Young Writers Society

you have always been a handsome boy, laughing glad and
golden under the afternoon sun or stumbling sheepish and smiling
by the stairs to the kitchen, joy dancing out of your skin and
water dripping down like molten silver from your hands;

last summer we lost your name to the placid breeze, so we
called you robin-red and teased the hawks out of their nests;
your hair caught the light and trembled like fireflies at night,
and we ran after you to hear you shout at the sky;

your voice rose up like a waterfall thundering backwards,
and it was a victory over space and time. later we walked
home and blew bubbles of soap into the crisp evening air,
waved them goodbye and watched them drift away.

there were rainbows from the water we’d sent across the sky,
and smaller ones swirling at your fingertips, soap-slick
and wet and just as beautiful as you. it was summer and the
colors danced over your arms and the sun never set -

oh you with eyes like spring rain and a mouth like autumn
leaves, oh you quicksilver and swallowflight suspended in
a drop of morning dew; with a name like the trickling of streams
on washed stones under the sun, oh, you. how i miss you.

I'm in love with this poem. It's simply beautiful - the way you put everything together, every detail enamored with a metaphor or a simile, from the title until the end. It gave me this vision of a person that you have met one summer afternoon, and how you miss his presence when he's not around. Instead, you wander in your memories associated with him and that particular summer. I could relate to this poem as well because I am an immigrant that travels back to her homeland during the summer; I think that the fundamental focus when writing poetry is to give a glimpse of something beautiful and courageous as this to your audience - it's that vague, short boundary between experiencing the exact same thing that the author gave the reference to, and knowing that somewhere in your past you have had similar feelings towards this specific thing. Does it make sense? All in all, you have great discipline in your poem, and versatile language. Can't do nothing but praise this piece. Kudos to you!

Hey there! I'm here to review your poem.

I have to say that this was beautiful. It has great imagery and I like your choice of words.

Some nitpicks:

Jagged wrote:and we ran after you to hear you shout at the sky:

A period instead of a colon at the end.

Jagged wrote:and wet and, like you, beautiful. it was summer and the

I'd prefer 'beautiful, like you' instead. It flows better. Also, the 'i' of the 'it' should be capitalized.

Jagged wrote:oh you with eyes like spring rain and a mouth like autumn

Comma after the 'you.'

Also, capitalize the letter of each word at a beginning of the line.

Overall, this was very good. A gold star for you!

Keep writing, I'd like to see more.

Heya Jagged
Here to review as requested, 'cause I is cool.

I'm not the best when it comes to reviewing poetry, but I'll try my best to do so. You've also got two other good reviews, so I won't repeat what they've already said!

You have always been a handsome boy, laughing glad and
golden under the afternoon sun or stumbling sheepish and smiling
by the stairs to the kitchen. Joy dancing out of your skin and
water dripping down like molten silver from your hands.

I really loved this opening stanza! I am absolutely terrible at writing poetry myself, and I really am impressed with this. The imagery is already showing in this poem, well done!

Last summer we lost your name to the placid breeze, so we
called you robin-red and teased the hawks out of their nests;
your hair caught the light and trembled like fireflies at night,
and we ran after you to hear you shout at the sky.

Once again, the imagery in this was beautiful. I'm even more impressed now. My only critique so far is your grammar. I don't think that you used the semi colons at the end of these two stanzas correctly.

your voice rose up like a waterfall thundering backwards,
and it was a victory over space and time. Later we walked
home and blew bubbles of soap into the crisp evening air,
waved them goodbye and watched them drift away.

I really liked the first line of this stanza. You used a very nice, original simile. One thing I would like to mention though is that you need to use a capital letter after a period. You also need to do this if the last line of the stanza before has a period, you must start the next stanza with a capital letter.

There were rainbows from the water we’d sent across the sky,
and smaller ones swirling at your fingertips, soap-slick
and wet and just as beautiful as you. It was summer and the
colors danced over your arms and the sun never set -

I love how you are keeping up with the imagery. In my opinion, that is one of the most important things in a poem; imagery. You are using it exceptionally well. I applaud you for that.

oh you with eyes like spring rain and a mouth like autumn
leaves, oh you quicksilver and swallowflight suspended in
a drop of morning dew; with a name like the trickling of streams
on washed stones under the sun, oh, you. How I miss you.

The ending line was simple, but effective. It made me go 'Aww...'. That's a good thing, by the way. You need to remember to capitalize though! Especially capital I's!


Overall

I am going to seriously struggle with finding negative things about this, especially because I'm not a very good poem reviewer at all. I will try my best though! What I loved most about this piece was the imagery that you created with it. The best thing about your imagery was the fact that you kept it up throughout the entire poem. You didn't just use it at the beginning and then drop it completely in the next few stanzas. You kept up with the great imagery throughout the entire poem. The concept of the poem itself is a very simple idea, but you've managed to make it very interesting and definitely very original. That is a really hard thing to accomplish, but you have done it extremely well. As for your grammar, that was probably your weak point. Your spelling was a different story though, that was flawless.

