Freebie review, courtesy of Lime.

A good piece. I like how you've managed to convey the awkwardness felt by using different highlights to illustrate different parts, as this is quite tricky to get right, but you've done a wonderful job, as it still flows quite well. I also liked how you opted for short lines instead of longer ones, as I feel it adds to the feel of the piece.

-Kirrithian (or Dolly if you go by Fracs nicknames)

I really like the way you interminged all the different POVs. Just a suggestion, it might be more obvious if you left a space between each change.

Thanks for reviewing my work. You really made my day.

very creative and pretty cool. (btw, how in god's name are you able to get SO MANY REVIEWS?)

i was drawn in by the fact that it was a historical poem. i love historical poems.

but hey, was thomas jefferson bad at public speaking, or something? i didn't know that, if he was.

oh my God this is amazing! its so powerful and expressive. i love this part..
“But the Strength

“Of one’s voice

“Does not change

“The Strength of one’s message.”
.. its so true! this is so going on my favourites :D

This was a brilliant poem, intense and moving.

I even liked the way you used bold and italics to emphasize certain points, when usually I think it's rather annoying.

I don't know much really about Jefferson, but I think this was still somehow a very fitting and beautiful piece.

Great work!

“But the Strength

“Of one’s voice

“Does not change

“The Strength of one’s message.”

BEAUTIFUL, VERY BEAUTIFUL, that one. It was a bit hard to understand --

I want my thoughts to be

…known

I don’t want

My people

To be

Crushed under this tyrant

Forever.

Does it really have to be structured like this? It takes away the flow of the words a bit. But I loved it, especially that quote.

wow! this is very intense, I like it. I think TJ would be proud ;)

you've written a lot here, I can't wait to check out more. I STILL remember 'happiness lived next door'. you are an amazing writer!

First off, I want to say that I REALLY like this poem. I don't know all that much about Thomas Jefferson, his ability/inability to speak publicly, but I imagine that if he had trouble expressing himself aloud he would have written something like this (the both of you are very eloquent- who knows how much of this is about you, and how much about him?)

I especially liked the use of parts of the Dec. They really broke the poem up in a good way. It interrupted the rhythm, but somehow it did it so that it was better, not worse.

The lines "I want these words

These letters

The ones that bind me

To free my people." were especially powerful, obviously because of your use of the metaphor for words binding TJ, and then your contrast with the idea of them freeing the people-both literally and figuratively.

When you said that the strength of one's voice does not change the strength of one's message, I am interested to know if that is your own quote or someone else's. If it is your own, then kudos for coming up with somehting awesome! If not, it is still a relevant quote to use.

"This is how to declare your independance" was a very powerful line. You used a lot of bold/italics to emphasize certain parts... why didn't you use anything to distinguish this line? It was brilliant, and one of the most moving lines in the poem. I think you really should have done something to draw attention to it, because the use of bold made me want to pay more attention to other lines. it was only the second time reading this that i actually noticed that line, and I am glad I did. it's a winner :)

Now I do have one criticism about this: The title doesn't seem to work for the poem. I know you used it as a line, but it doesn't sound like the title of a poem about Thomas Jefferson. It sounds more like an emo song title, a little too melodramatic for such an eloquent and sophisticated writing. I really liked the poem as a whole. One mroe criticism: You repeated "please read this" and then you repeated "even if I scream." I don't know how you could separate those two phrases, but the use of two separate repetitions in conjunction with one another didn't flow when the rest of the poem had no repeats. IMHO, you could maybe repeat "please read this" throughout the poem, rather than three times all at once, although it is your style so I am sure you did it for some important reason.
Anyway, that was a great poem.
regards,
Akhenaten

I wish I were more into history, I feel like this was intelligently written and I probably missed some really insightful things. That said, even though I'm not big into history, it was nice to read a historical poem on fiction press. I don't know that that happens all too often.

The rhythm of the piece felt a little abrupt though. I think that works for it conceptually by conveying a sense of power and blunt rightousness to the voice of the piece, but it doesn't work for me poetically. The flow feels very choppy and disconnected most of the time. I attribute this to the two and three word lines that compose the majority of it. I think if you balanced the shorter lines with some longer lines, then the shorter lines would have more power behind them. You could make important statements without needing to use bold all the time. (Bolding words a lot bothers me, it's just a personal preference. I think there are stronger ways to direct focus onto a word or line. Not to mention that if the word or line is written stongly, it will draw focus to itself.)

