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The "well thumbed" feels jammed into the rhythm, but otherwise, this is technically sound from a meter perspective. I do wonder what's going on with the rhymes. You start with an ABAB pattern, but then drop rhyming altogether until... well, no, it looks like you have an odd pattern of ABCBD, EFGFH, IJI, so it's only the lines sandwiching the middle of each group that rhyme. I'm no expert on poetic forms, so I don't know if this is a well-know one or something you invented.
I love the atmosphere of this, and it's immediately evocative. In so few words, I completely understand what the speaker is doing, what his situation is, and even his history. Plus it's a common enough situation that any reader should be able to identify with it. It's not one of those poems that wows me with its construction, but it is one that sticks with me well afterward because I really understand where the speaker's coming from. And it even does that without attaching a deep emotion to it. Like he says, the book didn't warrant some place of honor, so there's not a catharsis in rediscovering it, but sometimes it's the everyday routine thing that draws out an emotion better than the dramatic. I liked this a lot.
I love the atmosphere of this, and it's immediately evocative. In so few words, I completely understand what the speaker is doing, what his situation is, and even his history. Plus it's a common enough situation that any reader should be able to identify with it. It's not one of those poems that wows me with its construction, but it is one that sticks with me well afterward because I really understand where the speaker's coming from. And it even does that without attaching a deep emotion to it. Like he says, the book didn't warrant some place of honor, so there's not a catharsis in rediscovering it, but sometimes it's the everyday routine thing that draws out an emotion better than the dramatic. I liked this a lot.
I like this look at what's akin to an alternate take on feng shui. I also like it when poets don't feel constrained to end sentences on the rhymes. Nice sonnet form. Some of the rhythm is off, like "furniture" and "sorcerous" go more hard stress-light stress-unstressed than the iambic pattern that exists elsewhere.
The final line even makes it seem more like a YT post, which ups the ante on this supernatural feng shui even being things people look to the internet for advice on. It does come about suddenly, but on the other hand, it does lampshade why there's no more context provided on all the world building here, since the viewer presumably already knows the basics or wouldn't have been watching the video.
Some mixed feelings, but this was pretty cute.
The final line even makes it seem more like a YT post, which ups the ante on this supernatural feng shui even being things people look to the internet for advice on. It does come about suddenly, but on the other hand, it does lampshade why there's no more context provided on all the world building here, since the viewer presumably already knows the basics or wouldn't have been watching the video.
Some mixed feelings, but this was pretty cute.
An amusing message, and it creates a vivid mental picture. On the technical side, the rhythm is irregular, and comes/numb doesn't quite rhyme. Still, a fun piece of verse, and a situation I've been in myself.
Cute tale. Based on the ending, I can't tell whether the frog is law enforcement himself or just seeking justice on his own. The one thing that bugged me is that in several places, it seems to be speaking to an audience, but I can't tell who that audience would be, particularly since it's in present tense, meaning he's narrating it to an audience in real time, as it happens. If so, then why wasn't his audience helping him? Sometimes people still tell past events in present tense, but that still gets back to who his audience is and why he's telling them this story. You misspelled the name as "Creasote" in one spot.
Hm, interesting tale of a vampire hunter. I'm not sure it was a good idea to wait so late to introduce the motivation of Jeroum's daughter. Not that it really recontextualizes things, but that's kind of the point: you change what the context is, but that change doesn't end up mattering or draw me into the story any more. I was actually afraid it would be completely extraneous and open-ended, but you did conclude it. For that matter, why wait until so late to finally name him a vampire? For all that, I do appreciate that it comes to a neat ending. The only part of the writing itself I'd point out is this passage, where you had a lot of repetitive word choice—3 uses of "seem" in only a few sentences.
At first, little was visible, the leaves trembled and seemed to flicker, though they flashed so quickly from green to orange to dead brown that they still seemed an autumn jumble for a while. But then the twigs drew back, and limbs shrank towards the trunk, and its height diminished, the lofty top seeming to collapse down towards me.
So this is someone letting a spoonful of soup slowly spill over and splash back into the bowl? I'm curious if I missed something in there to where the choice of leek matters. Still, there's a nice playfulness to it, and the rhythm works. There are one or two lines where I had to work a bit of a pause in, but the stress patterns all fit.
Kind of a rondeau form here? I've only written the redouble form myself, so I don't remember what the basic form's structure is. It's always tough to write a poem with so few rhyme sounds. The rhythm has no hitches in it.
