Beneath a Red Hood (Revision 2.1)

[Todd]

Hey Todd,
No worries. I like this revision a lot. After reading what you and Lizzie said, the poem makes a lot more sense. I don't know how I missed it, considering the title. Keeping that in mind, I would suggest going back to "the smell of bricks" in the first stanza. I think that works the best of three images you used throughout your revisions. I thought about doing another full critique of it, but this poem is such a strong piece, I don't think I would have any useful suggestions at this point.

Cheers,
Richard

Bricks...yeah I always liked bricks. The revision points to another idea which while a bit clearer isn't as fun. Now that most of the context is out there, I might as well share that there was a fellow writer who read an early draft of this one and went a bit ballistic about bricks, which points to the speaker's past and expected outcomes. She couldn't get it at first and when she finally got the reference explained to me how I couldn't do things like that in my poems. In her words, I expected too much of my audience. I could accept a lot of reasons for why something shouldn't be in a poem,  but not your audience should be dumb and you should accept that. Though I suppose we have to balance the clarity requirements of a piece. I always liked bricks and what it says about the speaker so I will consider putting it back in.

Thanks