Reviews for The Little Girl by the Window Seat
thewhimsicalbard chapter 1 . 3/11/2013
[RG - Poems - Easy Fix]

Some of your images in this poem really made me sit up and take notice. "pulling forth the woman's pallid veil", "and from the magician's hat / bursts a flurry in monochrome", and "the soil which sullied all else" were my particular favorites. You also let the sounds of language flair a little bit in this, and I like the results when combined with these images. The alliteration and consonance were easy to notice, but the coolest example was the rhyme between the first and last lines of the third stanza; that's a great device, especially when you have so much space in the middle. It helps tie that stanza together as one idea. If you redraft this poem, you might want to consider doing that first-last rhyme thing in other places.

Most of the poem was excellent, but that second stanza... not doing it for me. Its phrasing is clumsy at best, the action is muddled by misplaced modifiers, and it's a terribly long run-on sentence. You might want to consider chopping that one up a bit more. I feel like if I could understand what was going on there, the point you're trying to make with this poem might come across better.

Keep it up!

-twb
ahorizonforthenewbirds chapter 1 . 2/24/2013
This is beautiful. I love your imagery - it's vividly descriptive. I like they way half of the imagery relates to childhood and innocence, along with imagery alluding to growing up. The form is okay when reading, better when reading aloud, but I still think there are some places you could improve. Some of the words seem awkward, and the flow seems choppy in some places. For example, "and cloak the heaven casts down" - I had difficulty reading 'the heaven'; I think 'the heavens' or 'the cloak heaven' would sound nicer.
As for the theme, I think this poem is about losing childhood and innocence to life. It starts off with the image of a dove - of peace, which I think represents the child. Then it takes about faded beauty, lost in the night sky. The fourth stanza adds to the theme, because it speaks of a child who sees not the playfulness in a magician (presumably), but sees a fading hope. The fifth stanza, is, I think, about the child crying while forced to remain composed because of her life. The last stanza is my favourite. The coals of hell seem like the life without imagination, and her glass slippers, delicate but strong, is her own defiance. Overall, I think the poem is about losing a childhood's innocence to life's misery.
I love it. The theme is interesting and the imagery is beautiful. However, I think the flow and a bit of the word choice could be improved.
professional griefer chapter 1 . 1/16/2013
I'm not a huge fan of the flow, I know it's freeverse, but your word choice makes it feel a bit clunky and off...it didn't grab me all that much.
That being said, I love your imagery. You kept it kind of vague despite all of your description, and while that felt a tad awkward, I really liked it. The vagueness worked well for me.
I'm not entirely sure I understand what it's about. I don't think I have to to enjoy it, though.
I loved the images of childhood you kept throughout, all the little things you sprinkled in each stanza really gave it an innocent and youthful quality, which I thought was fantabulous.
I love this line: [and from the magician's hat/bursts a flurry in monochrome]. I'm not sure why, I just do...
(sorry, I've never really reviewed poetry before. If you want I can go anon and try to be more helpful.)
RiddleSolved chapter 1 . 1/4/2013
A lot of beautiful imagery here, but I feel the theme is a bit hard to quite grasp? I'm getting a dreamy fairy tale feeling which I really like, but some of the words seem to not flow quite as well as they should. The end of the 1st paragraph - "whose unclothed feet touched not / the soil which sullied all else." sounded a bit weird to me.
Sami Dial chapter 1 . 1/1/2013
you are an amazing writer