stellalee96 It Hurts Until It Doesn't
First and foremost, I love how emotionally deep your poems are. They are relatable, even your two liners (which, I beg of you, please continue writing those). You ask questions and describe situations that can be agreed upon by the reader and also trigering our minds to come up with mental responses and realizations at the end of the poem.
You got talent and the heart for poetry. However, this can be further improved. I hope the following recommendations work for you.
-balance, stanza forming and harmony. These three can be attained through focusing on the lines. Each poem is a story; with the beginning to the rising action, climax, falling action, and ending. Also it can be a simple introduction-conflict-resolution pattern. Nevertheless, that's exactly the point, you are the storyteller and you know how you want the story to go. Achieve this and everything will be easier because you'll have a definite pattern or plot.
I suggest for you to use the four-lined stanza meter. Keep in mind that a line should end with a comma but the following line is a period. Think of it as having two lines is equivalent to a sentence and that a stanza is actually equivalent of a paragraph. And you should use each wisely. Again, stick with the pattern, intro-conflict-ending. No matter how long your poem is, this is crucial. Many poets actually fail to do this.
Make sure that your lines aren't too long or too short. If ever one is shorter, the shorter line should be at least 2/3 of the length of the longer one. That way, you'll attain balance. Do it for all your stanzas and you have a harmonious poem. Also, you can converge lines that are too short, or those only containing one word, into a longer one. However, in terms of this, I suggest that the following line should rhyme.
-melody. One of the hardest thing in poetry is making a melodious poem. Harmony is easily attained but melody needs constant practice and great skill in playing with words. For free-verse poems, the presence of melody in it can actually be equal to a well-rhymed poem despite the lack of the obvious fancy-sounding endings. Let me cite this example for instance
Forgive me father for I have sinned,
My heart has beaten not for a man.
Forgive me mother, please, I beg,
Because I love a woman same as I am.
The strategy here lies on the last words per each line sinned (with an ee sound), beg (with an eh sound); notice that they sound quite similar. However the real melody lies on the words 'man' and 'am'. Though not rhyming, they do exude the same intonation for the vowel 'aa'. Not to mention, the balance of the lines helped in attaining the melody of the words.
In addition to everything, I also suggest for you to replace the title and the cover of the book. You may ask one of the organizers for this.
So that's it for this review. I hope it helps. If you'd like, send us a feedback of what you think about this review. We would be glad to be of further help.
Thank you for supporting us and I hope you spread the advocacy. In behalf of the aratsgroup,
Yours truly,
thenameisfoureyes