Well, the garden as a symbol of innocence must be the oldest metaphor of them all - that being said I think it's a sweet poem... You might want to make up for the lack of an original subject by intensifying the rhyme scheme a bit, maybe let lines 1 and 3 in every stanza rhyme as well - I know that would make for a major revision, but it's worth considering if you want the poem to be more than just your personal praise of your daughter. I like that notion of something dark and gloomy in the li...

"children playing in mine-riddled mountains" - I love it when I read a poem and get jealous, kick back and wish that I had thought of that line... That's the true mark of good poetry for me: jealousy :-) Anyway, this one bears the mark. I missed the other revisions, this is my first read, but I have to say that I think you're almost there. It strikes me as kinda odd that stanza 11 has five lines instead of four... if there's a deeper meaning there, I missed it. If there's not a deeper meaning...

A very, very good piece of poetry, I have nothing but positive criticism about this one. The poem never becomes high-strung and overdone like so much poetry on this site, but lets the great images (what an end line!) carry it into the space between aristocratic conventions and spoken, everyday language. If you read the rest of my reviews you'll know that I don't say this often: I, for one, would buy a collection of poetry if this was the first poem I read of that collection. I will be followi...

I would compare this poem with its first draft, if only I could figure out how to find the first draft... Well, maybe you're actually better off by getting critique unfettered by previous versions. You move on a knife's edge in this poem - by that I mean that your images are constantly in danger of coming across like parodic elements. The passage where the poet pulls out her guitar, I mean, that is an overused image if ever there was one: the poet and the harp, my goodness, BUT then the image...

I like your old title better. "You Lover" is so specific, whereas "A lover" widens the scope to a point where it can be a reference to both the one leaving the party with the girl, but also to the speaker himself. As the poem itself argues in the end, there is more than one name at play in the poem - the title, I think, reflected that when it read "A lover's name". The overall poem grows on me everytime I reread it - I like the small breaks with conventions here and there: everyone else in th...

It's getting better and better! I really like the new three line stanzas (ego-centric as the lot, it reminds me of my own writing), and the new ending is much much better than the old one. So here's the constructive side of this review: it somehow ruins the reading of the poem that stanzas 7 and 8 both begins with "I", you can't help but stop for a second and think didnt I already read this stanza? Punctuation-wise, I think you could do without the many full stops, especially the line "You le...

I like the fact that the poem negates its own title in the end, that's a nice feature. The end lines' message comes across a bit overbloated, considering the otherwise down to earth tone of the rest of the poem. It almost turns into a cliché, an overused morale. That's too bad, because the rest of the poem has got a nice James Tate-feeling. I would also advice on deleting the Safran-Foer reference - kill your darlings, as it's said: be brave enough to let your poem stand on its own, it WILL b...

A fun piece, I like it. You should pursue this, I think, it could turn out a great poem one day. I suggest that instead of using the alphabet as sentence-starters, you use the title of the novel instead - something like this, maybe: Someone said blah-blah... Could that have been myself talking? And so forth.... R L E T L E T T E R You catch my drift... It's just a suggestion.

First draft? Wow, I can't wait for the end result, because this one is really great already. I love the in-your-face opening and the humourous blurbs throughout (the cat, the 'both', the lovesongs) Put a gun to my head and ask me for constructive criticism beyond pure praise, I'd tell you to drop the capital letters of each new line. Maybe it's just me, but I think it interferes with the flow of the poem, and that's a pity, cos' this one really flows! Bravo.

Ha ha! Funneeee... Not really carrying any aesthetic appeal, which any good poem should - I laughed, though, so on that side, it works. But if you want this piece to be appreciated for more than its humouristic elements, you need to work on it, elaborate.