The Drop-off

Otherworld
Walls of crystal blue
Between the floor and ceiling
Here I can fly, suspended halfway down
The dim-lit world floating by in slow motion

I descend
Moving softly
On my fingertips
Down toward the deep
Glance above and see the sun
In a different time and place from me

On the edge
Fading to darkness
Utter silence, growing cold
Broken shards of light, pale rivulets
Shatter on the midnight floor, beyond sight
Beyond sound, beyond feeling, crossing over, fall away . . .

Hey Warrior! Short review today.

One issue I find here is that your narrator's motions get very murky. She/he is flying, suspended, descending, glancing above...all while things float by. I think that flying, being suspended, and descending are three very different motions, yet you roll them together as one, and on top of that she's glancing up as well, which just makes it all very jumbled. Make your word choice precise and sensible so that we have a clear image of this person and their actions. How is the world floating by; isn't she floating by the world? What does the world look like from her drifting position?

I dislike the combination phrase of "moving softly". Something about it seems...fake? Like the words don't match up properly for this description. I'd suggest a more interesting verb than "moving". It's good that you're playing around with verb+adverb pairings, though. Keep that up!

The last stanza was probably my least favorite, because it's all saying the same thing: "I'm going now". Fading, silence, cold, shattering, falling-- they've all been used before and they're hard to enjoy. They're almost clichés, especially for an ending. They're also inconsistent: "fading" is a gentle, soft way to disappear, while "shattering" is noisy and dramatic, like going out with a bang. Figure out the images, scene, and emotions you're trying to convey, and hand-pick words and phrases that will get your point across best. This definitely doesn't mean you have to spell things out for the readers-- pretty, elusive language and some complex imagery can make an "okay" poem wonderful! But don't waste words if you don't need them or if they don't give anything new or unique to the poem.

Good start here. Keep on writing, and PM me for anything!

~Evi

Quite good. I especially liked your use of movement by "fingertips". Additionally, I found this section:

Down toward the deep
Glance above and see the sun]

...very beautiful in the sense that you are witnessing the sun from a swimmer's point of view. Ultimately I am still trying to interpret the phrase "broken shards of light" but I liked the overall language used in conjunction with the perspectives recorded (case and point swimmer's point of view). The Drop-off is a title that fits this contents of this poem in the sense that the reader is also being dropped off to these descriptive locations that range from a "suspended hallway" to the "midnight floor". Very appealing and descriptive word choices used throughout.

Sincerely
-Elitehusky