The only critique I'm going to mention is your grammar. It's not much of a critique, but hey, I can't think of anything else! As you might have noticed, I corrected quite a few grammar errors in this piece. The main thing that I noticed was the fact that you didn't use any capital letters. The grammar of a poem is exactly the same as a story or any other piece of writing. If you have a period, a capital letter must always follow. Thankfully, you didn't start every line with a capital letter. That is a mistake that a lot of poets tend to do. That is part of your problem though, you don't use capital letters at all. For example, I noticed that on the last line, you wrote:-



Because this is an important part of the poem, I believe it is anyway, the correct grammar in this is rather important! You didn't start the sentence with a capital 'h' which you really needed to do. You also didn't capitalize 'i' which you really need to do. No matter what piece of writing it is, you always need to capitalize the letter 'i'. So then, you will have:-



I don't have anything else to critique! Sorry, I'm useless. I might request for someone who knows a bit more about poetry to critique this for you. Like I said before, the imagery in this is really, really lovely. This doesn't just feel like a random clump of writing, it feels like a poem. You'd be surprised to how many poems nowadays just feel like a dump of information. I'm really glad that yours doesn't feel like that. Your spelling was also perfect and I adored the theme of this poem. The rhythm stayed constant and the idea of this poem itself was very nice. If you fix the grammar in this, you will have a seriously great piece of writing here.

Keep writing!

xoxo Rhian

*Likes*

So, I meant to review this some time ago. We're going on a bit of a 'sun' theme, by the looks of your latest works - or their titles, at the very least - is that right? (Oh, and please PM me when you post - I enjoy looking over your work).

I love an utter lack of capitals. No word is made more important than another that way, no single letter looms over the rest. It's cute and it's intimate, and I think that was the effect you were trying to achieve in the first place. It sort of hooks you and strings you along linearly rather than bumping up and down like capitals mixed in with lower case. Just thought to mention that, since noncapitalisation is a technique I've seen used very often for that very purpose.

I get the feeling this is a very personal poem - it may not be, of course, but the way it is written makes me believe it's real to the writer, even if it's not, if that makes sense. What I am thus finding it harder to do, is to separate the narrator of the poem from the writer - you. But I'll try.

I'll state the overall impression I had of it first. I found it excessively pleasant, almost too happy, perhaps even bordering on the cliche with the images, even when they seemed original. I think it was the synonymous language used throughout - laughing, glad, smiling and joy; and handsome, golden, and sun also in the first stanza. The rest were decidedly similar, and for me, it ruined the effect of the rare piece of vivid imagery I did see - such as 'water dripping down like molten silver.' I'd suggest to cut it down, shave it till the barest bones of it remain, and build it up from there, subtly. I feel like I'm getting teh beautiful, bright, golden, happy, smiling sun shoved down my throat - not a nice feeling. Let one word speak for itself, leave an aura of mystery and leave the reader to use their own imagination to draw connections - overuse of synonyms, or similar ideas is not something I enjoy reading.

you have always been a handsome boy, laughing glad and
golden under the afternoon sun or stumbling sheepish and smiling
by the stairs to the kitchen, joy dancing out of your skin and
water dripping down like molten silver from your hands;

The tone of this is, like I said, intimate. An admission to personal thoughts, stating feelings by words. Handsome, laughing, glad, golden, sun, smiling, joy, dancing - that's eight words that are pretty much saying the same thing in the space of three lines. Think about saying something by not saying it - it's an interesting concept. Give us a metaphor, a symbol, something new that you really have to think about and develop throughout the poem, as opposed to a list of synonyms. That will make wonderous lines like that last one there stand out all the more.

last summer we lost your name to the placid breeze, so we
called you robin-red and teased the hawks out of their nests;
your hair caught the light and trembled like fireflies at night,
and we ran after you to hear you shout at the sky;

I have a feeling my review might get as synonymous as the poem itself and I would not want to repeat myself, actually. Or maybe I should, and let you see how it looks? Okay, here again: summer, placid, breeze, light, fireflies at night, even the pretty image of 'we ran after you to hear you shout at the sky' seem too obvious, as if you are repeating yourself. I don't really know the character to whom this poem is addressed that well, beyond the sunniness, the brightness, which, for some reason, comes across as fake when emphasised that much. Again, the last line was a winner, and I guess the second line was different too - just not brilliantly different. Maybe it was because it got lost in all the other happy imagery.

