublime. Really well chosen and positioned.

I've never come across the Villonnet Form before, but I must try it during NaPoWriMo. It appears to be like a mini villanelle crossed with a sonnet, ie. almost a sonnet bar one extra line to change the end couplet into a tercet, and using refrains in the same way as in a villanelle. Very challenging, but you made great use of the refrains, which work in every postion you have them, ie. they never sound out of place.

Reading aloud, the iambic pentametre is perfect, and the d- alliteration and e assonance used in the two refrains is wonderful. You make good use of these devices elsewhere, particularly in the line "as summer shades prepare to fade away" where we see the "a" assonance in four consecutive stressed syllables.

The theme is fantastic, flowing smoothly and coming to a strong resolution in the tercet where the "moral" of the necessity of death to bring in new life is made clear.

What might need work

I'm struggling here to find anything that might be improved upon.

Consider "Grieve not the changing of the ebbing day". This is the only place in the poem where you don't have exactly perfect iambic pentametre, ie. you begin with a spondee. Well, of course, there's nothing at all wrong with that, and I'm only pointing it out because I'm desperate to find something to "improve", and you may well have deliberately chosen to use a spondee to emphsise the imperative command in this sentence. However, if you wanted, you could just as well write "Don't grieve the changing…" and then the stronger stress on "grieve" would give you an iamb.

Honestly, there's nothing I can find that would improve this beautiful poem!

Thank you for sharing!

Best wishes,

Bob







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