Sounds like a screed against how online culture is very unforgiving of creative endeavors (or anything, really), which is true enough. It's kind of hard to discern that from the first stanza, but the tough structural demands of the form often make the narrative take somewhat of a back seat to word choices/phrasings that'll fit.
Sounds like a screed against how online culture is very unforgiving of creative endeavors (or anything, really), which is true enough. It's kind of hard to discern that from the first stanza, but the tough structural demands of the form often make the narrative take somewhat of a back seat to word choices/phrasings that'll fit.
Sorry this round went by without me noticing it, and there's already another imminent. Oh well, I can still leave comments.
Hm, intubation normally refers to breathing tubes, right? Yet the poem speaks more to an IV line. Very thematic with the prompt, making me wonder whether you were the one who submitted the prompt. I never really have much to say about free verse, since any structural decisions will seem pretty arbitrary to a reader. (Despite knowing this as a reader myself, I've experienced it from the other side as well by submitting poetry to contests. It's very hard to impress judges with free verse.) So really the most I can say is that I like the atmosphere created.
Hm, intubation normally refers to breathing tubes, right? Yet the poem speaks more to an IV line. Very thematic with the prompt, making me wonder whether you were the one who submitted the prompt. I never really have much to say about free verse, since any structural decisions will seem pretty arbitrary to a reader. (Despite knowing this as a reader myself, I've experienced it from the other side as well by submitting poetry to contests. It's very hard to impress judges with free verse.) So really the most I can say is that I like the atmosphere created.
Their magic was all theory and no practice
I kind of want to see some more development of how he understands this to be the case. The argument he was having with the professor in the first scene seemed the opposite, where the professor said not to worry about formulaic things the magic was supposed to do and just go on the feel of what it actually does. Seems more like the professor is on the side of practice, and while Polaris might have an interpretation that cuts the other way, I'd like to see his line of argument laid out.
Given how much conversation happens during their attempt to work on the scrolls, things transition over to being more summaries once they come back out of the cave, and it's an oddly distancing effect, as if none of these events matter as much anymore at that point. I wonder if that was just you running up against the deadline and needing to get it finished in a hurry. Then the actual ending also kind of comes out of nowhere. it must really be a new idea to start a new university or else Polaris surely would have heard that about his idol.
With the number of extremely close similarities, I assume this is an MLP story idea that was transitioned over to a general fiction adaptation of it. We have clear analogs of Twilight, Celestia, Spike, Starswirl, Neighsay, and Rainbow Dash, unless I miss my guess. Nothing wrong with that, though I wonder whether you'll post this as an MLP story on FiMFiction or submit it to a fantasy publication (possibly the former until the latter happens).
Anyway. Very cute story in the author's distinctive style, and it reads much more quickly than the word count. A bit rushed at the end, but overall this was a lot of fun.
A few typos, like you call your main character Bundi a number of times. If that was intentional, the purpose of it went over my head.
I found the first interaction confusing. Budi disappears, and it does say he goes to the office, but never has him pop to the pickup location, so it seemed like the client was at the office. Then for that matter, the narrator stays behind to say that, even though it'd been in Budi's perspective and he's gone. Then you do the same thing again when he drops the client off. You shouldn't have a limited narrator telling me things the perspective character can't possibly have witnessed.
Why is Budi paying the helicopter pilot? He's just doing his own job and presumably getting paid for it. A refund for not being able to take it there himself? But then that means the pilot was the client, which doesn't make sense.
The scene in the hangar is cute enough, but you throw so many characters at me at once that I can't keep track of them all. I guess only the one mostly conversing with Budi is important, but she can get lost in the mix.
It ends up being more of a slice of life story, which wouldn't necessarily be a problem, except the way you ended the penultimate scene teases something eventful is about to happen, only for there to be no payoff. I do wonder why he didn't get a tip, since that's a standard kind of thing to do for his service, so either the customer was oblivious to that (including even normal comparable transport) or dissatisfied, but the narrative never hints at the latter.
I do wonder how you got this idea from the prompt picture used.
Cute story, and I like this look at someone wanting to use his powers for more mundane purposes.
