Welcome to WDC! I hope you enjoy your time here!


What Caught My Eye

I wanted to read a piece about a ghaf tree.

Favorite Aspects

The tone is just right. I appreciate your consistency too.

Hook
In my reviews, I like to focus a bit on the opening line(s) of a poem. Sometimes, people forget that a good hook is as important for a poem as it is for a story. It might be more important, in fact. Given the length of a poem, the intro (that hook) is a considerable percentage of the piece as a whole. It needs to be both functional and interesting to serve its purposes.

I like the idea presented in the first stanza. We sometimes see a tree and, if we think of it at all, think something like "Huh... cool tree". I like the setup. I appreciate that you tied it back to the end too.

That said, you basically said the same thing twice here. Thinking of their stories... thinking of their past. Same thing. Plus, you have the repeated lines 1/3 AND repeated "thinking of", which sets you up for the one truly inconsistent issue with your poem (against the/proud as). If you're going to set up a structure, it feels like an accident to not continue it.

Similarly, the "dark/bark" seems accidental rather than purposeful. These types of things trip me up and get me looking for clever things that aren't actually happening in the piece.

It feels like much too much repetition for my personal taste... but at least you went for it.

Language / Word Choice

You use some strong words in here and some weaker choices too. For me, it's the lack of content more than the wording itself (which is rare).

We don't think of the stories.
We don't think of the past.
We don't know if the story is long.
We don't know if it's dark.

Man... this is just... not interesting or useful. The whole second stanza is obvious. If we don't know their stories... we obviously wouldn't know if they're long or short or light or dark. It feels like words for the sake of words. It's not adding to the meaning. Additionally, the "quite vast" is a waste of a word... "quite" is filler... as is "very" in the last line. You just don't have the content to support the second stanza. I'd ax it or rewrite myself. Maybe use that space to tell us something true of ONLY Ghaf trees. So far, this is true of literally every tree.

The third stanza introduces 1 thing isn't just... true for any tree. They're in the desert. And... that's literally the only thing that is specific to this tree (or rather... distinguishes it from every single other tree).

Flow / Rhythm

The flow from stanza 2 to 3 is rough. Visually, it almost looks like a mirage, which I'm totally cool with. The flow is off though. And going from 3 to 4 just makes stanza 4 feel as dense as it looks. I'd tweak some lines.

"But all desert travelers" -- means the same thing and flows MUCH better with everything surrounding it.

Imagery

The imagery is okay... but again, doesn't feel specific to the Ghaf. You describe the desert more than the tree. And it's a cool looking tree!

One Thing to Work On?
What one thing will make the biggest difference for this piece?

Rewriting stanza two to introduce the TREE. Describe it, let us see it... just... give us something we don't already know. It would help a whole lot. You can reorder stanza 3 to the 2nd position and follow the "but all see" stanza with the description of what they see.

On a side note-- revise for grammar. The commas aren't needed and just... awkwardly cut subjects off from predicates and so forth. A line break doesn't need a comma... These are sentences... let them be sentences. Would you write:

"But all travelers, see bark"? It's awkward. Over and over. The only ones that are needed (on a quick glance) are "lands,/proud" and the ones in the last stanza.

Effect

I think this is an okay draft. If you left it as is, it's fine. I think it could be good with about 10 minutes of revision/rewriting. But you know... we all have average (and probably worse) poems in our ports. It's the best I've read so far today too. Good luck if you choose to revise.





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