03-31-2020, 07:30 AM
Thank you for sharing this. This was a difficult story to absorb but narrated beautifully. I thought the first three lines were excellent and drew me into the setting right away. Although you did a nice job establishing some tension with the bay being ready to catch you and being unable to hold his hand, I was not prepared for the transition in the third line of the third stanza: "I felt his fingers dig into my arm". For me, there was definitely something of a shock factor there, where the abuse becomes physical and concrete.
Overall the rhythm is quite compelling. One place I stumbled was:
"and for some insult I’d never intended, felt in his grip
his palpable need to salt every inch"
Perhaps adding punctuation at the end of "grip" would help it read more easily aloud.
Finally, in the midst of all the horror of the third stanza, I think it is really important to keep it grounded in the images of the setting you set up so well at the beginning. The "oak thicket and brush" alludes to this, but personally I would like a little more. While the image of the dog and birds is compelling, I thought the "snow of their feathers" pulled me out of the summer island scene.
Overall incredible work and I hope to see more.
Overall the rhythm is quite compelling. One place I stumbled was:
"and for some insult I’d never intended, felt in his grip
his palpable need to salt every inch"
Perhaps adding punctuation at the end of "grip" would help it read more easily aloud.
Finally, in the midst of all the horror of the third stanza, I think it is really important to keep it grounded in the images of the setting you set up so well at the beginning. The "oak thicket and brush" alludes to this, but personally I would like a little more. While the image of the dog and birds is compelling, I thought the "snow of their feathers" pulled me out of the summer island scene.
Overall incredible work and I hope to see more.