Best Feedback Received

The best feedback I received was on my “Scream” poem. I had written it all as one stanza and was advised to try it split into multiple stanzas. I worked my way through the poem by first splitting it in half (before “the war” and after) before splitting it by idea. The result is a four stanza poem that I am much happier with and feel that it better expresses the story within my poem.

Best Feedback Given

The best feedback I gave was in relation to the style of Emma’s poems. I encouraged her to continue writing her peoms so that multiple different persectives and stories can be seen. I provided some advice on how to use her vocabulary to better depict the duality of the stories in her poems and thus leave the interprettion of the poem to the reader’s imagination.

One Poem

I think Scream is my best poem because I was able to perfectly mesh together imagery and a storyline based on a simple photo. In terms of imagery, the first two stanzas of the poem contain most of it. the pattering of small feet/against the dark wet pavement is a great example of how my word choice evokes a very specific image of children running on wet cement. The second stanza:The gushing of water/as it spurted from a hose/that made a tower of rain/driving laughing children away is where I actually describe what is in the photo that was used as a template. The original image reminded me of a splash pad park so I attempted to be both literal in my description as well as a little mysterious in order to envoke a sense of chldlike wonder. In relation to the story line, I was inspired by the label on the initial photograph: La Salle Street, Amsterdam 1946; The photo had been taken about a year after WWII so I thought it would be interesting to reference the war and the terror of the time, creating a duality for the meaning of “scream.” In my storyline I also use some powerful imagery, including the words “Nazi” and “drag”, in order to portray the fear of the time as well as examples of when people would be screaming. My favorite stanza however is the last one, where I turn the storyline back to the initial photo and how the event of children playing in the middle of the street, without a care in the world, so happy that they are screaming with joy signifies the true end of the war and the association of screaming with terror. This poem is both dark and light, with a pleasant rhythm and a vivid story and that is why I think it works best.

Changes

There are plenty of poems in my portfolio that are absolute trash, which is why they were not included with my final five, if I was to make any changes it would be to fix those seven other poems (and probably delete a few). I wish that I had been able to write a pantoum poem as I had a ton of great ideas for one, I just couldn’t get the message across in that style. I would love to change my initial pantoum and be able to include it in my final five poems but, I the end, I just ended up trading it out with another poem I wrote. For my poem The Unknown I would have liked to change the rhyme scheme, as it not only barely exists but where it does, it is inconsistent in its pattern between the lines and stanzas. However, I also have a personal bias and fondness for half-baked rhyme schemes so if I were to change The Unknown it would be more of an experiment than an attempt at revision. Otherwise I am content and proud of my other poems in my final five, no changes required or wanted.