The Poor Old Gardener

This poem is amazeballs! Poetry Nook Winner Material Alert!

Sorry but this is a little too goofy/corny for my personal taste. On a more objective note, a few things you might want to fix: *** There is an open quote mark where the gardener starts speaking, but no close quote at the end. *** On line 3 the gardener says “me knee” but everywhere else s/he says “my.” If this is a typo it should be fixed; if it’s meant to be colloquial speech it should be more consistent. *** The punctuation at the ends of the lines should be more carefully considered--for example, at the end of line 7 there shouldn’t be a comma, whereas some other lines (8-12, 16) would benefit from a comma or period at the end. *** When the speaker says "help thy poor old gardener!" it's unclear who "thy" is referring to. If it's God, it would help to say so near the beginning--maybe "Dear Lord!" or "Good Lord!" in place of "Ah me!"? *** The rhyme scheme and meter fall apart near the end…it goes abababababab for lines 1-12, then lines 13 and 15 don’t rhyme while 14 and 16 still do, and the last two lines just seem stuck on. *** But this is still a better poem than lots of people could write, and you’re never too old to keep writing, reading, and improving!

You're welcome, and good luck! :)

I agree with Clarice Hare that you could fix up a few things, but there is still time! I personally love the concept of this poem, and I thinkthat yo have a great chance of winning.

My pick for a winner would probably be "The Elements House" or "Across the Stone"...the latter would be a good one to study as an example of both flawless and natural-sounding rhyme and meter.