Author: elfoxwood

Title: In Foxwood Forest

Genre: poetry

Mature: Not the poems I was requested to read

Cover and Title: 3/5
I really liked the title. It's so different than any other poetry books I see.

But the cover left some to be desired. I'm just never a fan of blank backgrounds with an image and text superimposed upon it.

Blurb: 0/5
Admit it, there wasn't really a blurb. Now, I understand this is poetry and it isn't easy to write a blurb, but the blurb is what brings people in. For poetry I like to designate a short poem to be the blurb itself and just leave it at that.

First Impressions: 5/5
It read like a published piece. Need I say more?

Characters: 3/5
Obviously the narrator was really the only character. I liked the sort of high school voice. It made your poems relatable to people of every age because everyone remembers what it was like to be in school.
However that reliability was lost on the poems where the first person narrator stepped back. I didn't feel the same life in the poems about pets or the universe as I did with the ones about self esteem and friendship and stuff.

Grammar: 4/5
Your grammar was excellent, good enough that I could assume the bits where grammar laws were broken were a conscious choice. I can respect that. But I'm not a fan of it.

Plot: 3/5
This is just a me thing, but I really like it when the poems in a book connect somehow.

Some of the poems like Suck it Up, Buttercup or the first one had a distinct arch throughout, but the ones like Pet Truths just seemed to be stating facts in a way that, in my opinion, killed your distinct and wonderful voice.

Overall: 3/5 or 18/30

A very respectable score for a very respectable poet.