10-24-2025, 05:40 AM
Hello, I am a newbie here so I’ll keep it simple.
I think this is a really nice effort. But can you work on tightening some of the lines? It could aid a lot with the flow of the poem. An example comes with the line “I have awakened with the little Los Angeles.”
You could tighten this lighten and make it active by eliminating “have.” “I awakened…” sounds much better. You can also tighten up lines or help them flow better by eliminating prepositions wherever possible and eliminate articles if possible.
“I awakened with little Los Angeles” sounds better than “I have awakened with the little Los Angeles.” But there is the matter of the preposition with. One way to fix that would be something like “I awakened the instant little Los Angeles did.” Of course, you brought an article back into it but an article is a lesser evil in poetry than prepositions.
Sometimes even if you keep your original wording, playing around with how to restructure and tighten a line could lead to new areas to explore. What if you eliminate both the article snd the preposition and you say “I awakened little Los Angeles.”
Now, admittedly that is not consistent with your apparent intent, but exploring these things might give you new angles to explore or new intents to explore. Now, I don’t write a ton of poetry, but with my best poetry, sometimes, my original intent rarely survives the first draft, and my poem is better off because of it.
I pray this advice does not exceed the mild to moderate critique boundaries of this forum, and I hope you find it useful, if not for this poem, then for a poem in the future.
I humbly apologize if I in anyway offended you.
I think this is a really nice effort. But can you work on tightening some of the lines? It could aid a lot with the flow of the poem. An example comes with the line “I have awakened with the little Los Angeles.”
You could tighten this lighten and make it active by eliminating “have.” “I awakened…” sounds much better. You can also tighten up lines or help them flow better by eliminating prepositions wherever possible and eliminate articles if possible.
“I awakened with little Los Angeles” sounds better than “I have awakened with the little Los Angeles.” But there is the matter of the preposition with. One way to fix that would be something like “I awakened the instant little Los Angeles did.” Of course, you brought an article back into it but an article is a lesser evil in poetry than prepositions.
Sometimes even if you keep your original wording, playing around with how to restructure and tighten a line could lead to new areas to explore. What if you eliminate both the article snd the preposition and you say “I awakened little Los Angeles.”
Now, admittedly that is not consistent with your apparent intent, but exploring these things might give you new angles to explore or new intents to explore. Now, I don’t write a ton of poetry, but with my best poetry, sometimes, my original intent rarely survives the first draft, and my poem is better off because of it.
I pray this advice does not exceed the mild to moderate critique boundaries of this forum, and I hope you find it useful, if not for this poem, then for a poem in the future.
I humbly apologize if I in anyway offended you.