Young Writers Society

....... (in a state of revision, please come back later) .........

Hi antimelrose,

Not bad. And yet...

I don't know why this is happening, but for some reason, there's a new fad on YWS in which poets attempt to stuff as many words and ideas into a single piece as possible. Too many cooks boiling in their own broth, etc.

antimelrose wrote:The flight of a three–quarter bird
Equates with the thrusting moon walk skips
Of the gilded–syntax mind upstairs;
Below, legs pump feet protest the gravity lurking beneath concrete
The exam of enigmatic Xs and Ys was completed only moments before;

Don't know what three-quarter bird is, nor what it's supposed to symbolize. Here's hoping you explain it at some point along the poem.

Capitalizing the "upstairs" just adds a level of screaming "THIS IS IMPORTANT. LOOK AT THIS", and generally should be avoided, as in this case.

The last two lines in this above stanza are just... bad. "gravity lurking beneath concrete" - how am I supposed to imagine that? How is anyone? If you're not sure about imagery, always start out small, rodents, cockroaches being the kings of the earth and lords of physical forces. Something tangible. Then branch out.

Bursting from bars, the bird was
Gathered up and penetrated by the solar eye,
A gaze most famous for bliss and curse.
The wings glint, catching bits of fire from the sky, all is radiant

Too much potential without any embellishment. What's the solar eye? It can be as wide-ranging as the mundane Sun to the immaterial eye of Shiva. But the reader has no way to know unless you weave in clues somewhere else in the poem, connections that spark the brain and bring it back to this section. Elaborate.

Timely indeed were the winds that ripped open the cage's door,
For furies seethed beneath the skin rubbed raw with impatience.
They are gnawing hungrily as Socrates did for wisdom;
Only algebra can frustrate so fully.

Socrates is too broad as a symbol to simply represent "knowledge" or "mental discovery" on its own, limping on crutches built from its own bones. Don't zero in on concrete examples when you waste them on one single idea or concept. It's like filling your gas tank to go five feet in front of you.

Again, the above stanza suffers from the wordiness of it. Your whole poem does, actually. Cut out words you don't need so that your reader has an easier time making his way to your cerebellum without having to fight spiderwebs first.

The journey of the air fades, succumbing to gravity like a frown.
Feathers fall.
Shadows of the human's limbs stagger staccato to a stop–
The walk back to the classroom mesmerizes the sunlit bird in mammal plumes.
Shady Xs and Ys scissor over afternoon–dulled
Squares and rectangles of the third dimension.
The circle closes in. It was only six minutes of liberty.
Pausing. Quiet. Experience of.
The burnishing eye turns away–the feathers glitter no longer.
So softens the mind. Malleable.
May mercy behold the avian,
Who grasps the doorknob to reenter the cage.

Ah, this is about recess, then. Interesting.

The poem was rather clever, blowing what could be construed as unworthy subject material into an explosion of ancient deities and natural rhythms and philosophers. The mathematics lingering on from behind, embedded to fully store away in place of bliss but too shelved to take precedence among the judgment of freedom.

This was a decent poem. It could obviously be made better if you skimmed all the extraneous growth off the basic figure of this poem and let it dry a little bit on its own before dressing it up. Right now, it's bloated, and you need to hack it down with a saw. Phrases that ramble on, like the one about the enigmatic X's and Y's, could be reduced and still fit whatever meaning you want them to fit. That's the beauty of poetry.

Good luck on this, and do revise it.

Hope that helped,
Galerius

Hey there! Here is your requested review!

This was a pretty good piece. I didn't have many problems at all with this poem. You had fantastic imagery and good description all throughout this piece. However, I agree with Galerius-this could be much, much better.

antimelrose wrote:The flight of a three–quarter bird.

What exactly is a three-quarter bird? Elaborate.

antimelrose wrote: the gilded–syntax mind upstairs

Why do you have upstairs in italics? Try sounding it out for a minute. It doesn't seem right, does it? here is a good article about italicized font, and when or when not to use it.

