Young Writers Society

Shine bright, little baby
You’re our new star,
You’ll have hopes and dreams,
And they’ll take you so far

Stay sweet, little baby
Let your innocence remain,
Take nothing to heart,
Let this world be your game

Grow tall, little baby
Reach up to the sky
Be brave in this world,
Know it’s okay to cry

Sleep sound, little baby
Don’t be scared of the night,
Let Mama protect you
Everything will be alright

Smile often, little baby
Your face lights up the room,
Because wherever you are
Joy follows soon

So shine bright, little baby
You’re our new star,
Be happy and dream
And don’t worry how far

For now, little baby
Just smile and grow,
For you will always be loved
More than you’ll ever know


*****

So my mother comes in my room five minutes ago:
"You need to write a poem for your baby cousin."
"Baby cousin?"
"Yes, she was born yesterday."
"Ahh..."
So, I will apologize in advance. I literally threw this together in five minutes.
Let me know what you think before I send it to darling little Charlee Claire! (Isn't that a lovely name??)
Note on repetition: I got the inspiration from that 'Hush, little baby, don't say a word...' nursery thing.

Wonderful job with this. 5 minutes? It usually takes me half and hour to even come up with an idea! I loved this and you should be proud of it! I'd love to have this little blessing sung to me at birth! I know this is probably just a message saying how great your lyrics were but it's something people should do some more. This was very beautiful and very clever. Excellent work anti-pop, excellent.

Peace, Love, and Sugar Packets~
Forever Threnody

So, I had logged off for the night when I realized that I'd forgotten my Norton Anthology of British Literature Volume Two somewhere and I needed to get back online to print out the poems needed for my reading tomorrow. Then I saw this. I was absolutely blown away love -- everything drew me in from the first moment, even just reading the title. It's spectacular and with just a few tweaks I think you might even try to publish it or get it out there SOMEHOW. I love it. The repetition works beautifully, but the variation within the repetition keeps it fresh! Here are my comments.

Stay sweet, little baby

Let your innocence remain,

Take nothing to heart,

Let this world be your game

Alright, there's a word throwing off the rhythm here, and it's a pity that the word is so appropriate and relevant! 'Innocence', for me, is ruining the flow of that line! D: How to remedy, how to remedy? I think, perhaps, there is the option of replacing it with something like 'naive love'? I know that that's technically the same number of syllables, but I think its the way those new words are stressed that preserves the flow of the poem. Consider it. ^_^

Don’t be scared of the world,

But it’s okay to cry



Sleep sound, little baby

Don’t be scared of the night,

I love the end of that stanza, though I think it might be better to use 'know' in place of 'but', just to make the reassurance a bit more active rather than contradictory? Also, you use 'don't be scared of' twice in the space of these four lines, and I think that it would be better to replace the first with a different sort of phrase since the one referring to 'night' is more appropriate. ^_^

Smile often, little baby

Your face lights up the room,

Because wherever you are

Joy always follows soon

This is my absolute favorite stanza! I think, by the way I read it to myself, that you don't need the word 'always'. It's really definite as it is and doesn't need to be built up by such an empty word. ^_^ It's so beautiful.

I. Love. This. Poem.
Seriously. Gold star, 100 percent from me. ^_^

-Hannah-

Hey anti-pop!

I love this, it just took me over. It's brilliant for a 5-minute work. I don't think I could write poems even if you gave me 5 months

I love teh way you start each stanza, slight variation yet repetitive. Very powerful.

*Gold star*

The only thing I noticed was

Grow tall, little baby

Reach up to the sky

Don’t be scared of the world,

But it’s okay to cry

The 'But' is umm... I don;t know what, but I'd prefer : It's okay to cry it sounds more... right.
Besides that, I agree with what Hannah said abot the always bit.

Keep It Up!
~Lava

hey anti-pop! As you gave me this to review, I will!
I have not much too say. this is incredibly beautiful. I get this feeling 'cause I have a baby sister and I think about here in that kind of way. it was nice to take an idea from the nursery thing
So, I just have an advice about punctuation. I suggest you put a period in the end of the last line of every stanza.
this ends nicely and it's really sweet. I'm sorry, I0m sure this isn't what you asked fro right? Crappy review... Sorry about that.
Keep up the good work!

Here as requested, anti-pop!

As I warned you, my poetry skills are extremely lacking (unless your counting ancient verse/prose poetry...)

Anyway...

Onto the review!

This was absolutely lovely. I only have a few nit picks:

Shine bright, little baby
You’re our new star,
You’ll have hopes and dreams,
And they’ll take you so far

Stay sweet, little baby
Let your innocence remain,
Take nothing to heart,
Let this world be your game

Grow tall, little baby
Reach up to the sky
Be brave in this world,
Know it’s okay to cry

Sleep sound, little baby
Don’t be scared of the night,
Let Mama protect you For some reason this line sounds as though you are the child's mother. I would say "Let your {insert maternal name here} protect you".
Everything will be alright

Smile often, little baby
Your face lights up the room,
Because wherever you are
Joy follows soon

So shine bright, little baby
You’re our new star,
Be happy and dream
And don’t worry how far Don't worry how far what? This line didn't make sense to me at all.

