Carr's Review of Rhiannon's Poems 9/17

To: Rhiannon
From: Mr. Kizzier
Re: “The Mystery of the Season”
Rhiannon,
There are some things working well here in your poem about the cycle of the seasons, “The Mystery of the Season.” You open with a nice, active image: “The brisk winter is breaking free.” I like how that gives action to winter – it has the potential to conjure up some powerful images. I also think the scene near the end of the poem of the boy and girl dancing and laughing works well, primarily because of the line, “Laughing so hard, barely breathing.” That’s nice. It evokes that breathlessness well.
OK. So there are some things to think about as well. First, I think the main the thing to concentrate on in revision is finding a focus for the poem. What do you want this poem to be about? You call it “The Mystery of the Season,” but I don’t see the mystery here. What exactly is mysterious?
One place you might start when looking for this answer is to make the poem more personal. It’s obvious from what you have presented that you have taken much care to create all these rhymes. The problem with that is that it has made your poem too general, I think. Many of these images seem to come from the collective image of the seasons we all share rather than your own personal experience. There is one line where you include yourself – “On my shivering back, the cold wind blew.” That’s interesting. To me it conjures up an image of a bare back in winter, which is powerful – and cold. But it doesn’t have much connection to the rest. Can you look for something you want to say about your own life – perhaps the way you have approached something or someone and how that changed over the course of a year. I think you would connect with the reader more by doing so. And I would seriously consider dropping the rhyme scheme – if only to open up more vocabulary for your use.
All right. Let me know if you have questions. Good luck.