Also, another problem I have is that your way too wordy. 'mammal', 'mesmerizes'? I don't know what either of those words mean. And isn't 'staccato' something that should be used in music? Words like these only confuse the reader. Sometimes, the simplest thing is the best.

Overall, this wasn't bad. I actually thoroughly enjoyed it. Please do PM me if you have any further questions.

-Elinor

Thank you for the feedback, everyone! I hope I sheared enough of the excess. Let me know if any other tweaking is required.

Oh, and by the way, (Galerius, to whom I aim this reply), I did mean the sun. I'm not overly familiar with that branch of mythology, so I can't even say it was an unconscious maneuver. Still, it's your choice as how to interpret.

–antimelrose

Hello! Sorry for the delay. Poetry reviews aren't my best, so please take this all with a grain of salt.

Galerius said a lot of what I would've said, so this won't be too long. Basically, the theme of the poem is very interesting and unique, and pulled off very well. There's a tad of humor in the subject (evil algebra exam) but the tone of the poem itself is quite serious, which is, I believe, necessary. You wove all these complex phrases and allusions around mathematics, and for that I applaud you.

First thing I'll mention is that we can't fully understand the three-quarter bird remark without that author's note, which is really the last way you want to clarify something. Poetry needs to speak for itself, and so little comments explaining this and that should be avoided at all costs. Incorporate the three-quarters bird into the poem later, somehow-- mention that the fourth quarter symbolizes the humanity of the character.

The circle closes in. It was only six minutes of liberty.

The exam of Xs and Ys was completed only moments before;

Only algebra can frustrate so fully.

These are the lines that jumped out to me as not fitting in with the fluid, rushing tone of the piece. Kind of like going full-speed over a speed-bump. While the thoughts behind these lines are good, you could rephrase them a bit more poetically so that they slip in more easily with the rest of the imagery-heavy poetry. You mention X's and Y's later on, so perhaps you can find some other means of expressing the math exam. Six minutes of liberty. I don't know. For some reason, stamping an exact duration to this poem (six minutes) makes it seem a bit less...effortless? Timeless? I'm not sure exactly what it is, but minutes seem too concrete a measurement.

If that makes any sense whatsoever?

Overall, this was quite good. Just keep each phrase and each line smooth and flowing. Some of that excess could still use some hacking off--in poetry, you don't have to have everything be a compelte sentence. Words like "that" and "only" tend to bog the images down. Also, in the future, you don't have to use such strict capitalization, capitalizing every line. It doesn't really take away from the poem here, but someday it might.

PM me for anything else!

~Evi

So sorry this took so long! Well, I'm here, as requested.

Such a powerful poem! Goodness, where do I start?

I love your theme here, algebra being compared to a bird in its cage? It's so random, yet it fits in the weirdest ways possible.

Not going to lie here, I am incredibly confused at some parts. Your definition of a three-quarter bird just doesn't click in my mind for some reason, so I'm just going to take your poem as what I said above.

The main part I was confused about was that I got the feeling that the character in this poem was running? But if it is a bird, why should it be running? And then I got the feeling you added an extra character, a person, but I have no idea why.

What I really liked about this poem was that you had a real ending. Some poems leave my frustrated because I feel like it should continue. But with this, I knew exactly where the story inside the poem ends and begins. Nice job on that.

The only negative things I have to say is that this is rather confusing. But, I took this simplest meaning out of it that I could, and it worked for me.

Keep writing!

Classy

Oops, sorry about the confusion: I didn't mean for that to be the main theme! Unfortunately, I don't have the time right now, but I'm thinking I may "spirit away" this one for more tweaking in the shop. Sometime, in the future, this shall be revised to a more coherent state. I hope.

Thank you for your reviews! They were really enlightening in my poem's shortcomings. Grazie.

–antimelrose