This is a touching heart-felt tribute to one's wife and the narrator goes into great detail describing the girl he just met as a boy at school and how they clicked when they first danced. The repetitive device in each stanza, "What did we have in common" lends a lulling effect to the tone of the poem and the irony at the end, 'nothing' belies the title of "To My Wife of 43 Years." But as well written as it is, it somehow lacks passion or energy to me, it drones without spark, each line is a s...

It's not bad for a first draft but it's missing a point of view of a narrator and doesn't have a clear direction yet, somewhat of a sketchy ramble though the feeling comes across. L1 could be made stronger by being shorter. "Cold reaches the eastern sea/" but what does that have to do with a lover's tears? Logically Flowers lost in the freeze would be next. But why would the narrator stand in the waves in the freeze recalling the warmth of a lover's embrace? The last line leads us nowhere.I b...

This is very hard to know what is the poem, what is the title, is 'to my son, Fotis,' part of the poem or a dedication outside the poem. Is Stavroula Gatsou the name of the author or does it mean something in Greek? Is the footnote part of the poem or should it have an asterisk before it along with one beside the word in the poem? Then we're dealing basically with, "for me, myself, I've never been born. Headless. Refugee." It's not quite enough to sustain a concept I think. It's way too minim...

I wish that 'iron pods' had been described more for the image is one of something very heavy that could not be easily flung toward heaven, and what are they to begin with? And what do they have to do whistled tunes, and smokey desert winds? Greasy skies? If the winds are smokey and desert dry, greasy seems out of place. This poem seems to ramble unfocused and contradicts itself a lot. Speaking of seeds cutting down daisies, it then falls into furrowed flesh, what's the connection and where di...

I'm not quite sure what I think, as I get a sense of two people parting in S1 written in first person plural 'we' then it changes to first person singular "I" in the S2 which is confusing so now we have one narrator clutching or holding the other but then coolly saying, bye, so long, in an indifferent voice. To be more technical L1 reads as if two people are lightly drifting in a breeze, floating to be exact, as they part their ways, which means something likes Moses parting the seas. Perhaps...

I'm not sure I get it or why it is posted in poems. How is it that the dead man can whistle? Or why? And what does it have to do with his shoddy coffin? Is it open for viewing or buried in the ground? There is never a lot of room in a coffin, just enough to encase a body securely. And if he is unmoving, then he can't be whistling. I think this poem is too pared down without enough detail to relate to it. Who was this dead man? Why do we care about him? Why should we care about him? As it stan...

It would have been better if you referenced what it is you have learned that is true hypocrisy over extraordinary, it rings too general, as if all that you have learned has been a sham, and I doubt that that can be true. Something must have been of value. I don't think this really describes anyone fully as it stands.

This is written in the first person singular point of view and the narrator should carry this out through this dramatic narrative. Instead of saying, "those eyes" or "that sexual air.." it would be more emphatic and dramatic to say "my eyes" and "my sexual air.." since the narrator is speaking about himself throughout. Yet still there is not enough detail that expresses how odd this character might be, why has he become cynical? Show us some of his cynicism and sexuality. Tell us how he respo...

There is a lilting sorrowfulness to this poem that resides under the surface, as if one were to know the true meaning of the hidden thoughts of the narrator would cause some destruction to some vague other person. But as ebony is wood and not black crystal the meaning is unclear as to whether these thoughts are wooden brittle thoughts or black thoughts that are clear. And I am not sure what the metaphor of the the white brittle shell stands for? The mind is fluid and a soft mass. L2 needs a s...

This is quite lovely and mysterious but runs on and could use some tightening and editing to make it more powerful as in these first few lines which I have tried to give and example of sorts of some tightening: In summer, wild wind in the branches, A sharp whisper at dusk. Through the blinds night stretches Etching out light. I am a nocturnal prisoner Doomed beneath ragged covers, Secretly seeking strangers. Though to be honest, if you are doomed beneath covers, how can you seek out strangers...