That said, I enjoy when lines of text are broken up in untraditional ways. Like having a line break midsentence where normally someone would want to have the entire sentence as one line. (I do this constantly in my own poems.) Now with that said, I think an author can have a lot of fun and reasoning behind the way they decide these line breaks. For instance, I tend to use it as a mechanism for implying double meanings.

(Example: I found myself
a cat.)

(Overall it just says "I found myself a cat," but the break also implys that it says "I found myself." Terrible example, but I thought I'd try to clarify myself since I tend to get a little confusing.)

The point of all that, is that not all of your line breaks are as effective as they could be. Less because of the idea of double meanings (I just have fun with that personally and thought I'd throw it out as an idea to consider playing around with) and more because your kind of interrupting yourself when you use so many of them. Thinking about it in context of the concept of Thomas Jefferson's mind, it seems intentional though. Like he's just moving passionately from thought to thought in a very quick manor.

I think you have some very stong lines in this. I loved "My life is/Completely in letters." I thought that was a gorgous visual image and my favorite within this piece. I got a mental flash of him and his desk and floor and ceiling and everything being this loose swirling mess of letters. Kind of like a giant concrete poem or something. It was lovely.

I also thought the embedding of parts of the actual declaration of indepence worked really well, adding a layer of depth, strength and clarification (of what you were writing about) to the poem. You mangaged to use it as a powerful writing device.

Overall I'm very impressed with this poem. It came off as effortless on your part. Although with the intelligence of the content, I would be really surprised if it was completely effortless to write. Things that come off as effortless are usually the things that have the most thought and work put into them.

Okay, mainly it was the subject of the Declaration of Independence that drew me to this. I'm a total history nut. I even read Jeff Shaara. Well, I read one of his books on the American Revolution and it was freaking genius, but anyway...

I really liked the poem. As I was reading it, I thought about how this not only relates to Thomas Jefferson, but to many, many writers out there who can only form words correctly on paper and not in their mouths, just like Jefferson. Thomas Jefferson just got the chance to write one of the most famous documents in history, the lucky bastard.

I like how you put some passages from the Declaration into the poem. Those words are just so powerful, aren't they? And when you think about what Jefferson was trying to portray, the message he was trying to give the world, well, writing that document seems like a lot to put on the shoulders of someone who was pretty dang young compared to others who played their part in the Revolution. He really was an excellent writer.

I also liked how you made a story out of it, well, sort of. The inserted script seemed to fit, and who knows? Maybe that was what he was thinking!

Well, I believe I've rambled on quite enough. Nice poem!

First of all I'd like to thank you for your review on my story :) It means alot because, well it's obvious just from reading this, that you have great talent.

I decided to read this poem simply because I don't have enough time to read one of your longer stories. Sounds pretty stupid now, and I'll know I'll want to check them out when I have a little more time. But I'm really glad I did (read this), because you can see the thought and feeling that went into it. I don't even know a huge amount about Jefferson, but it's so intense it drew me straight in; you have a great style.

i love the intence feeling here...good job(:

WOW! I'll be straight to the point here... that was AMAZING! I've never read anything like that before! In fact, I had to stop myself from writing this interview and I had to read a second time! That was incredibly well-done!

When I read it, I could feel the emotion that was put into this. I actually thought it was from YOUR POV! I can't believe this didn't get any more reviews! Whether you like it or not, I'm gonna go and spread the message that there's this awesome fic that was written by a very talented author and that they should R&R as quickly as possible!

Also, it gave a little insight into what could've been in Jefferson's mind at the time and gives a whole new view to the declaration! ...and that's a GOOD whole new view, too! I love this a lot! Thank you for writing this and I'm sure you got an A for it in your English class! :)

wow. That was done really well. The quotes blend in well.. but I have no idea what POV stands for. Unless if it's Point of View... Because well.. I have no clue.

wow thtas definitely a new twist on the dec of i...i really liked it...honestly it just makes u think about wat he must have been thinking while writing it...great job