I'm afraid this review will not be as critical as I usually like to give. I love this piece, particularly as something to be performed instead of just read. The word choice and flow is wonderful. I particularly love the fourth, seventh, & eighth stanzas. I have no suggestions for those other than keep them as they are no matter how much you revise. If there are any areas that need work I'd suggest focusing on the first, second, fifth, & ninth stanzas. First - It's a decent introduction, but i...

Overall, I like this. I love many of the "lines." Particularly "unending movement of this molten lava," & the entire last sentence. Double for the last sentence. It creates powerful images. I would suggest seeing how many adjectives you can live without. It's mostly noticeable in the second sentence. Also, I suggest getting rid of unnecessary words such is "it's like" at the beginning. It's unnecessary and severely lessens the impact of the rest of the line. Perhaps give this a try with line ...

The repetition does take away a lot of the impact. Of course, that is part of the form, and as far as this type of poem goes, this is excellent. You have some incredibly moving & beautiful lines. I particularly enjoy the fourth stanza as well as describing rains as silver and gold; usually you only hear rain described as silver. This both avoids cliche, and creates a really beautiful image. "Shattered like glass window panes" works with the rhyme and doesn't sound forced, but it is a bit clic...

This is a long piece, so I'm going to go back through and review as I go, so I don't miss things. Hence it will be very disjointed, and very off-the-top-of-my-head-ish. I really love the first part of the first line. Writing a eulogy on a tin roof is an awesome image that's as far from cliche as possible. I love the ?third? stanza (dealing with the posters). It's a great image that gives hints of the narrator thinking the world is crazy (or something along those lines) and now wondering if it...

Overall I really liked this piece. It was a little hard to get into, but it completely redeemed itself with the ending, when the reader is inside Phil's head instead of Ricky's. Have you thought of expanding this, making it a larger work? You seem to have a lot here that you'd need more space to fully go into. Because this is a longish piece I was making notes as I went along. Paragraph One - All the information in it could be given elsewhere. Your first paragraph needs to grab the reader's a...

The rhyme & rhythm is good and doesn't sound too forced, but it is a bit sing-songy. In the second verse you use "true" twice which is a bit jarring. Also, it seems that you're sacrificing emotion and deeper meaning for your rhyme. This is a good subject, but it's been done before. That doesn't mean you should abandon it; it just means you need to go deeper, find a new angle. As it is you're skipping along the surface of wishes & dreams, both attainable and not. This makes for a decent, solid...

The rhyme is expertly done, and doesn't sound at all forced. I think this would be best as a spoken word piece. The rhythm and sound draws you in, but it almost sets the reader spinning in circles, caught up in the sound, so that it's hard to focus on the meaning. Not to say that you sacrifice meaning for rhyme; that's altogether different. I think a few more images through the poem, or even one image that flows through it to connect the beginning to the end, might keep the reader's mind focu...

I think the second and fourth stanzas are your strongest by far. They're both excellent and contain unique imagery as well as powerful wording. The first stanza was hard for me to follow. The flow of the poem was broken while I had to pause and try to figure it out. I'm assuming stringing vowels as a garland is a metaphor, but I can't figure out for what. The third stanza is good, except for the first line. The rest of the poem doesn't rhyme, so that one rhyming line sticks out like a drag qu...

I really enjoyed this piece. Overall, I think it's excellent. It flows well and has crystal clear imagery. I think the strongest stanzas are one, two, five, six, and eight. Something about the wording of those stanzas made them, in my opinion, flow beautifully and made them very easy to picture and connect with. In line two of the second stanza I wonder if you could find another way to imply that you're in junior high. Knowing the characters' ages there is definitely important to the feel of ...

This is beautiful. My favorite lines are stanza one, lines one & two, stanza three, lines three & four, and all of the last stanza. I think the beginning is strong, powerful, and full of meaning without sounding overdone. I think the same is true of the ending - it's very strong and does the piece justice. I absolutely love the image of the crystal springs. In fact, the whole piece has great imagery. It helps the reader see these things, and consequently helps the reader actually feel peacefu...