An early experiment with free verse written a long time ago, care to comment or critique?

When someone who has the formal skills decides not to use them it still shows. You know that you have to make up for the missing elegance with terseness, and you do so. Be careful around stuff like: "she threaded a trail of black cotton" How is this better than "she threaded the black cotton"?

In this kind of a poem plainness is a strength; be careful not to put in any fancy stitches for their own sake. Pound wrote that 'the natural object is always the adequate symbol'. It is a powerful dictum, and your poem is very close to showing just how true it is.

An image, a backstory, even a mini-family-drama. This piece is packed with meaning, narrative, even characterisation. You really don't need any bells and whistles.

Well done! ...... "I am a lover of more structured poetry" Your piece is three octets of sprung verse dimeter.

I use that only in embroidery, for split seam I use back-stitch. Sorry for splitting hair (couldn't resist), LOL! But then maybe it WAS the beauty and strength of stem stitch that prompted the sweet kiss ;)) I can clearly see...and feel the scene.

Simple evocative gestures...the kind that nurture love :).

I cant really gove you an answer,but what I can give you is a way to a solution, that is you have to find the anglde that you relate to or peaks your interest. A good paper is one that people get drawn into because it reaches them ln some way.As for me WW11 to me, I think of the holocaust and the effect it had on the survivors, their families and those who stood by and did nothing until it was too late.