who's a grammarian?

what's the sentence?

Matt, I just read and cherried this piece. I found it very comfortable to read, rumanative without being navel gazing. I really don't think you have too much to worry about in terms of grammer and structure, and your images are very sharp. Keep writing!

of matt's poems, i enjoyed tea and lucky sevens.

Wow! 'Tea' is fantastic. Keep brewing Matt.

Hey thanks everyone. Especially about the poetry. I've only been experimenting with poetry for about a month now, and I really have no idea where it's at. Tea, I suppose, has been my favourite, or maybe "Good Morning" (though it needs a new title). Thanks again. I think I needed someone to tell me to keep brewing.

Thanks much for the cherries, Mark. I did just correct two typos in the story so I think that takes them away, right? I hope you still like the story enough to replace them for me. Thanks again for the encouragement. good day all matt

I didn't find the sentence structure cumbersome at all. In fact, I think the story's a great example of how the placement of words and phrases can help set a mood and, even more importantly for a piece like this, get the reader inside the narrator's head. Also, many of your sentences serve "double duty" by advancing the plot and developing the character. That's not an easy thing to do, but you should keep doing it. Thanks for the good read!

Matthew, believe it or not I was just coming onto this forum to nominate your piece Razor and Radiator for some cherries as I really enjoyed it and saw that it hadn't got any... now I see that the cherries have both been and gone. bring back the cherries oh mighty editors, this piece deserves them!

Dear Matthew, I've just read "Razor and Radiator" and I think it's brilliant. It was sensuous and visual. T%he actions and objects convey a state of mind. I gave it five stars. You wanted hardcore grammar criticism, though, so here goes (in the spirit of suggestion rather than right or wrong): I'd say "Nadia left". <... my white shirt, ironed for work, hanging from the knob of the closet door. If it were warm enough I’d wear it home unbuttoned.> I'd say "I'd wear the shirt home unbuttoned", in case "warm" hops like a flea from the weather to the shirt. I'd drop "regularly", which is a continual action, whereas the other two are one-offs. Here I might say "I brush my teeth twice with the newest razor on the market", to stop too many tenses mixing up in this sequence. I've noticed that you end a lot of sentences with a modifying clause. It is a good technique - and one that poets use a lot - but it my opinion, overuse of it has an arresting effect on prose. You could try changing some of them to declarative sentences or clauses. "My hands scratch pen marks here and there." A comma netween "hoe" and "digging" might tame the "inginess" of that sentence. Overall I think you could benefit from using fewer participles and gerunds altogether. I do love the piece. It's worth fussing over. d.beswetherick

Some of the quotes vanished from my last post, Matthew. But I expect you know the bits I'm referring to. d.beswetherick

Thanks d.b! Congratulations you're the grammarian I guess. There's nothing like recieving a sentence by sentence critique. I'll go back and take another look at it; I think you gave me just the stuff I was looking for. matt