Hi Liz,

Came across your relevant and very evocative poem last night, and it stayed in my head until tonight when I decided to share my appreciation for it.

Your voice is strong, angry, and passionate, without being whiny. You rail against fate for sure, but there's also a fatalistic tone that actually adds to the power of your verse.

Just a few minor suggestions:

--Its title doesn't, as we say colloquially, pack as much of a punch as the tone & the message. You're probably very accurately describing your thoughts and feelings, but maybe there's a less subdued/more powerful word you can use in place of "Blues".

--I understand why you need to include the word "and" in the first line, "Rationing food and also the paper..." but it weighs down the start of the poem a little too much for a smooth flow. How about alternatives like, "Rationing food, even the paper..."

--2nd stanza: You could afford to use a comma between "angered" and "wept". It tells the reader even more clearly that the first of these actions ("we watched") led to the second (an angry reaction) which, in turn, brought on the weeping.

--4th stanza: "We stream, we binge, to entertain ourselves". I'm not sure the first couple commas are necessary. Here I think you can use the word "and" between "stream" and "binge" to have the line's idea move ahead more lyrically.

--Also in, "Wondering if we, too, shall soon depart", you might want to take just one more look at the punctuation. I'm certainly no authority on poetry, but my general rule of thumb is to drop the punctuation entirely in a line or a couple of them if I'm very uncertain about the best choice.

Hope this helps. Keep writing...we need more voices like yours, especially during these chaotic times.




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