Reviewer: Peterpan2210
Reviwee: Wild_imaginator16
Book reviewed: Those unsaid words (Poetry)

- - - 

Title:

10/10

I liked the title. It's catchy. It's a title which if I saw on a book in real life, I'd probably spend my allowance over.

Cover:

9/10

All good but maybe make the cover a bit more relatable. A girl in a closed, empty room, and a pastel themed cover would look better.

Description:

9/10

It's a poetry book so I'd suggest adding a quote about "unsaid words". It'll give it a more of an aesthetic appeal.

Otherwise, the description looks fine.

But read the description over once. I wasn't sure what the signs at the top meant. Was it code language? Were you trying to make a design by adding random signs and letters? What was it?

So that's overall a very confusing part of the description.

Poem/chapter names:

8.5/10

I'm going to be straightforward and say that the names are a bit bland. When writing poetry, you need to make sure that the names are as poetic, if not more. They also need to be a little less revealing. For example, I wrote a poetry when I was going through a break up and I called it "Canvas left void" . It was pretty depressing but on the first glance you wouldn't be able to tell what the poem was about. You'll know it's about feeling dead, you'll know its about feeling lonely, you'll know it's probably 'you-need-a-therapist' depressing but you wouldn't know why the author was that depressed at that point.

Then there's the famous poem, "Fire and ice" by Robert Frost. It talks about the world either ending through over-obsession, through lust or other passionate human feelings or through the human ability of being cold-hearted, uncaring. But on the first glance at the title of the poetry, it doesn't seem like it's going to be talking about human nature. But it does and that's the surprise element of it.

Talking about Robert Frost, his title of "Fire and ice" itself uses a poetic device, namely Oxymoron. Which means using two opposite words in the same sentence very close by.

Like if I said "deafening silence", it would be oxymoron. Because if it's deafening then that means it's loud and probably your average street thug decibel noises but silence means well, silence. So they're opposites.

None of your titles have that factor. Poetic device in the title itself would intrigue your reader much more than any description ever could.

Like for example, I wrote a poem called, "Angels twice descending" in which I actually wrote about a warrior angel descending from the heavens to right the wrongs that had been happening on earth but instead succumbing to its sins, became a sinner. So she descended once from heaven for the well being of others and then fell from graces again because of her own lack of resistance against temptations.

So in that title, if you read it again or murmur it over and over, you'll feel a very prominent sound of the letter 'S' throughout. This is called consonance, where the sound of a consonant alphabet is repeated over and over. It is also by far, the most easiest poetic device to use in the title of a poem.

So yes, my suggestions? Keep the poetry titles a bit obscure, not too revealing and try to use a poetic device in the title itself.

Poetic device/Flow/Poetic liberty (license):

6.5/10

No Poetic devices at all. You can't do that to a poem. I couldn't even find a meter nor a beat in there. A poetry is a poetry because it has poetic devices, it's not your usual way of writing prose and because it's a bit quirky.

You need to use some poetic devices here or there because:

You're using free verse as your way of expression. Free verse already is plain. It needs to be made poetic by using at least 2 poetic devices or switching up the free verse to a rhyming small verse in between all the non-rhyming ones. This is exactly why writing free verse is harder than writing a poem with a defined rhyme scheme.There was no meter. Syllables were used thoughtlessly. When writing a free verse, the least you can do is filling it up with a discontinuous meter by careful use of syllables and arranging the stressed and non stressed syllables around each other. Some meters are the iambic pentameter, the trochaic tetrameter or heptameter. Look it up if you're not sure what they are.

The overall flow of each poem was good. I liked that. Most poems fail to maintain a flow, yours passed that criterion barrier with flying colors.

Poetic license is just something you're free to take. What us poetic license? It's making up words. For example a children's poem by Carolyn Wells, called "How to tell wild animals", sported this line in it:

If strolling forth, a beast you view,

Whose hide with spots is peppered,

As soon as he has lept on you,

You'll know it is the leopard.

But 'twill do no good to roar with pain,

He'll only lep and lep again.

So here, when you read the entire thing, first of all it's littered with so many poetic devices! There's inversion, there's consonance, and there's the use of poetic license too. Look at the underlined words, 'lept', 'lep' and 'lep'. Now these words were supposed to be 'leapt', 'leap and 'leap' respectively. But in order to maintain a tone to the poem, she used poetic license or created new spellings for old words.

It fits, it's appealing, it's accurate usage. No one would dare point it out as a mistake because it looks so deliberate and clever.

So yes. All of that above are detailed instructions. Of course they're instructions based on my opinions but since I'm reviewing, there they are.

Grammar/ word usage

8.5/10

I don't really believe in grammar in poetry but still, yours lacked necessary grammar at some points. That's what I felt.

The word usage was good, a little off at places, but overall good. Nothing to the extent that it requires change.

Overall score:

51.5/60

It's good. Needs a little work but otherwise beautiful. I hope I didn't hurt you at any point in the review.

Rate this review out of a 5 based on how useful it was.