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What Caught My Eye

I like to review newbies, and I love poetry. So, I decided to give it a read.

Favorite Aspects

I absolutely love free verse. Your word choice also has some really strong moments.

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.

The first two lines didn't really hook me, but "time" and "bedside" make nice use of assonance, and I figured I'd give it a go. What actually kept me reading was the Wizard of Oz motif... I was actually disappointed when it didn't return. Using something like that so early sets us up for a connection that... doesn't really happen. When Tom Hanks popped up, I even thought maybe you were going for just... loose movie references, but there were no more of those either.

Language / Word Choice

You have some really outrageously good moments in here. I generally think that end-rhyme that comes out of nowhere looks accidental, but you used it at the end very well. The "Never Dids" and "hiding hids" lines are great... and read as purposeful.

I do think there is plenty of room for nips and tucks here. Little things like "What it fed to him"... it's not needed because of the conversational tone here. If you can use things like "held him happy", you can cut other miscellaneous words.

The next line has bulky phrasing too: "was his day for the handing out of tickets"... whew. I tripped hard on that.

Flow / Rhythm

The flow is decent but not excellent in areas. Give it a read aloud in a few months and you'll catch any awkwardness. The long-ish lines in the middle tripped me up some.

Imagery

The imagery in here is just right. Not too much or too little.

Consistency

The Wizard of Oz/movie angle. Man... some consistency in that could be really nice.

Voice

The voice is super strong.

Emotiveness

This didn't really move me a whole lot... but it is emotive. I would guess this is a later but not final draft, given its effectiveness.

Effect

I like it. I think your style is similar to mine, actually (see Book of Misc in my port). But there is still some room for improvement. I'm gonna keep an eye on your port... I think you're gonna be a new favorite.





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