Young Writers Society

It's bright. Clean, like a hospital. Quiet, like a prison.

We step off the edge of the world and turn into infinity.

The visible spectrum has no meaning here. Prose is coloured ultraviolet; poetry is infrared.

Somewhere, the words are lost and turned into emotions and pictures, force-fed to our seething brains.

We are lost things, once human - nevermore.

Lapped up in currents made of humdrum things and turned back to what we are supposed to be, we sigh.

This is not what we wanted. We were content with humanity.

A lone thought steps forth and murmurs, I wasn't.

Individuality begins.

Hey i am STe and tihink your work is top class, i can really feel what your trying to achieve and to a large extent you achieve this. I jsut think maybe if you strucutred it differently it would have more of a punch but thats me and to be honest i am oly saying that becaus ei can fnd nothing else wrong with it to be honest. Just keep it up and you will have me entertained as i fidn the conept you explore o nthis occasion particulaly engaging.

Ste x

Very moving. I like how the reader is taken through a vast array of beautiful imagery until the final main point that explains what the imagery was trying to convey. This is truly a work of art and should be published somewhere besides YWS. I love your style Keep writing!

~Jess

This is really good! But you're right, what is this? If I had to say, then maybe a prologue, or a preface, or epigraph? I struggled to keep up with all the big words, but I guess that's because this is aimed for your age, not mine. I had to read it twice. The second line to last is really intriguing, because who wouldn't be content with humanity? And also, there's no speech marks, the peron's not actually saying it, so how can the rest of them hear? It was really good! The only problem I had was the last line 'Individuality begins.' It wasn't strong enough to end the whole thing. I think you could make it better by taking that away, and having 'A lone thought steps forth and murmurs, I wasn't.' as your last line. If you expanded this idea into something more, I'd definitely read it
-Anna

Well, I don't have quotation marks where the lone voice is 'speaking' because of my own personal preference. It's a matter of style right here; quotation marks would look out of place, for me at least, in a piece like this, and I can't imagine inserting them.

As for the last line, I'd really rather not get rid of it because it stands to tie the whole piece together. You see that most of it is about "we", and at the end, the lone voice uses "I" instead; as such, it serves to a point that I would need the last line to at least wrap up the words and show the repercussions of the use of "I" instead of "we".

Some people consider individuality to be a curse, some a blessing, so it's up to them how they interpret this piece. Thank you all for your comments - I'm still not quite sure what it is. It's odd, that's what it is.

Hi, Ancient. Review as requested. I had to read this a couple of times to devise an interpretation as to what your prose meant, and here’s what I came up with: forgotten thoughts/memories/ideas or dead people. Your comment hinted that individuality might be an important theme, but I couldn’t put the pieces of the puzzle together that way. As stated in the ad, I'm not the best with poetry, and I believe that this is a poem. When in doubt, pretend it's a poem. Your use of language here is just, well, poetical. I'm sorry that I could not provide a more in depth review, and barely scratched the surface of your piece.

-Crescent

Your free elephant:

Ancient,

What is it? To me it sounded like a poem/prose poem. So "other poetry" ? Lol, is someone a poet, who doesn't know it? Anyway.

Honestly, while I like the ideas in this, I feel as though it is too vague. You may know what you're trying to say, but the reader doesn't. On one hand I see what you are trying to do, but somewhere in the middle everything feels and sounds muddled, as though there were too many thoughts going through your head and you were having trouble pin-pointing the right words.

I read this, and at the end I'm wondering what is "it" anyway? I mean, not so much the thing itself, but that which you are referencing.

It's bright. Clean, like a hospital. Quiet, like a prison.

What is "it"? And that's where the problems begin, there is a lack of concreteness. All of these abstract thoughts and ideas and nothing that we can firmly grasp or sink our teeths in, maybe that's why people were having trouble critiquing it? Because the flow is smooth and the sound isn't bad - but the content is just a bunch of questions and speculations, and while that is not a bad thing necessarily, it just makes me shrug and at the end of the day I will forget all about it. If you want to pose a question, you must ground the question first.

Or here's another way of looking at it. Whatever this "is" - what do all pieces of writing have in common? Short stories, novels, poetry, drama, songs...? Imagery. Imagery. Imagery. Sensory details. Make me feel this, experience this - the voice, the mood, and atmosphere - it all alludes to feelings of loss and "nothingness", but as I said, nothing concrete.

Now, here's what I got from this: I got a speaker who gets loss in words. Stepping into "infinity" - and with all these references to literature - I get the sense that the speaker is wondering what the point of literature even is.

This is not what we wanted. We were content with humanity.

A lone thought steps forth and murmurs, I wasn't.

Individuality begins.

You lose me here though. These three lines alone imply this theme of breaking away from the masses, almost like we're all sheepdogs or something, and someone finally breaks away. But - like I said - there's nothing concrete here, so I don't even know what they are breaking away from. I feel as though there's a disconnect between these three lines and the rest of the poem.

So yeah. Don't be afraid to be clear with what you want to say, you seem to know very well what you want to say - try to just say it and see where that gets you. That being said, I did enjoy the sounds and the voice in this. I like the structure as well, I feel as though the space between the lines kind of go hand in hand with the content as well.

Anyway, I could be very wrong with my interpretations of this. In any case feel free to enlighten me, feel free to ask questions, and if you need another review or two, you know where to find me!

~ as always, Audy