Internal Comments:
No. While the poem certainly does have a lot of potential in relation to thematic significance, certain lines seem unnecessary and redundant. The author goes on a tangent about a notorious “her”, before jarringly switching back to the scene of the action. Because the submission is so short, it leaves the reader feeling confused and disoriented.
To the First Reader:
Dear Emily Tian, thank you for your commentary on submission 10557 (“Crash”). I was really impressed by how varied your comments were - they ranged from suggestions on punctuation to figurative language to deleting/modifying certain lines if you believed they were unnecessary. Furthermore, your explanations to the writer will certainly be helpful as they move
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The idea of incorporating a backstory to explain the narrator’s actions is quite interesting, but as the first reader pointed out, definitely not necessary. In fact, I believe that the poem is strengthened without the backstory, because it seems slightly trite and cliche - the idea of a guy breaking his promises and getting drunk, instead of taking proper care of the girl and his relationship with her - thereby, honoring the promises he made to her as well as himself. You might also consider using stanzas within this poem. Despite it being a piece of short length, I believe that breaking it up into stanzas might help with fluidity and for separating different pieces and subject matter/content. For instance, in my opinion, a new stanza could begin with line five, because it shifts from what the narrator is seeing and the setting/introductory pieces of information, and his relationship with the “her”. I would recommend revising the piece for similar potential modifications - perhaps, after line 10, for instance, when the poem transitions forward in time to when the police cars arrive. I would also recommend that you work on word choice throughout the poem. In order to further develop and expand instances of quite striking imagery, you might consider the purpose behind each word - particularly your adjectives and verbs, and then, of course, all of the words used in instances of figurative