I found the first interaction confusing. Budi disappears, and it does say he goes to the office, but never has him pop to the pickup location, so it seemed like the client was at the office. Then for that matter, the narrator stays behind to say that, even though it'd been in Budi's perspective and he's gone. Then you do the same thing again when he drops the client off. You shouldn't have a limited narrator telling me things the perspective character can't possibly have witnessed.
Why is Budi paying the helicopter pilot? He's just doing his own job and presumably getting paid for it. A refund for not being able to take it there himself? But then that means the pilot was the client, which doesn't make sense.
The scene in the hangar is cute enough, but you throw so many characters at me at once that I can't keep track of them all. I guess only the one mostly conversing with Budi is important, but she can get lost in the mix.
It ends up being more of a slice of life story, which wouldn't necessarily be a problem, except the way you ended the penultimate scene teases something eventful is about to happen, only for there to be no payoff. I do wonder why he didn't get a tip, since that's a standard kind of thing to do for his service, so either the customer was oblivious to that (including even normal comparable transport) or dissatisfied, but the narrative never hints at the latter.
I do wonder how you got this idea from the prompt picture used.
Cute story, and I like this look at someone wanting to use his powers for more mundane purposes.
Insofar as in some lighting conditions snow and sand can look alike, I've been sitting on a story idea for years that would have fit this perfectly. Oh well.
Seems like a theme this author likes to write about. It's not a bad one.
The rhymes are all clean, but the rhythm of "The wilds pressed right to their ragged edge" requires "wilds" to be pronounced as 2 syllables, which is on the odd side, and the stress pattern of "To bear due humane grace or charity" is kind of mangled. The structure is otherwise clean.
If there's a purpose in italicizing the middle lines, I'm not seeing it. I looked for them to strike a different tone, or perhaps to have a different meaning if removed and read as an isolated stanza, either in order as-is or assembled according to the prevailing rhyme structure, but it doesn't have an obvious different meaning that way.
I like the message, and there are several poignant lines, like the wood of the house having once been a forest itself, and an artificial substitute for the rain being necessary, then all of this displacing and killing the wildlife. It's got a nice atmosphere and an urgency to it that's become a hallmark of this author.
The rhymes are all clean, but the rhythm of "The wilds pressed right to their ragged edge" requires "wilds" to be pronounced as 2 syllables, which is on the odd side, and the stress pattern of "To bear due humane grace or charity" is kind of mangled. The structure is otherwise clean.
If there's a purpose in italicizing the middle lines, I'm not seeing it. I looked for them to strike a different tone, or perhaps to have a different meaning if removed and read as an isolated stanza, either in order as-is or assembled according to the prevailing rhyme structure, but it doesn't have an obvious different meaning that way.
I like the message, and there are several poignant lines, like the wood of the house having once been a forest itself, and an artificial substitute for the rain being necessary, then all of this displacing and killing the wildlife. It's got a nice atmosphere and an urgency to it that's become a hallmark of this author.
I like the structure and rhythm of this, but I must admit I'm lost. Taken literally, I have no idea what's happening. Given the last line, it suggests maybe this is nonsense verse, which is fine, but in case it's a tad more than that, I went back through looking for puns and couldn't identify any, so if they're present, they're going over my head.
I might not have figured it out without the prompt it was written to, but I guess the speaker is a phoenix? One that's been confined, it seems, but why is unknown. Interesting that the B rhymes are ones that can be taken as either one syllable or two (though it technically doesn't matter, since the form doesn't require meter; with the two-syllable version, it's all the same meter on every line, or for one-syllable versions, that still persists for all such lines and is consistent). And that structure! A rondeau redouble, which I wouldn't have known, except I just wrote one a month ago. And what a pain it is to write since it's a long form to use only two rhymes (much easier to do in the original French, since they have so many more words that rhyme). I'm impressed you found that many to work with the two-syllable rhymes. (In my case, the half-line at the end also rhymed with the A lines, but that's also not a requirement). Well done.
Ah, a haiku. Or a senryu, I guess, since there's no seasonal reference. It creates a nice image of rebirth in the midst of destruction.
Is this a form you made up? I like the way the rhymes work and how the interstitial stanzas are shorter. The rhythm isn't always clean, but mostly so.
My read on it is that the speaker is walking down a street at night and musing how things like the buildings and the artificial light are spoiling nature and supplanting habitat.
My read on it is that the speaker is walking down a street at night and musing how things like the buildings and the artificial light are spoiling nature and supplanting habitat.
