Secret Santa (children's poem, aged 8-12)

[TrevorConway]

Hi RiverNotch,

Thanks very much for your feedback on this.

All the best,

Trev

It's a Christmas poem, so the meter has to be just right. I mean, I personally would rather it be perfect -- it's a *Christmas poem* -- but "roughly there" works for some more modern takes at least. This is still a bit *too* rough -- the first line, for instance, lacks a stress, while the fifth line's a stress too much -- and that smoothening, I think, is something you can work at on your own.

As for subject matter, we don't have Santa Claus here. Most of us are either too poor or too sober for such a thing. I don't even think we have a Saint Nicholas, the way most historical Christendom has him -- Saint Nicholas the Wonderworker and all that -- but yeah. It's not even that I can't relate to the whole Santa Claus thing, it's that, on some level, outside a handful of choice movies and songs and stuff, it's an expression of "charity" inextricably tied to the system that's made my people too poor for it in the first place. And I wouldn't call that cynical or anything, as I do love my bibingka and putobumbong -- or, yeah, my A Charlie Brown Christmas and Bender's Big Score.

All that aside, there's maybe a bit too much redundancy in your poem -- first two lines of the second and third stanzas are definitely just repeats -- while the fourth stanza feels a little....off. Like, I wouldn't say problematic or anything, but Shakespeare writing such a description for Falstaff would put it in the mouths of a Prince Hal meaning to get a rise out of him, or even some courtier or clergyman that doesn't care for him: its flatness defaults to contempt. I'd probably be a bit more specific and, considering all the loveably fat brothers and dads and uncles and granddads out there, maybe even point some fingers. But, overall, it's a start.

Oh, and change the title. The piece has too little to do with the actual gift giving tradition for it to work.

---

Hi RiverNotch,

Thanks very much for your feedback on this.

All the best,

Trev

It's a Christmas poem, so the meter has to be just right. I mean, I personally would rather it be perfect -- it's a *Christmas poem* -- but "roughly there" works for some more modern takes at least. This is still a bit *too* rough -- the first line, for instance, lacks a stress, while the fifth line's a stress too much -- and that smoothening, I think, is something you can work at on your own.

As for subject matter, we don't have Santa Claus here. Most of us are either too poor or too sober for such a thing. I don't even think we have a Saint Nicholas, the way most historical Christendom has him -- Saint Nicholas the Wonderworker and all that -- but yeah. It's not even that I can't relate to the whole Santa Claus thing, it's that, on some level, outside a handful of choice movies and songs and stuff, it's an expression of "charity" inextricably tied to the system that's made my people too poor for it in the first place. And I wouldn't call that cynical or anything, as I do love my bibingka and putobumbong -- or, yeah, my A Charlie Brown Christmas and Bender's Big Score.

All that aside, there's maybe a bit too much redundancy in your poem -- first two lines of the second and third stanzas are definitely just repeats -- while the fourth stanza feels a little....off. Like, I wouldn't say problematic or anything, but Shakespeare writing such a description for Falstaff would put it in the mouths of a Prince Hal meaning to get a rise out of him, or even some courtier or clergyman that doesn't care for him: its flatness defaults to contempt. I'd probably be a bit more specific and, considering all the loveably fat brothers and dads and uncles and granddads out there, maybe even point some fingers. But, overall, it's a start.

Oh, and change the title. The piece has too little to do with the actual gift giving tradition for it to work.