United Kingdom • 60 y/oReviews Given
This is a good start for a young writer. If you want to improve it, explain why the princess is always so sad. Perhaps her father offended the same witch who turned the prince into a bear and so she's under a curse too. If not, perhaps someone she cared about died young for some reason.
You could've made more of your narrator's reaction to the death of his uncle. Did he change his attitude to the beach due to that? If so, did he draw on memories of better times and so begin to enjoy it again? Perhaps he realised that nowhere is ever entirely safe and if the sea hadn't taken his uncle then something else might have.
I'm not big on the technical aspects of poetry, but the feelings behind this are plausible and heartfelt. I'm sorry for your loss.
You evoke a sense of place very well. Your protagonist's self-criticism is plausible, as are her hopes for her daughter.
You have clearly worked hard on this story, researching the background, researching your protagonist and building a sense of place. I hope it proves popular.
I like the term 'brutally hard.' You bring two very different worlds up against each other and the contrast works well.
Just one thing, you refer to the floor and it seems to be outdoors. We usually say 'ground' for the natural earth beneath our feet and 'floor' for a man-made covering. That said, people sometimes refer to the 'forest floor' and the rest of your descriptions are good.
The crow family are highly intelligent birds, some species use twigs to extract grubs from tree bark. People living close to nature must've noticed that. I think that's why they were revered by pre-industrial peoples.
This is a good piece, it evokes both poverty and nature vividly.