08-22-2014, 05:09 PM
Hi,
I liked the idea behind your poem but rather than looking at specific lines my thoughts were drawn to the overall identity of your poem. It feels to me like this one falls between the gaps in terms of who is the target reader.
If a child then it does not have enough sing / song bounce (nursery rhyme feel) to carry it off and as a result i thought that a child's read would be stifled by all of those same rhyme endings and some of the word choices were similarly not appropriate to a childs poem (such as wielding...I don't know any children who would say this in perferance to waving his sword).
Alternativly if the target reader is adult, it is too childish and needs more complexity and depth.
My suggestion would be to my a decision about the question of who you want to address this poem to.
As I said I do like your image, but imho I think you need to address the poem at concept stage a bit.
If you choose to work further with this - pay careful attention to word repetition.
In your first line just as an example you have night and light repeated (I know they are in a compound word but the effect of the repitition is still evident).
The nightlight making a bubble of light
Keeping away things that bump in the night.
for a child's eyes this could be:-
The glow lamp puddle of light
only fights one corner of dark.
The saddow beasts of the night
roam your room like hungry sharks.
all the best AJ
I liked the idea behind your poem but rather than looking at specific lines my thoughts were drawn to the overall identity of your poem. It feels to me like this one falls between the gaps in terms of who is the target reader.
If a child then it does not have enough sing / song bounce (nursery rhyme feel) to carry it off and as a result i thought that a child's read would be stifled by all of those same rhyme endings and some of the word choices were similarly not appropriate to a childs poem (such as wielding...I don't know any children who would say this in perferance to waving his sword).
Alternativly if the target reader is adult, it is too childish and needs more complexity and depth.
My suggestion would be to my a decision about the question of who you want to address this poem to.
As I said I do like your image, but imho I think you need to address the poem at concept stage a bit.
If you choose to work further with this - pay careful attention to word repetition.
In your first line just as an example you have night and light repeated (I know they are in a compound word but the effect of the repitition is still evident).
The nightlight making a bubble of light
Keeping away things that bump in the night.
for a child's eyes this could be:-
The glow lamp puddle of light
only fights one corner of dark.
The saddow beasts of the night
roam your room like hungry sharks.
all the best AJ