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13 Public Reviews Given
76 Total Reviews Given
Public Reviews
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Review by Kodachrome Author IconMail Icon
Rated: E | (4.0)
Okay, well here it is-after (too) much waiting on your part; my apologies.

The first to strike me was the title. It's almost deceiving, really. I like it; it's active, it calls the reader in because it sounds vivaciously full of life; grand.

Keep in mind that this is simply my own interpretation, and that I occasionally get a little overzealous with interpreting. :D

Onto the piece itself. It's funny that you start by separating yourself from what many might perceive as the true adventurers. Even before you say "But I" we have figured out that you're not part of that bunch, what many might also consider truly living in the foreground. You have set this up in an interesting manner, in layers as a painting that I appreciate greatly. You have relegated the typical fantasies to the background, which is not the focus of a painting or much of anything, despite how pretty it may be. The people off searching are in the background, chasing their dreams. It's usually such a celebrated thing, but you have chosen to point out that horizons are simply the opposite of where you are-to you, they are in the background while you lose yourself in what is immediately at hand, in reality. You have drawn a line in the sand here; your title combined with the layering of the poem show us that.

However, this piece also seems to contain a very stark dichotomous nature, suggesting that not all is beautiful in the foreground, or perhaps that it is not all pleasantries but it is at least all real-here and now. This is shown through some of your diction in the second stanza as well as the last. "Drag" and "Chafe and cling close" as well as "jumbled" and "bruised" and "limped" etc . . . show this quite clearly. These are harsh words to suit what is at times an inhospitable reality that can truly erase your dreams, as you have stated at the end of this poem.

Thankfully you are living in the foreground and that is your delight, your choice. It is perfectly within reach, and you have it.

Even while you have been dragged down by reality, your last sentence contains a sense of romantic peace despite the futility and loss. I think this is definitely my very favorite part. The complaint I have with it though . . . is that you have already made your opinion quite clear in the second stanza. Strictly speaking, the third is clumsy to me because you come right out and state what you've been saying throughout the whole poem with your diction. I appreciate subtle things, and here you get rid of what you worked very hard at through the first two sections. I am glad you included it, though. :) It's solid, despite the initial direct reference. The rest makes up for it.

Onto the technical bits. Your poem is very cohesive. You have chosen to isolate certain phrases purposefully, yet still in keeping with natural speech patterns and tone, for instance "But I-" and "Here,/Now." as well as "to stoop close," etc. Similar sounds and structures hold the lines together very nicely, as in "strive," "dream driven," "horizon," "lies," and "there" and "those". These small things each contribute a little bit without overwhelming the poem or making themselves too obvious, and thereby terribly awkward. This continues throughout the entire poem: "Chafe and cling close," "drag me down," "shifting sands," "erased by every wave," "jumbled underfoot." It's very easy on the reader, and as such makes the entire thing flow very well despite the lack of any distinguishable metric pattern. Alliteration, consonance and assonance are all present in this poem, and it's one of the few poems I've seen on here that use them all very effectively.

Your poem as a whole through the first two stanzas has an almost relentless feel to it. You divide it nicely with ceasura using commas and other punctuation to halt the reader a bit and guide their pace, but after a while it starts to take its toll. You even use ceasura simply through enjambment in the first three to four lines, because you know the reader cannot go back lines that quickly to read straight through, and so instead of rushing the reader through the first lines, you make them halt and emphasize those lines. I think that without this usage, your poem would suffer greatly from too many commas and a very halting, irritating pace.

Your second stanza is especially close to this. I really don't know a better word for it; it's relentless. Perhaps this was your intent. It matches your "again and again" and the suffering. The second stanza is where the imagery and symbolism really come out and make themselves known, as well as your relish for the challenge of reality. My favorite would definitely have to be the "jeweled obstacle." It's the strongest in terms of presence and stands for something definitively solid, makes sure the reader understands exactly what you're talking about. This is not just a walk on the beach. I also love the contradiction; it makes perfect sense given your viewpoint, and it is unique.

All in all, it's tough to critique a poem like this. Nothing in particular stands out immensely. It's not in iambic pentameter, dactyls or trochees. Everything is woven together into one tightly knight poem that depends on every thing used to further itself, but it doesn't blow me away. Everything here is definitely solid, and I congratulate you on making this poem. I apologize if my review was a bit scattered and not quite as thorough as you would have appreciated in regard to techniques used, but it's been a while since I've reviewed. :) Thanks again for entering; we hope you come back with another standout piece. I hope my rating does not disturb you, but I tend to rate a bit lower than most. Just because one has nothing explicitly bad to say does not mean the writer gets a five. :p Sometimes the reviewer themself is just not adequate for the task. I will say that this was one of my favorites because it deals with what we all must deal with: dealing with reality and learning to love it. Once again, thanks for the great submission! :D

Kodachrome
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Review of Life  Open in new Window.
Review by Kodachrome Author IconMail Icon
In affiliation with Rising Stars of WdC  Open in new Window.
Rated: E | (3.0)
Hello, Jezri. Seeing how many awards this particular piece has won, I felt obliged to review it. :)

Let's start with the title-"Life" is apt for a poem like this: it's simple yet grand. However, I couldn't help but feel that it lacked some "oomph." While the poem's name is fitting, I wouldn't call it exactly original. Of course, creativity doesn't automatically make a good work or a bad one, and I don't really see what else you could name it without losing the direct connection you've made with the reader.

