[Critique Group 2] My Feedback from Last Night's Meeting

[Abbie Taylor]

I've inserted the link to the song that inspired my poem below my 
comments for everyone else's pieces. Enjoy, and thank you all for your 
feedback.

***

Valerie, in these lines,

I feel your torment,

cries to be heard,

you should place a period after "heard" instead of a comma, since the 
next lines begin a new sentence.

In the next two lines, try "draw" instead of "drawing."

I answer,

draw you close

I can appreciate the longing this poem portrays.

***

Leonard, try not to use adverbs like “enthusiastically.” The trick is to 
use a stronger verb. In the case of a dialog tag, i.e. “he said 
enthusiastically,” make what the character says sound enthusiastic 
without using the adverb.

I thought I saw a place in the narrative where you slipped from past to 
present tense, so watch that. Otherwise, this is good.

***

Brad, in these lines, get rid of the comma after "vein," even though 
it's at the end of a line. It interrupps the flow of the sentence.

that I no more might resist

than a junkie’s craving vein

could resist the needle.

I suggest breaking this line into two lines, inserting a comma after 
"former" and "latter," putting a period after "shuttle," and deleting 
"and."

Likethe former, she plied the shuttle.

Like the latter, she isolated me with her irresistible gifts.

What does "plied the shuttle" mean?

This next line is also way too long and could be broken down like this. 
It would make more sense to place a comma instead of a semicolon after 
"odyseey."

In a special place where I finally began shapingtimber for the vessel of 
my odyssey,

birds of prey tore myflesh at the leaving.

In this line, there's a space between "map" and the comma. I'm assuming 
this is a typo but thought it worth pointing out.

The second of these two lines is not a complete sentence, so there 
should be a comma after "embers."

I walked on water.

I trod the path of white hot embers,

ultimately born up by the air.

Because you're using a lot of abstract terminology, this poem's meaning 
isn't clear. Obviously, the person is taking a trip to seek his fortune, 
but to where and how? What do the gods and blind women have to do with 
it? You might want to consider using more common analogies.

***

Alice, in the first stanza, try combining these two lines.

to initiate interior design dreams.

Inyour second stanza, avoid using "wallpaper" too many times by deleting 
"once again in the midst of wallpaper dreams."

Five decades later,

I

wonder if I should wallpaper

one wall, one room,

or the small bathroom

with the poems

of my retirement years.

To keep the third stanza in the same tense, you should say, "Then, the 
company would send me

rolls of my poetry

At the end of this stanza, I think you want to say, "an unusualway to 
read the poems on the back wall."

Although the next few stanzas are sweet, I think they take away from the 
poem's effectiveness. Therefore, I suggest ending with the last line in 
the third stanza.

Now here’s a link to the song that inspired the poem. I hope this helps 
you understand why I originally entitled the poem “forsaken virgin.” 
However, I think I’ll change the title to “blessed virgin.” Thank you 
all for your feedback.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L8_475FKJWQ

-- 
Abbie Johnson Taylor, Author http://abbiescorner.wordpress.com 
http://www.abbiejohnsontaylor.com abbietaylor945 at gmail.com Order my new 
memoir at http://www.abbiejohnsontaylor.com/memoir.htm
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