For now, little baby
Just smile and grow,
For you will always be loved
More than you’ll ever know

And that's really all I noticed.
You use great imagery, and I'm huge fan of the repetition.


This review is simply awful.
Honestly, I feel I owe you money writing something this sparse and unhelpful. I assure yuo, my fiction reviews are lengthy/helpful.

Sorry,
~~~Sakura~~~

Hiya pop! Lyric poetry. Hmm, something new.

Take nothing to heart,
Let this world be your game

Something seems really.....twisted about this line. I consider people who play the world to be trying to get out of something.

That's the only real nit-pick I found.

Feel- I found this to be really sweet. Other then the line mentioned above, I consider this something everybody should keep in mind, and it's a really great thing for somebody younger.

Flow- Good rhyme scheme. None of them really feel forced, which I like, and you've kept the line length about the same, which is another thing I like. It also helps the eye move along nicely and keeps the rhythm.

Overall- I loved this! It was super-sweet, and your little cousin (and your aunt and uncle) should love this! Since I figure it'll be them that read it most often, I find the word-choice works.

If you have any questions, let me know!

~Rosey

Oh, love, this was so sweet! I just smiled as I read it. Just smiled.

In truth, I'm just glad to find a well-written, emotion-filled poem that's happy. Our world is lacking so many feel-good things nowadays, and it's impossible to escape the depressing, dark poetry that everyone feels the need to write. I'm guilty, too, but I'm glad to find that you can resist the call of despair and woe.

And I am supposed to review this? *epic gasp* I shall attempt. Where is that story you promised me that would be purposefully less-than-wonderful so I could rip it to shreds? Huh? What do you have to say for yourself, missy?

Everything will be alright

The only line I could find that didn't fit the rythym and flow perfectly. It seems to have that one extra syllable in it, doesn't it? Now to fix it...I'll throw out some random re-phrased lines...

Everything will be right.
Let her tuck you in tight.
Keep your dreams in sight. (Substitute 'dreams' for any other one-syllable word, if you like.)

Perhaps? It's not terribly obvious that the rhythym is strained, but *shrug* there's always room for improvement, ya?

And, as a sort of parallel to what you told me in Watermelon Rinds, there's no need to end this with apologizing in advance. Just as you sagely advised me, this shows that you aren't super confident in your writing, which you should be! It's that good, dahling. And five minutes? Would've taken me forever just to come up with an idea.

For now, little baby
Just smile and grow,
For you will always be loved

Slight nitpick here, but you begin two sentences with 'for'. It works, but there's a whole assortment of other words that you could probably substitute for, don't you think?

So, this is my favorite poem of yours, and I gold starred it just for you. *click*

Ta ta for now...

~Evi

EDIT: Oh, and I disagree with Rosey. (Eek! Rosey, don't eat me!) I knew what that line meant immediately, and I think it's sweet how you compare the world and life to your baby cousin's own little game; something innocent, like hide-and-seek or peek-a-boo.

anti-pop wrote:Shine bright, little baby
You’re our new star,
You’ll have hopes and dreams,
(a)nd they’ll take you so far(.)

Stay sweet, little baby
Let your innocence remain(.)
Take nothing to heart,
Let this world be your game(.)

Grow tall, little baby
Reach up to the sky.
Be brave in this world,
know it's okay to cry(.) <----- The flow of the poem doesn't work here. I like the rhyme, but it doesn't flow. It sort of stops the poem. Maybe making it's it is, or removing "know".

Sleep sound, little baby
Don’t be scared of the night(.)
Let Mama protect you,
Everything will be alright(.)

Smile often, little baby
Your face lights up the room,
Because wherever you are
Joy follows soon(.)

So shine bright, little baby
You’re our new star(.)
Be happy and dream
And don’t worry how far(.)

For now, little baby
Just smile and grow,
For you will always be loved
More than you’ll ever know(.)


*****

So my mother comes in my room five minutes ago:
"You need to write a poem for your baby cousin."
"Baby cousin?"
"Yes, she was born yesterday."
"Ahh..."
So, I will apologize in advance. I literally threw this together in five minutes.
Let me know what you think before I send it to darling little Charlee Claire! (Isn't that a lovely name??)
Note on repetition: I got the inspiration from that 'Hush, little baby, don't say a word...' nursery thing.

Hey Anti-Pop! It's Shina and it looks like I'll be your reviewer today

Review:

Revisions: I'm not super grammar freaks like some people on YWS, but they've told me before that you don't have to capitalize every line in a poem. You only do it when it's the beginning of a sentence xD

I'm not sure if the lack of periods is supposed to be that way, but I'm pretty sure that you're supposed to end sentences with periods and end sentences or pause them xD

I really like the idea here as well as the rhyme. With just a few changes I think it'd be pretty close to perfection xD

This is a wonderful poem! why you didn't tell me about this one?
Anyways this was a really lovely and peaceful poem (Unlike your funny ones for example the fish or the pills poem. Those were hilarious but evil. LOL!)
Congratulations for you! and great job you deserve a star!