Interesting in that it's unclear whether the eyes are watching the stars or if the star is also an eye of sorts.
One moon circles...
If the prompt hadn't already made me think of that episode, this art sure did.
If the prompt hadn't already made me think of that episode, this art sure did.
And the same thing again. I assume it's the same author, and then my question is: why are these two separate poems? If there was a purpose in differentiating them, I can't tell.
So it's just a list of anagrams for the prompt? I mean... it's a thing, but I don't know what a reader's going to get out of it as a poem.
Perhaps the author has personal experience with this? I suspect a British author, as an American one wouldn't rhyme grain/again. Though I do wonder what the title has to do with it. Nothing in the poem speaks to something unique to farming, I suppose unless the specific grass is wheat or oats or some such. I do like the way there's almost an additional rhyme: stain/again works (inasmuch as grain/again does, depending on nationality), and nascent/grain is kind of close to one.
The rhymes mostly work, but the meter gets hammered out of shape in a few places. I like the mood this strikes, and as far as I can tell, the speaker enjoys reading but gets interrupted. The only specific interruption mentioned is music from passing cars, though it's not clear whether the speaker dislikes all the music. It had a similar feel to me as "The Raven," though it's structured differently.
At first, this seems to fit the title, just a person taking in the natural world around them, but at the end it loses me. The "your features"—is the narrator speaking to one of the elements of nature? The hawk? The reader? I'm not even sure what "features" refers to, unless it's the terrain. And the last stanza went over my head. I don't know what the glow is or why slime would be hard. Structurally, it's mostly blank verse, though by being organized in stanzas, it may imply some organization of ideas. There are some big breaks to the rhythm, though. "Van Gogh's" doesn't fit, "water" has an extra syllable on the end of a line (which can be done in sonnets, but typically only formats like that where the corresponding rhymed line does the same thing). If there's a reason you broke from the stanza pattern to do a three-line one and a standalone line, that also goes over my head, and the first line of the former doesn't fit an iambic meter at all. I do like how the speaker's attention goes all around, so that they're noticing a great variety of things, and it creates a good atmosphere.
The rhymes all work, and the only place the stress pattern breaks is "covered." My reading is that this is a person who likes to observe nature, something like a birdwatcher, but who also appreciates the intricacies of an ecosystem so that even the less-desirable parts have their necessary niche. I can't come up with a relevance to the prompt, but I've never cared too much about that. I leave it on the honor system that the author was somehow inspired by it, even if it's not explicitly included. "Naturalist" doesn't single out insects, but they get the bulk of the attention here, with birds only mentioned in passing and the plants and earth not at all. I don't think it's necessarily an issue of rescoping the poem, but maybe the title needs to match the content a little more closely.
This has a more complex structure that it initially appears. Most lines are 12 syllables that start with a detached word, then seem to use alternating stressed and unstressed syllables, though it's forced in a few places and I can't tell if it's intended to have a rhythm at all. The final line of each stanza is 14 syllables and does appear to be iambic.
What caught me by surprise was the internal rhyme of each 12-syllable line, where the first word rhymes with another about halfway through. In fact, the final line has enough of a slant rhyme in the same manner (bliss/loneliness) that I thought you might be doing it there as well, but the first stanza has nothing close in its finishing line.
As to meaning, it goes a bit over my head. It sounds like a person going through a gate to a faraway place (or alternate reality), seeking some kind of affinity for nature, and finding none, gets disappointed. Which is kind of anticlimactic and seems like the opposite of the prompt. Some of the first lines hint that it may be the person returning to a once-familiar place and finding it's still suffering from what made it alien in the past. It feels like it's probing toward setting up a coll situation, but I never quite connected to what it was.
What caught me by surprise was the internal rhyme of each 12-syllable line, where the first word rhymes with another about halfway through. In fact, the final line has enough of a slant rhyme in the same manner (bliss/loneliness) that I thought you might be doing it there as well, but the first stanza has nothing close in its finishing line.
As to meaning, it goes a bit over my head. It sounds like a person going through a gate to a faraway place (or alternate reality), seeking some kind of affinity for nature, and finding none, gets disappointed. Which is kind of anticlimactic and seems like the opposite of the prompt. Some of the first lines hint that it may be the person returning to a once-familiar place and finding it's still suffering from what made it alien in the past. It feels like it's probing toward setting up a coll situation, but I never quite connected to what it was.
Paging WIP