I think I'm getting to the heart of the matter actually. Real life is complex, it's made of two sides, more than two sides, with people in internal conflict all the time - rarely do we see the bubbly perfection described throughout this poem. Which is why it comes across as a childish heaven, a world that never ends and never began, something in a fairy tale, except without the grandeur of princes and princesses. So...here's another thought: this is why the poem doesn't seem believable enough (even while it is wonderfully intimate), because it depicts a reality too bright, too happy. Not that poetry has to be black and dark or anything, just that if you are intending to write about some memory that is essentially a happy one, be a bit more subtle about it. Showing vs telling and all - I'm sure you've heard that many times.

your voice rose up like a waterfall thundering backwards,
and it was a victory over space and time. later we walked
home and blew bubbles of soap into the crisp evening air,
waved them goodbye and watched them drift away.

there were rainbows from the water we’d sent across the sky,
and smaller ones swirling at your fingertips, soap-slick
and wet and just as beautiful as you. it was summer and the
colors danced over your arms and the sun never set -

I want to like this. I really do. I want to believe that such a world and place and time can really exist. I want to be able to appreciate the characters, what they are doing. But I just can't - it's like a shiny, plastic toy which has relatively little meaning or emotional depth behind the surface. There's actually no story as such behind it - I mean, of course, there's the obvious story, but there's no story in the sense that there's no conflict. A healthy dose of conflict never goes amiss, just something to help the reader relate a lot more to events.

oh you with eyes like spring rain and a mouth like autumn
leaves, oh you quicksilver and swallowflight suspended in
a drop of morning dew; with a name like the trickling of streams
on washed stones under the sun, oh, you. how i miss you

I loved the absolute nostalgia behind 'oh, you. how i miss you.' But I want to see this 'missing' surface a LOT more in the poem - this is the INTERNAL CONFLICT the narrator is going through, this is why the memory is not as bright and colourful and ridiculously happy because the character in question is not there any longer. I want to see the narrator's feelings all twisted up and tight, I want to know where they are, in the present, and why they are remembering this, I want to know what objects or words bring back the image of him. I want it to be more real, more detailed with present and past interwined, less exposition on the happy past.

So...I hope that has helped. PM me if you'd like to discuss this. I love a good discussion session!

Hey there, luv. Great job!

First Impression: Oh! What a perfectly romantic poem! Like a lovely tragic little picture I fell into, for a minute experiencing the beauty and then pain of another's life. True tragedy isn't a morbid atrocity, but the loss of the memories and the joy that was brought by what was loss. Remember... And what a bright and magical world it was, a child's world...or the memories of a child's world. Our paradise lost, back, cupped in my hands. The world even sparkles different when we are small or with the small in their own world. If you somehow didn't mean to capture this, I'd be surprised. You've done a wonderful job with this. Good job! I love it.

Another thing I really liked was the relationship between the poem and its title. It was clever, and whimsical, without being to pushy and heavy on the word play with it.

Break Down:

- Because your poem reads beauty, except for some puntuation stumbling blacks. If I didn't write anything besides it, I think it's unnecessary; if I wrote something, replace.

you have always been a handsome boy, laughing glad and
golden under the afternoon sun or stumbling sheepish and smiling
by the stairs to the kitchen, joy dancing out of your skin and
water dripping down like molten silver from your hands;

last summer we lost your name to the placid breeze, so we
called you robin-red and teased the hawks out of their nests;
your hair caught the light and trembled like fireflies at night,
and we ran after you to hear you shout at the sky;

your voice rose up like a waterfall thundering backwards,
and it was a victory over space and time. <-- make this a comma later we walked
home and blew bubbles of soap into the crisp evening air,
waved them goodbye and watched them drift away.

there were rainbows from the water we’d sent across the sky,
and smaller ones swirling at your fingertips, soap-slick
and wet and just as beautiful as you. <-- make this a semi-colon it was summer and the
colors danced over your arms and the sun never set -

oh you with eyes like spring rain and a mouth like autumn
leaves, oh you quicksilver and swallowflight suspended in
a drop of morning dew; <-- make this a coma with a name like the trickling of streams
on washed stones under the sun,make this a semi-colon oh, you. <-- make this a coma how i miss you.


~*~

Other than that, I really thought it perfectly satisfying, and complete.

Keep writing!
At your service,
Mandorelute
Top

To be perfectly honest, the first line pulled me in. Not because it had anything to do with me, but because it immediately gave me an image and a connection to hang onto for the rest of the poem. At this point, you can tell me pretty much anything else about this world created in the next few stanzas and I won't click away from your poem. All because of a good opening.

I don't know if that's any indication of anything or not, but it works for me.

Further on in the stanza, I'm not so sure about the "joy dancing out of your skin" but I really like the "water dripping down like molten silver from your hands". I'm also not sure about the rainbows in the fourth stanza, just because everything else has been fairly immediate and concrete (even the hawks and the molten silver had this sense that they might be right next to you, albeit uncommon).

I like how the ending doubled back on itself, tone-wise, to re-address the boy after reminiscing for so long. Ideally, I'd love to find a stronger thread connecting the sequence of the middle stanzas, but all in all this is very nicely done =)

(and you get brownie points for building my French vocab with the title)

oh my. simply beautiful. i have tears in my eyes. it was so simple and touching
Best imagery ever. i have nothing to say but praise. each stanza evoked something really beautiful
was this inspired by a real boy? i really want to meet this boy now. and i want to meet you! you're a great writer