Reviews for My Life - FictionPress.com

Reviews For: My Life

Midnight In Eden 2008-03-21 ch 1,	abuseThis might be a personal thing or it might be because I've read thousands of poems lately that use it, but I'm so sick of short lines. More often than not, it's just jarring for a reader and creates an immensely disconnected flow which I believe is happening here. For example, your first four lines could easily be a couplet a la: My life is a canvas painted with pastels. Dreary grays, Exuberant blues. By the way, you don't need the comma between "canvas" and "painted". Also "Davinci" was two words - "Da Vinci". Again, this might be a personal thing, but a lot of the repetition you use in this piece is very simplistic and as such, doesn't really add anything to this piece as a whole. I'd recommend clearing it out and connecting it up a bit. In the editing process, I'd also recommend trying out more specific and vivid images. For example, "grays" and "blues" don't really give us a clear image whereas a specific shade would. Later in the poem you say your life is "beautiful, ugly, happy, sad" but never why or what makes it so. That's more telling than showing and it's the latter that is more important in poetry. Telling is very boring because the reader doesn't have to do anything to appreciate the poem, they just sit there and are blandly told everything. Basically, this does feel like a beginner's poem and there's nothing wrong with that. You just need to realise your weaknesses and work on them. For me, it's the structure, repetition and images. So when you're writing poetry in the future, remember that structure is important and creates a flow and rhythm for the poem so read your piece aloud and see if your lines breaks work with the piece. Secondly, try not to repeat simplistic phrases or short words. If you do want to use repetition, try hard to make each repetition add something new to the piece and change its meaning slightly. Finally, try to be as specific and vivid with your word choices, imagery and phrasing. If it's about you, then draw on your own life experiences and again, be very specific. I hope this has been helpful. Midnight
A Perfect Sonnet 2008-03-19 ch 1,	abuseThis was a nice start! I think some simple reorganization could go a long way for it. It's a personal preference, but the blank line between each line drives me crazy. I think you should edit them out and break it into stanzas -it would create a much smoother and more logical flow. For instance, I had a bit off trouble going from "Will I be the next Leonardo Davinci?" to "My life is a miracle." If you put a stanza break there it would fix that. You have a few clear content breaks so it wouldn't be difficult to decide where to put them. You could easily do something like: My life is a canvas, painted with pastels. Dreary grays, Exuberant blues. I am its only painter, only I can determine the result. Will I be the next Leonardo Davinci? My life is a miracle, Hallelujah, Hallelujah! How fortunate I am, to be here today. To be loved, To be wanted. My life is a song, And I am its writer, Only I know the lyrics, Only I know the melody. Will I hit the notes or be off pitch? My life is beautiful, is ugly, is happy, is sad. My life is anything and everything. Those are where the stanza breaks would feel natural to me. The flow of it is already quite good, this would just make it a bit easier to transition from idea to idea. I think "Will I be the next Leonardo Davinci?" feels a little separate from the rest of this. To easily fix that you could either edit it out or expand upon it -follow it up with an "or" scenario that continues on to a second line. I think you could also benefit from rethinking your word choices in "My life is beautiful, is ugly, is happy, is sad." Beautiful, ugly, happy and sad are fairly generic words and don't feel very descriptive of you. You're talking about YOUR life, not a sweeping generalization of everyone else's lives. It would be far more interesting if you were to use more descriptive and original words that really focused in on your personal experiences. You could even expand it from single words into more narrative phrases. Anywho: this wasn't a bad start, I just think you could use some better formatting and a bit of descriptive expansion and personalization. It has a nice flow and rhythm. There's a lot of potential here -I hope you make some edits and take advantage of that.
PunK.cHEw.AsIAn 2008-03-17 ch 1,	abuseThis poem is so simple and pretty! That is such a cool concept, of your life being a canvas and how it's your responsibility only to make it into what you want it to be. My favorite part is "My life is a song.../Will I hit the notes of be off pitch?" That is very well phrased, and (at least to me) is the best phrase in the poem. I can't wait to read more from you! -PunK.cHEw.AsIAn P.S. Thank you so much for the wonderful reviews!

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