Young Writers Society

Nostalgia, like memories of being five-years-old,
and mom turning up the tender lullabies of Van Morrison or Santana
while men barbeque; mesquite smoke clinging to their clothes.
The fragrances of a calming ambrosia.

"Mija," grandma would sing in her spicy melody;
lips parting gingerly at the peak of accent. Handing me
plump slices of juicy mango, primos soon flock,
and we become a fuzzy cloud of reaching hands and empty bellies.

People laughing loudly, drinking, in a separate world.
The colorful sounds of tongue-rolled Spanish so rich,
and the sharp scent of their Corona breath
wafting the atmosphere around me.

Cousins running off to play tag in the dark,
and always being left behind; too small to master
hide and seek with scraped knees and sticky fingers.
This amber-kissed sky, miles from sunrise.

I cascade into sleep at the sounds of Samba Pa Ti.
Children fade away into precious heaps
of starry-eyed dreams. The energy, still dancing
through our subconscious while the night is still young.

Asleep on laps, asleep on toys; classic rock babies.
Mom isn't wary of the roaring laughter
outside cracked doors of resting little ones.
Little monos nestled safely inside, the twilight sambas on.

The ghost of the memories envelop me --a blanket,
a comfort, like tuning my memory to the proper station.
I fade reverse into the beat of my childhood.
Nostalgia. My 199.8.

Amazing. Great use of free verse, enjambment, etc. The poem tells a great (hi)story, of what was back in your '98; I felt as though I was there watching.
Third-to-last stanza, the repetition of 'still' threw me out of the poem; I would get rid of the first instance, or change the second one for 'yet' if you'd like to emphasize that temporal idea. (Also, typo - you have the end as "199.8" instead of '1998.')

Nostalgia, like memories of being five-years-old,
and mom turning up the tender lullabies of Van Morrison or Santana
while men barbeque; mesquite smoke clinging to their clothes.
The fragrances of a calming ambrosia.

This first stanza develops an interesting little piece of imagery - not one but something of a stew of different images, coalescing like complementary flavors to form the overall feeling of nostalgia that is so strong in this first stanza. The issue I'm noticing is that this is less poetic than it is prosy, not only in the way that it's written but the subjects of its description. When you merge prose with poetry, the result tends to be a confused mass of undefined concepts that seek to represent ideas that are beyond their reach. To call your poem this would be an overstatement, of course, but I do suggest you momentarily turn off the part of your mind that leans toward prose, both in future revisions of this (if there will be any), and in future poetic endeavors.

"Mija," grandma would sing in her spicy melody;
lips parting gingerly at the peak of accent. Handing me
plump slices of juicy mango, primos soon flock,
and we become a fuzzy cloud of reaching hands and empty bellies.

The first line.75 of this is beautiful; however, after that, this stanza is quick to degenerate into that jumbled in-between I condemned above. "Handing me plump slices of juicy mango." That's prose. Get rid of the line break, and that's prose. Where is that linguistic flexibility so unique to poetry? Relax. Your muscles are rigid. Experiment, like you do in the first couple lines.

People laughing loudly, drinking, in a separate world.
The colorful sounds of tongue-rolled Spanish so rich,
and the sharp scent of their Corona breath
wafting the atmosphere around me.

The fragmentedness of the first line caused it to sound awkward. You're also peppering me with obvious adjectives and adverbs - do I want to read poetry for its obviousness? No! I want to be surprised.

I understand that the second line would sound even more imbalanced if the "so" was to be removed, but as the line is awkward even with the "so," it is clear that the whole thing should be reworked.

Cousins running off to play tag in the dark,
and always being left behind; too small to master
hide and seek with scraped knees and sticky fingers.
This amber kissed sky, miles from sunrise.

Now it just feels like you took some little recountal of a family reunion or something, plucked out a few minor words here and there, threw in some line breaks, and called it done. But, as I've told you over and over again throughout this review: I'm not looking for a narrative! I want something deeper than 2D mosaics, no matter how colorful they may be.

ALSO, the last line's pretty cool, but I have no idea what it's saying. O.o

I cascade into sleep at the sounds of Samba Pa Ti.
Children fade away into precious heaps
of starry-eyed dreams. The energy, still dancing
through our subconscious while the night is still young.

I would love this stanza if it weren't for that first line, which still resonates with an unpoetic sheen. You don't need to tell me the name of the song - I don't want it, and it's distracting.

Asleep on laps, asleep on toys; classic rock babies.
Mom isn't wary at the roaring laughter
outside cracked doors of sleeping little ones.
Little monos nestled safely inside, the twilight sambas on.

Pretty good. I don't have much to say about this one, aside from:
Second line. "At" should be "of."
Third line. Find another way to say "little ones."
The last line seems like would it be far more striking if the rest of the stanza had been one sentence, but that might just me.