The first thing I noticed is the rhythm: it's nice, it flows very easily, it matches the simplistic voice you've chosen to use here. The main unit of syllabic arrangement is the iamb; this makes sense, because they are most common in english, and very easy to arrange with our short words. That said, while your poem does have rhythm, it's terribly stagnant. Lyrical poetry is a pleasure to read; don't get me wrong, it's just that I expected more than a sing-along, which is essentially what this poem's rhythm delivered. The problem I have with a constant rhythm is in the nature of the poem itself, not necessarily a matter of pure taste-there are no dynamics; the emphasis on words is downplayed because every other word is accented. Where is the character?

The diction could use some work. I get that it's in spoken tones, but there isn't much descriptive language at all-the very best parts of this poem are "punts me a few blows" and the bit where you spoke of others comparing him to a tumor. These stand out drastically from the rest of the poem in terms of word choice ("punts" is particularly brutal, even though I understand you meant it lovingly), quality of description and creativity. As much as I hate to say it, there is nothing particularly extraordinary about the vehicles you have used to convey your emotion. Some of your phrasing is decent-"could ever even dare" resounds with conviction, for instance-thanks to your rhythm. Unfortunately, you use a similar phrase later. If you're going to use repetition or anaphora, I would suggest placing the phrases or words in a conspicuous place: perhaps right next to one another or using them in such a way that the reader will go back and realize what you've done. I like the tone of "they would never dare" as well, because it reads so much differently than the original phrase you used. A nice contrast, but it's a bit of a stretch to connect it back to the first with so much distance between them. You repeat "tiny" as well.

I see your rhyme scheme; it's xaxa, xbxb, xcxc etc. That's all well and good; admirable, but when it gets right down to it, this is a lot of what is causing the "sing-along" effect. Perhaps that's what you wanted, but unfortunately that does not often make a good poem, despite how many readers it may attract. I suggest experimenting with feminine rhyme, slant rhyme, assonant rhyme . . . the list goes on and on, and they're all wonderful things to try. I understand this is the only poem of yours I have read and I acknowledge you probably already knew this, but I thought I'd suggest it anyway.

Next, onto some other techniques-your use of punctuation, particularly. It's a great tool to control the reader, and you demonstrate that you can use it to effectively guide a reader's pace. You combine the commas with enjambment and that breaks up the repetitive rhythm a little bit. Unfortunately it's the commas that help create this static nature to begin with. Even though your enjambment provides some runaway breaks, it leads right back to where we started, never transitioning. This disappointed me quite a bit. I realize that static lyric poetry can be very good, but usually they don't rely so heavily on commas-they also bust out a bit more on the vocabulary, and while this provides the same sense of rhythm, it doesn't accentuate it so heavily.

As much as I hate to say it, this poem rides a wave of sentimentality to the top. You have presented a sensitive subject and an image to associate it with. After this, you didn't do much to further than perpetuate the feelings the subject itself brought up within the reader. While the poem has a decent tone and sounds of sincere conviction, "how-dare-you" and "life-is-precious" are not enough to make a good poem. War is bad, love is good and death is tragic, etc etc. This is sentimentality. While I'm disappointed in this, I look forward to perhaps reading some more of your poetry-please do not take offense, but I believe this poem to be average at best.
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Review of What the Heck?  Open in new Window.
Review by Kodachrome Author IconMail Icon
Rated: E | (4.0)
I can’t lie; this is one of my favorites you’ve made so far, regardless of how you feel about it. I like your more serious pieces, your comedic anecdotes and such-but this poem contains the genuine, unmistakable tone of yourself. While the picture prompt may not have been best, it certainly brought out the best in your concepts and connections: complete originality bred of slightly confused frustration.

First, the technical bits. All the spelling and such is in place. Colloquialisms have been used, but they don’t detract from the big picture. You follow regular sentence structures in here, not capitalizing lines that are continuations of sentences, but you don’t use proper punctuation-such as semi colons instead of commas. It doesn’t really matter, honestly, but in another work it could make a big difference in how something is read. Here, all your pauses are at the ends of lines, so it doesn’t matter so much what you use to signal the stop. After all, the reader still has to navigate back to the beginning again. You’ve got some rhymes; they help keep it together, which I think it almost a necessity in a humorous poem. The flow and syllables don’t always mesh well, especially in the line about mice. Other than that, you still flow quite well without needing a bouncy sing-along rhythm. I like it; it works. I dislike your last two lines, though. I feel you could have said the same thing with the same sense of brutal honest without the comma that messes up the flow.

Next up, your tone. This is my favorite part of the piece aside from the metaphor you’ve produced-of course they’re interlaced, but we’ll get to that later. The informal language and lack of consistent capitalization at the beginning contribute to this, I feel. Not to mention the simple ridiculous nature of some comparisons you create here. The alliteration and playful feel of the phrase “cacti condo” produces the most tone, I think. It’s my favorite stanza by far, lots of alliteration and bouncy rhythm in comparison with the others that really suits a playful nature. It stands out far from the rest of the poem. Simply the subjects breached present their own tone-mazes for mice, spittoons and cacti residences. A hodgepodge of shenanigans.

Imagery-easily one of the most important aspects, and one which this poem centers around. How many things can this object be? You’ve come up with three already which all differ in nature and function, but they all perfectly relate to the prompt. Not only this, they’re all appropriate to the task of creating humor in the piece. Because this is a humorous poem, excessive imagery would be out of place, I think, especially given your style here. I think you were successful in finding that balance, and your cacti condo stanza includes quite a bit packed in there in such a way as to make it very viewable and entertaining at the same time without wasting space on not-funny material-something difficult to do.

Overall, this poem is really just fantastic metaphor for one object, and I like it a lot. It’s solid even if it was merely something you spat out one day. It wasn’t laugh out loud funny, but it was funny in a quirky way that I am a huge fan of. Most importantly, it’s most definitely you. I think you did well with what you were given, so it gets my vote.

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