for North Carolina1/26/2011 c1 
75thewhimsicalbard
[RG - Poems - Depth]
I have mixed feelings about this poem. There are some parts that were incredibly striking, while other areas were slow to read and detracted from the poem's overall sense.
The rhyme in the first two lines adds a nursery rhyme quality to this poem, and I'm not totally sure that you want that in a poem that obviously has romantic undertones - nursery-rhyme romance is something that comes across to most readers as very cliche. Your poem as a whole does not convey that sense, but your first few lines are often essential in determining the way the rest of the poem is read.
Line breaks and enjambment: This was the part of your poem that gave me the most trouble. Some of your line breaks were fantastic. "...dry. It's better / that way." was my favorite line break. On the other hand, you enjamb certain lines in ways that don't make sense to me, neither for rhythm nor for double meaning. Consider the break at the end of the fifth line - your reader knows that something is coming afterward. That line break was very jarring and distracting to read.
Word Choice and Imagery: There's really nothing wrong with your word choice, but it didn't stand out as much as I thought it needed to in such a short poem. I feel like there's a little bit too much variance in the connotations of your words and the images people attach to them. For example, in the first stanza, you only use a single two-syllable word ("better"), up until you pull out "mollify". While there is nothing wrong with what that word means - it is actually a very good word - there is a disparity between the "level" of the word and your speaker's character. In a similar fashion, "uproot" in the second stanza bugged me. There are no other words or phrases or images in this poem that remind me of plants. The word "uproot" is very much a "plant" thing. It just doesn't fit with the rest of the poem, which is mostly about tears and eyes. If you stick with those kinds of images, your poem is much more likely to convey the impressions that you want it to.
Tone: I felt that the tone was a little bit uncertain. Part of it was because of the disparity of word choice that I mentioned in the previous stanza, but there was also a strange - I suppose I should say "shift" - in tone at the end of the first stanza. It was from one of helplessness to one of certainty. I found that a little bit distracting.
This poem has a lot of potential, and it seems very personal. After a few revisions, I think it could be excellent!
-thewhimsicalbard
75thewhimsicalbard[RG - Poems - Depth]
I have mixed feelings about this poem. There are some parts that were incredibly striking, while other areas were slow to read and detracted from the poem's overall sense.
The rhyme in the first two lines adds a nursery rhyme quality to this poem, and I'm not totally sure that you want that in a poem that obviously has romantic undertones - nursery-rhyme romance is something that comes across to most readers as very cliche. Your poem as a whole does not convey that sense, but your first few lines are often essential in determining the way the rest of the poem is read.
Line breaks and enjambment: This was the part of your poem that gave me the most trouble. Some of your line breaks were fantastic. "...dry. It's better / that way." was my favorite line break. On the other hand, you enjamb certain lines in ways that don't make sense to me, neither for rhythm nor for double meaning. Consider the break at the end of the fifth line - your reader knows that something is coming afterward. That line break was very jarring and distracting to read.
Word Choice and Imagery: There's really nothing wrong with your word choice, but it didn't stand out as much as I thought it needed to in such a short poem. I feel like there's a little bit too much variance in the connotations of your words and the images people attach to them. For example, in the first stanza, you only use a single two-syllable word ("better"), up until you pull out "mollify". While there is nothing wrong with what that word means - it is actually a very good word - there is a disparity between the "level" of the word and your speaker's character. In a similar fashion, "uproot" in the second stanza bugged me. There are no other words or phrases or images in this poem that remind me of plants. The word "uproot" is very much a "plant" thing. It just doesn't fit with the rest of the poem, which is mostly about tears and eyes. If you stick with those kinds of images, your poem is much more likely to convey the impressions that you want it to.
Tone: I felt that the tone was a little bit uncertain. Part of it was because of the disparity of word choice that I mentioned in the previous stanza, but there was also a strange - I suppose I should say "shift" - in tone at the end of the first stanza. It was from one of helplessness to one of certainty. I found that a little bit distracting.
This poem has a lot of potential, and it seems very personal. After a few revisions, I think it could be excellent!
-thewhimsicalbard