Where's the personification? Where is the contrast? Where's the imagery? Never, Never tell a reader how you feel; show them. Oh . . . "you take by breath away." Really, is that so . . . someone took your breath away, great! Don't tell me someone took your breath away. Show me what your body would do. Would you collapse? You need good verbs in poetry. "Take" is not a good verb. Now "collapse" that is a good verb.

This IS BAD. A cliche absolutely must never appear in a poem: "making no waves. . . shred of hope . . . drowned by reality" -- These are cliches!! I would start over and keep only 1 line: "Clawing the sky."

I really want you to know that you HAVE talent. You instinctively have PERFECT line breaks. The poem begins like a Virginia Woolf novel. LOVE IT. You have raw talent. I would love to be you. Keep writing . . . eventually you will get there I am sure.

This is awful rubbish. Filled with cliche after cliche. "in the still of the night" --PLEASE. Listen . . . poetry is suppose to be fresh and new. You CAN'T use language that has been used over and over. For God's sake "in the still of the night" was the name of a very popular song. You can't use this in poetry. Your piece doesn't flow, there are no good line breaks, no fresh imagery, no texture or contrast. This piece is HORRIBLE.

This is nothing but horrible rhetoric. I can't read any more of your work, if you want to write . . . take creative writing classes, PLEASE.

I agree . . . using cliches and overused metaphors is a no-no in writing, especially poetry. You CLEARLY have a bad habit of this. Read your work and if the phrases sound familiar that is because they have already been written. You are not a good writier, I'm sorry.

Your description of nature is impeccable. Reminds me of poet W.C. Bryant but better -- without misguided philosophy. One of my favorite lines is: "In the dull calm of morning twilight, the crispness of October seeps through the seams of my jacket." The description of "dull calm" and then "crispness" seem at first glance to counteract themselves, but on a second read it proves to be pure genius.

This reminds me of Sandra Cisneros' piece "Hairs." I am wondering if you ever read that piece and purposefully created this piece to resemble it. I like parts of it but the flow is a little off. It sounds kind of choppy. I would read it aloud and revise.

Thank you for putting those thoughts down. I am often the one who is left out of the conversation. Mostly because (like you) I don't feel the need to partake in superficial communication. I often feel as though I am a minority and I will never find people like me who want to communicate on a different level. Well, maybe it is because we are all at our computers writing. You have great observation of life and that is a gift from your non-superficial side.

Your strong points are description: "Small rivers poured off the eaves of buildings, creating small ponds in which the frogs frolicked." That is a great sentence. And you kept the action going which is hard for a lot of people. Just a minor point, but one that bugs me. Don't use a lot of tags for dialogue. Example: "she gasped" or "he said triumphantly". It becomes very annoying. I know you are trying to be creative, but he said, she said, keeps the dialogue moving at a realistic pace. When y...