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- If you could review the cover as well, that would be great.
Cover: 5/5
I'm not really that meticulous when it comes to covers, but I'd say that it suits your book and its contents. The girl on the cover seemed to be drowning, and if I were to guess the type of poem from the cover alone, then I'd say that there might be a hidden double meaning. Your poems are filled with loneliness and heartache, so the lack of colours contributed to cluing the readers in. Kudos!
Summary/Blurb: 3/5
Your blurb was pretty short, yes, and straightforward. In my opinion, further explanation and specification is needed because you're presenting a series of poems after all. The reason was because the nagging questions you stated were still broad.
The questions at the end of a blurb can arouse a reader's interest, but maybe you can place an excerpt of your poem to make us know what range you're writing and how you do it. Well, that's what I usually observed in other poetry books that worked best. I'm not yet an expert on what will work best on poetry, so what do you think?
Also, I think the marks [/] on your blurb weren't really necessary, so I suggest you remove them.
Diction: 2.5/5
To be honest, the words didn't capture my attention. I mean, it was good and all, with the grammar nearly perfect, but let's just say that you're stringing a thread of common words. There are a lot of expressions that can be used in poetry, even more so than a regular novel, so I suggest you dig into more of these, such as the hyperbole, simile, metaphor, oxymoron, irony, personification and such.
I also noticed your poem's strange arrangement. Usually there aren't any spaces below each line—they only exist when stanzas come into play.
Here's a poem that I think might help:
"Thou art slave to fate, chance, kings and desperate men,
And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell
And poppy or charms can make us sleep as well
And better than thy stroke; why swell'st thou then?
One short sleep past, we wake eternally
And death shall be no more; Death thou shalt die."
It's a poem about the phase of death and why it's a natural process, along with why it occurs.
Notice the number of words per line and the spacing. There aren't any spaces because it's just one stanza. Only place those spaces after you end a stanza. Poems are supposed to be written in the center too. Now let's look at an example from your work:
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Notice how big your spaces are, and how the phrases aren't matched. Each word on a line must be capitalized, even when the previous line ended in a comma.
The first thing I underlined should be changed to 'a'.
The second one, 'passed' sounded really weird after being lumped together with the next line. I suggest you change this to 'past'.
Rhyme Scheme: 2/5
I'm gonna be a little blunt and state that I barely spotted any rhyme schemes in the entirety of your book. Poems need to have their own rhythm, right? You can't just lump a bunch of words together—it'll sound distorted and messy.
Even if the style of writing is a blank verse or a free verse, there should at least be a bunch of schemes within the lines itself. Poems are like songs, and that's why I think it's challenging to write them.
1. Onomatopoeia - a sound device used to suggest actions, movements, and meanings. For example:
The bubbling brook breaks
As the screeching of the shambles shattered...
2. Alliteration - repetition of consonant sounds at the beginning of the words.
3. Assonance- repetition of vowel sounds within words. 3. Assonance- repetition of vowel sounds within words.
4. Consonance - repetition of consonant sounds within/at the end of the words.
You can even look up other sound devices on Google. I only know four, but I think there's more.
Message/Meaning Conveyed: 5/5
No qualms here at all! Because of the simple wordings and stuff, the message you wanted us to understand became easier. We understood what you wanted to say right away—the pain, hardships, trust, and love. I want to congratulate you for that, so kudos!
Emotions Evoked: 3/5
Unfortunately, the things I mentioned in Diction and Rhyme Scheme blocked me from feeling anything concrete and rendered my emotions. Those two categories are of extreme importance because they help set the mood of the reader.
Without them, I was just like, "oh she's sad," and something like that, but that's just it. I couldn't wallow in sadness and despair just like you and what you felt because you were merely stating it plainly.
OVERALL SCORE: 20.5/30
Hello, fellow reviewer! Once again, thank you so much for choosing me to read your book. I'm so, so sorry if I was blunt and all that too. My final advice is that maybe you ought to look into some poetry books (outside Wattpad) where you can pick up a lot of different dictions and schemes, such as "The Seven Ages of Man" by William Shakespeare.