The ghost of the memories envelop me --a blanket,
a comfort, like tuning my memory to the proper station.
I fade reverse into the beat of my childhood.
Nostalgia. My 199.8.

The last part of this sounded overly clunky, like song lyrics, or the end of a prose piece. It doesn't work as well in poetry.

That'll be it. I hope I didn't sound too harsh, because this was really an excellent poem and I would hate to cause you to think otherwise.

Keep writing, of course.

-Kafka

*Applause* No, seriously, this rocked. This is why I love free verse; it breathed perfectly, with something between poetry and prose that makes it tell a story when it's only really summarizing the emotional aspects of it. The style and word choices were just spot-on.
Keep writing,
StoryWeaver

It was brilliant! You've done a really fine job with the free verse - narrated your nostalgia, taken us back with you to '98 to your family gathering some place in Spain, made me anticipate my pending trip to Spain even more. Use of authentic cultural stuff (using this awful word for lack of any better at the moment, with a running nose and an aching head I can't be more imaginative ), made the poem very interesting. I read it with a tourist's curiosity.

i have never been to spain, but your poetry makes me want to go there:D!
i think that enough should be a great compliment.
your vocabulary, your usage of it, and the poem doesn't get awkward anywhere, that are of the only few features that makes me want to read your works!

Ohhh Somi baby, this is an interesting piece indeed.

You had me worried up till that very last stanza, dear. Worried that, though you are showing a very incredible talent for diction and weaving imagery, that you still don't grasp the idea of giving reason. And I was afraid this didn't have a strong enough reason at all.

But that last stanza ended it, and gave it reason. Strong reason? I wouldn't say that, but reason enough for me to feel the power behind this.

You scripted yourself well. The voice is warm and inviting as is the setting that you depict with this, but I found myself worrying over why there was so much explanations towards the setting. Its pretty much a very long poem that waits till the very last few seconds to throw in enough of a reason to make it poetry rather than an info-dump. And I don't know if I particularly like that fact. Its a bit cumbersome as opposed to something that has its reasons sort of subtly intertwined throughout the piece so that when that end comes, we feel a sigh or a moment where the air exhales rather than a sharp inhale signalling an 'oh, now I get it'.

After all, poetry is beauty. Poetry is about writing from the heart as well as the mind, and the heart always has reason. I feel that this could have been a bit stronger if that reason was tied in a bit better.

Now, as the imagery goes, I found this refreshing. Beyond it, actually. It left me warm and happy, as good poetry tends to make me. And your diction is sweet. It is such a beautiful voice for such a simplistic ideology like nostalgia, which makes me think you must have given yourself quite a bit of time for this one. Its meticulous, in that sense.

Original. I like the originality of how you portrayed this, and not simply towards the basic American family, but you geared it towards yourself. And you geared it towards what you have felt for yourself rather than trying to fake it so that others can relate. Because of this, others relate, even if they don't have that kind of a family. Others relate because we all love the feeling of remembering. That is, if we can remember that far back.

Which brings me to my next point, and this is more towards the reason rather than the poem as a whole. This makes me sad. I can't really remember much from 1998, or, rather, I can't remember much at all from my childhood, so reading this is warm to a degree, but sad to those who let time slip through their fingers without so much as catching a couple coat-tails to hold on.

In any case, you wrote something really interesting. A little rough around the edges, but beautiful in its own right.

~Walker

I love your imagery, especially the line about the grandma singing in a spicy accent. But I have to say, the use of "juicy mango"...it reminded me of "Bend It Like Beckham," because even though I've only seen that movie once that is the part that stuck with me, the Indian girl bra-shopping with her mom. If you've seen it too, you know what I'm getting it and why that one phrase made me laugh in a way I am quite sure you did not intend....

If you haven't seen it and are curious, you can ask me about it, I just didn't want to go into detail here.

~Blue

SmylinG,

I can relate to this, I'm part Spanish myself. So all the little imagery inserted here and there probably touched me more profoundly. All the grandparents, cousins, Santana, The Coronas, the mangos, little monos <3 Perfect.

You've gotten lots of wonderful reviews. I would agree with Kafka and Dreamwalker about the proseness of it all, but as I enjoyed it, I cannot complain.

This amber kissed sky

Maybe if you insert a hyphen somewhere in there...?

Asleep on laps, asleep on toys; classic rock babies.
Mom isn't wary of the roaring laughter
outside cracked doors of sleeping little ones.

Grr. Too many in close proximity.

The ghost of the memories envelop me --a blanket,
a comfort, like tuning my memory to the proper station.
I fade reverse into the beat of my childhood.
Nostalgia. My 199.8.

So lovely. The music references woven throughout made this hit home I don't "like" many pieces on YWS but this definitely deserves one ^_^ It's much loved.

