Young Writers Society

This is an edited and extended version of my earlier poem. Enjoy! And if you like it, click the button....

Wow kafka! I loved this. The vivid imagery switched by a smooth transition to the play on words was absolutely beautiful. At first when I opened it and saw the format I thought, "uh oh... this'll be interesting," but it turned out absolutely wonderful and I loved every line! Thanks for the story and the style. I've never seen someone master it so flawlessly. I'm sure you put a lot of effort into your pieces (hoping for my own sake lol) because they turn out excellently. Great job!

I'm speechless on how utterly cool this was to read. I don't think I know of anyone else who could create such a unique style poem. The imagery you portray is pretty refreshing because it seems to break boundaries on what I thought a poem could be. Great job Kafka. Although, I'm sorry I don't have much more of a review to give. I just thought I'd say this was pretty darn epic

Going to give some quick thoughts, apart from a much more in-depth discussion you and I will have.

The reason this poem accomplishes more than the other one is simply due to the fact that this one is much more approachable. It looks clearer and crisper. Sadly, appearance means a lot in poetry to a majority of people. Appearance should never dictate a poem's worth, but compliment and enhance the poem itself.

Now you need to think about () and [] as well as other little symbols you use. Then look at the subject matter. Does it justify their usage? Trinkets and gimmicks are not treated well in poetry, even the avant garde hold disdain for it (which I guess I'm part of).

Remember, if you do this style, you MUST blow people away. You must frighten/shock/surprise them with an uncanny image, setting, makeup, voice, etc. But more on that later.

I have to say, I'm really impressed with this poem.Yyou obviously know the artistry of writing, and you shine here!

Spectrum of col-col-numbersI think this means cold numbers, but I feel it could be clearer? Maybe im just not as intellectually sexy as others though..., numb
brrs in the cold, inin thethe dead
night ofof night, slick palm and
thick balm on concrete, in/out, heart
beat (beat
beat
beat)
against the depths, against uni~ formity;LOVE it so far
seven eves (crow) to wreck the they crow?
(system) of palindromes*, drawn on
onward by [cracks] in the dæbreak,nice spelling of daebreak:)
and ash (cism...) gasping inin thethe
ancient breeze, cutting thru RAGS AND
(beat
beat
beat) d y i n g i n t h e w i n n n . . .
-melt, h...h-hurt/blood shining
in the iceberg, inin thethe frozen
air, teeth theet* chattering and
shattering on the ice, until the
mono (drone) is cast into the
depths. And only when darkness
c-comes:
(beat
beat
beat)
and breaths mingle, onon thethe

-blue sun; now, come: in degrees
Cell sees us dying in the bitterCell??
wind, carry>ing us away into
dæbreak, into the morning.

I do believe that about 75% of this poem went over my head. I liked what I grasped, but...I think you might need to tone down the awesomeness for someone to truly absorb meaning

For once I got passive Imagery. Just reading this put pictures in my head, and normally I'm so disembodied that I really need to make something in my head. Meaning wise, it seemed to portray a "they persevere but it's futile," then looking a little deeper it seems to say "the morning brings in new day" or "life keeps on moving" or "I will win."
---
Giving my meaning and emotions is important in reviews to me. Especially in poetry. How can you better yourself without knowing what happened?

So... I liked this. A lot.
I don't quite know what to say on it yet, so I think that I'm going to come back with a review. You kind of inspired me to play around with some formatting myself (which I've done before, though I'm awful at it). Nice imagery. The stutters/repetition work pretty well, though it took some getting used to.
Great job. Be back later. c:

Hey Kafka,
I'm here as requested. Thanks for asking me to review this, I like it a lot.
Honestly, it's hard to believe that a writer as talented as yourself is only thirteen years old. You really have a career in literature ahead of you. Keep it up.

As with much of your work, I need to read it several times before I think I understand the point that you're trying to get across (xD). What I see from this poem (and yes, I'm giving you a very tough critique. I think you would like that. :-]) is that you are trying to write about an unnamed struggle, and persevering through it. I also here assume that you want your readers to each take in what they will from this and make it personal. Then again, I could be wrong.

However, if I am correct as to what you are trying to accomplish with this, I feel that the creative formatting and visual description with different ways to write what you are saying is distracting you. I think that you should go back to this (again, I guess hahah) and make it more personal and tell more of a story. All of the effect and things like that are great, keep them. But I think that you should dilute them with more emotion rather than more description through what the reader is seeing. It distracts you as a writer more than it distracts me as a reader, I think.

