[Critique Group 2] critiques for April 18

[Alice Massa]

Hello!Group Two writers:

Below are the critiques I shared about your pieces at our April 18, 2017 
meeting/critique session.Thank you for critiquing my sonnet.

1. Brad:"Capping Off Six Decades"

To strengthen the first line of a poem or the first sentence of a prose 
piece, avoid beginning with "It."Perhaps, the poem could begin with "My 
life" or "My first six decades."(Nevertheless, your reference to Thomas 
Merten is admirable.)

Another suggestion for the first line is that this line, rather than 
ending with a period, should end with a dash.

One of the outstanding lines of this poem:

Time like a concertina, expanding and compressing,

needs a comma at the end.The "concertina" simile is a superb one!

Delete the semicolon after "immobilizing fears."

Since I still have the John Denver album *Poems, Prayers, and Promises* 
(I placed the album title in boldface type.)and still remember the 
lyrics to the song "Poems, Prayers, and Promises," I suggest that you 
either leave out the reference or place the phrase in double quotation 
marks and later insert a footnote to credit John Denver and/or whoever 
wrote the lyrics.

Place a comma after the phrase "Ten thousand songs later," since it is 
an introductory adverbial phrase and is transitional.

The phrase "Wait a minute" needs to end with either an exclamation point 
or (my preference) a dash.

Change "And though" to "Although."Beginning a line with a word other 
than "and" when the line begins a new sentence is a better choice.

I am smiling because the introductory prepositional phrase "In the final 
analysis," does have a comma!This critique contains no note about a 
comma being needed after an introductory prepositional phrase!

This highly interesting poem is John Denver-esque.Although the lines 
contain uplifting moments, the poem is a spilling of the heart and has, 
at times, the sad tones of a John Denver tune.Thanks for sharing your 
feelings, emotions in these verses.

2.Abbie:"Peace on Casper Mountain"

Unsurprisingly, Abbie's poem has perfect punctuation.

This brief poem offers a quick setting of the scene for the big question 
at the end.While the poem is effective, a little more description of the 
tranquility broken by the cutting of trees could make the final question 
even more striking.

Does the title suit the poem's content?Could the poet consider "A Piece 
(Note spelling of prior word.) of Casper Mountain"?

This poem reflects the diversity of topics chosen by the writer and also 
reflects the writer's residence in the West.

3.Leonard:"The Onion and the Cabbage"

In the lines

which slid and dived out of the sky

landing close....

change "landing" to landed."Also, in the above passage, "which" does not 
have a clear antecedent.

After the phrase "root and grow," the comma may be deleted.

Consider deleting or replacing the "and" which is at the onset of the line:

And so his wishes came to be

A closing single quote is missing after

'me.'"

I actually expected this clever poem to progress in a different 
direction.Rather than emphasizing the loneliness of the main character 
and the seasons of life, I anticipated a lesson about the value of the 
differences in vegetables/people.

Once again, the poet has demonstrated his versatility in writing style 
and selection of topics.His palette has a wide array of colorful topics.

4.Valerie:"Motherlove"

I do like the title of this poem and the way the poet chose to meld the 
two words together.

Change the following dangling participle to a dependent clause:

Listening with every ounce of hope,

One possible change is:

As I listened with every ounce of hope,

At the end of the prepositional phrase "in that split moment of 
knowing," insert a comma.

Change comma to dash at the end of:

he was before me--

To the following, add a comma at the end of the first of two independent 
clauses of the compound sentence:

The light between us grew,

and the first ....

Ouch!I just spent some time re-reading and studying Valerie's poem after 
our session this evening, and I am ashamed that I came to the poem with 
such preconceived notions which prevented me a "good read" of the 
poem.Oh, yes, I learned a lesson in reading this poem.As I read the poem 
in this new Light, I checked for capitalization of certain words which 
would have been clues to support that the narrator was Mary, Mother of 
Jesus.If the poem had been in, for example, a religious publication; 
perhaps, the source would have helped in my reading appropriately the 
poem.Well, what is important is that now the poem makes perfect sense! I 
like the poem ever so much more now.Just to make certain that your 
reader is on track with you, at the very end when you write "My Son" 
(Note that Val had a capital on "Son" here in the final line.), could 
you consider the following:

My Son--Jesus of Nazareth."

or another identifier as the last couple of words of the poem?

Thanks for sharing this remarkable poem with us.

For May 23, I promise that I will not send a sonnet your way!

Happy writing!

Hug those trees--it is almost Arbor Day!

Alice

ajm321kh at wi.rr.com

April 18, 2017, Tuesday

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://bluegrasspals.com/pipermail/group2/attachments/20170418/5281af9f/attachment-0001.html>