~ As always Audy

SmylinG wrote:The ghost of the memories envelop me --a blanket,
a comfort, like tuning my memory to the proper station.
I fade reverse into the beat of my childhood.
Nostalgia. My 199.8.

Iloved this part the most. I tried to look for errors, not easy to find. :p Good work

Um, wow. I feel overshadowed by all the reviews before me, especially since I myself can't really find anything wrong with this poem. I like the referrences to the songs. It seemed to give the poem some voice, as did the description of the family. It had good imagery and really allowed me to see the children playing while the adults talked. All in all, nice piece, and keep writing.

Ugh! Everything's been said! No, wait! There's still room for....

TWIIIIIIIIIIIIIN! This was a hit! I loved it!

There, I can leave now.

I really enjoyed this. It's really good and nothing that I'd normally read but now I found that when I started I couldn't finish! I only wanted to point out my point of veiw as you probably already know all the nit-picks by now, I'm just being a good sport and saying what I really enjoyed about it.

Overall, I definatly think you should keep on writing, and keep at it as you have loads of potential.

This was really good. I like the flow of the poem. "Nostalgia, like memories of being five-years-old, I really like this first line because it drew me and made me want to read more. and that's always good to do. I also like your descriptions, they show good imagery and made me like I was actually there living this experience with you. Which is also a very good thing to do.

I;m sorry this isn't much of a review, I'm not really good at them. But I really like this poem, It I don't know spoke to me. Oh I also like the fact that you ended the poem like "Nostalgia. My 1998" It really ended the flow of it nicely, and summed up the poem nicely.

Again, I'm sorry this isn't much of a review. Good work on the poem, I can't wait to read more from you! Keep writing!

Always,
AngelMarie

Smyl, yo girl. Time for a review.

SmylinG wrote:Nostalgia, like memories of being five-years-old,
and mom turning up the tender lullabies of Van Morrison or Santana
while men barbeque; mesquite smoke clinging to their clothes.
The fragrances of a calming ambrosia.

Huh. That's a good intro. A little big on telling, but decent description. A style of your own. Very vivid though. And the voice even shows control of rhythm.

"Mija," grandma would sing in her spicy melody;
lips parting gingerly at the peak of accent. Handing me
plump slices of juicy mango, primos soon flock,
and we become a fuzzy cloud of reaching hands and empty bellies.

I continued to be impressed. The first line is normally average, but becomes completely underwhelming because the enjambment to the next line makes me furious you didn't make the beginning better. "sing in her spicy melody" is about as good in writing as "the painting shone with picturesqueness". Clearly granny is saying something, clearly it's going to have some vocal quality, and then you touch on its accent! Don't you see that the quality of the lips and the accent together have both autological, physical, and psychologicall, hell even mental capabilities?! Lead into this! OR something! I demand you fix that first line. The rest of this, don't end the second line on "me".

People laughing loudly, drinking, in a separate world.
The colorful sounds of tongue-rolled Spanish so rich,
and the sharp scent of their Corona breath
wafting the atmosphere around me.

And then you get a little too cut and dry and stuck in marching nuance. The transition also lacks the life you had before, the natural transitions. People is too vague, so hard to connect with, so difficult to feel emotional connection in; there are people I don't like. People you don't like. Are they all doing this? Are they all at this gathering? You need to think about the implications behind your words Smyl. Also, "me" at the end of line four here, STOP IT. Me is clearly narrating speaker, me is clearly getting attention, and me most certainly does not need anymore attention.

Cousins running off to play tag in the dark,
and always being left behind; too small to master
hide and seek with scraped knees and sticky fingers.
This amber-kissed sky, miles from sunrise.

Cousins...a little better. Why not Primos? My only complaint.

I cascade into sleep at the sounds of Samba Pa Ti.
Children fade away into precious heaps
of starry-eyed dreams. The energy, still dancing
through our subconscious while the night is still young.

Okay, so I get you reference these things for culture reasons, but you must elaborate on them then in the following writing you have in order to justify and explain their existence in your poem. Comprendes? It's very important that the organs of a poem don't reject the poem and suddenly sends the poem into shock. Also, your start getting big hard to grasp and jam into my head words in this stanza. Bad Smyl. That kills a poem.

Asleep on laps, asleep on toys; classic rock babies.
Mom isn't wary of the roaring laughter
outside cracked doors of resting little ones.
Little monos nestled safely inside, the twilight sambas on.

The ghost of the memories envelop me --a blanket,
a comfort, like tuning my memory to the proper station.
I fade reverse into the beat of my childhood.
Nostalgia. My 199.8.

So two last notes. "on" is a bad line ending. And your last line is awful. Fix at least that last line and your poem improves leaps and bounds, the rest if up to you. This was highly impressive and I want to know why you don't write like this more and post it up on YWS: clear, easy to follow, emotionally vibrant, and good writing.