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Review of Downtime  Open in new Window.
Review by cjsterling Author IconMail Icon
Rated: E | (3.0)
Hello! Reading through the poem, I think you capture the wistful, romantic tone well.

The first thing I pay attention to when it comes to poetry is where line breaks and stanza breaks are placed. And throughout the piece, your line breaks are well-placed and seem intentional; nothing feels awkwardly long or cut too short. For example, in stanza 1, the enjambment across lines 4-7 ("And I long for/ The day/ That I'll be strolling through the park/ With you.") disrupts the sentence just before the narrator reaches the thing they desire, exemplifying their longing and enhancing the tone. Very well done!

One suggestion I have is to leverage figurative language (imagery & metaphor) and render more detail to impact the reader on a deeper emotional level. I understood what the narrator was feeling, and I could even empathize with my own past experience, but I didn't feel like I was truly feeling and experiencing it with the narrator. It was too vague, too broad, too general to put me in such a mood. Places where I noted this:

stanza 1: "I look at my problems..."

What problems is the narrator talking about here? It's clear that the narrator's romantic "other" serves as an escapist fantasy, but, as a reader, I'd like to know what they're escaping from in more detail than just "problems". I want to know how those problems make the narrator feel in comparison to their romantic "other".

stanza 2: "I look back/ And see I'm still the same./ The same frown./ The same smile."

What is the "same" about them? I, as a reader, have no reference point for this because I don't know the narrator as intimately as they know themself. Allow the narrator to invite the reader further into their intimate self-perceptions so that we can understand the significance of being "still the same". This also could further emphasize the escapist longing of the narrator because may be trying to escape themself with this romantic fantasy.

stanza 3: "But in my mind,/ I imagine you/ All the time."

What does the narrator imagine their romantic "other" to look like? Imagination can be wily, flexible, whimsical; utilize the aspect of imagination to further emphasize the narrator's feelings of longing by having them imagine the romantic other as something unbelievable, untouchable, unrealistic. Only a suggestion, though; they can imagine the romantic other in many ways as long as the reader gets to know what they're imagining.

stanza 4: "I use my downtime/ To think of our future."

What is the future that the narrator is talking about? What does that look like? If the future is intentionally vague here, make sure that comes across clearly to the reader.


Lastly, I think you nailed the poem structurally, though some elements of figurative language and greater detail would go a long way.

-CJ Sterling


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