So, as always, I'm incredibly impressed with what you can accomplish with your pen in hand a little bit of inspiration. Keep up the excellent work, my friend.
-Alex

Wow!
This is good!
At first,I was worried about the orientation but it pulled together.
The visual coherence is vividly drawn.Bravo!
There was really good formatting there but at first,the orientation was slightly off but gets better as you read.
The words you used really drew a picture!
Great!
Fantastic!
~Spartacus~
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

the risks I take are the lives I lose ~dreamer~

its unlikely....you don't like me and I don't like me and its unlikely.....

In return for your lovely critique, one shall in turn appear here within the next little while.

Hey Kafka. Finally got around to this.

I typed up the lecture and MeanMrMustard threw his thoughts into the quote of your poem below. Writer's pad are handy dandy when we have free time.

Drawn Onward
(playing with concepts of word and metaphor too early)
Spectrum of col-col-numbers, numb
brrs in the cold, inin thethe dead(again, etc, need to justify)
night ofof night, slick palm and (just semantical wordplay, ehh)
thick balm on concrete, in/out, heart(bad double rhyme)
beat (beat
beat
beat)(don't get how this adds into heart beating descending)
against the depths, against uni~ formity; (playing with ~ but not getting how it should fit in)
seven eves (crow) to wreck the
(system) of palindromes*, drawn on
onward by [cracks] in the dæbreak,(why the grapheme?)
and ash (cism...) gasping inin thethe
ancient breeze, cutting thru RAGS AND(-smorgasbord of ideas miserably mixed together)
(beat
beat
beat) d y i n g i n t h e w i n n n . . . (..but where's the connection to the heart?)
-melt, h...h-hurt/blood shining(?? / dual image is not working with so much going on here)
in the iceberg, inin thethe frozen(srsly, stop repeating words, gimmicky Mc. gimmick)
air, teeth theet* chattering and
shattering on the ice, until the
mono (drone) is cast into the(stop adding things in parentheses simply because you can)
depths. And only when darkness
c-comes:
(beat
beat
beat)(lost all semblance to the heart beyond the word itself)
and breaths mingle, onon thethe(not really following the trangression of ideas)

-blue sun; now, come: in degrees
Cell sees us dying in the bitter
wind, carry>ing us away into
dæbreak, into the morning. (does not flow like you want Kaf, not at all, it is a very commendable attempt, but this is too occuppied with itself; you have images and phonetic and semantic play tools all over, but they do not compliment each other, they do not contribute to theme; formatting is nothing but an attempt to create space. YOU need to master that space so it's never obvious! Make it natural!)

Hm, you've got a good understanding of flow I don't expect from someone your age which is commendable.
But you don't have an understanding of pure symbols and gimmicks.

The poem itself is structured and neat, but rather worthless and boring without the dressing up you do.
Wordplay and symbols shouldn't be what brings value to a poem, the value should be there and the symbols accentuate it, otherwise it becomes a gimmick very quickly, because you're using symbols without meaning. Without a reason for it.

For example:

d y i n g i n t h e w i n n n . . .

Why? Why is each letter spaced out? What's the purpose? The effect it makes? And how does it relate to the poem?
I sound like a math teacher, but that's how it works.

Also, all the parentheses. I understand the appeal, I used to use them a lot myself. But they only work when you want to add an additional almost side note in a whispered tone, that's kind of separate from the poem or previous line. It forces the reader to slow down from their pace to absorb the information in the parenthesis, so whatever is within them HAS to be valuable. It's essential that it completes a thought you're hinting at, or redirects the toneality of the piece. If not, it sits rather worthless as a roadblock for the reader.

I think your issue remains simple, your overdependence on simple gimmicks and poetry formatting to give your poetry some face value. As soon as you have a reader who reads a little deeper then you're in trouble. Write the poem first Kafka, then format it. And when you format it, ask yourself why you're doing it, and what it means in the poem, how it effects the pace and flow of the poem, and what you want the reader to take away with them. These things are like the glitz on the actual cake. Focus on creating a strong piece, building a wall before painting the bricks. Otherwise you're left without a wall and painted bricks, generally pretty useless.

Kamas.