Young Writers Society

This poem goes along with my short story. The main female character, Aiko, is very negative and pessimistic in high contrast to Taiyo, who is completely positive and optimistic. This is through Aiko's perspective, wondering if they could really be close even though they are so different. So, here it goes:


Sorrow and joy,
Black and white,
Yin and yang,
Day and night.

Just as the moon ever chases the sun,
Can fire and water harmonize as one?
Is it just an empty dream for the earth and the sky,
To intertwine with the other - together live and die?

Is it really true that
opposites attract?
Is this an accurate notion?
A cold, hard fact?
Can my rigid spirit,
And those innocent charms,
Synchronize in reality,
Amid your comforting arms?

Criticism on my face,
Acceptance on yours.
My soul is quiet still,
While yours openly soars.

You look in my eyes,
To see no flaws, no mistakes.
How I wish for your compassion,
For your grace my heart aches.

I feel somehow that my heart is now driven,
by the hand of this luminous love you've been given.
For does my dark not make your light more intense?
I’ll remain by your side – I can help, I sense.

Answer and question,
Hope and despair,
Purify and taint,
Destroy and repair.

Hello, I am Upile. I will be reviewing your poem today. Purple is for the lines I like, Red is for errors and if the need arises Orange is for when I am confused or the sentence doesn't make sense.

Sorrow and joy,
Black and white,
Yin and yang,
Day and night. -great beginning!

Just as the moon ever chases the sun,
Can fire and water harmonize as one?
Is it just an empty dream for the earth and the sky,
To intertwine with the other - together live and die?

There’s a tear on my face,
And a smile on yours.
My heart is silent still,
While yours elatedly roars.- great!!Great! Great!

Is it true that opposites
Really attract?
Is this an accurate notion?
A cold, hard fact?
Can my rigid spirit,
And those innocent charms,
Synchronize in reality,
Amid your comforting arms?

You look in my eyes,
To see no flaws, no mistakes.
How I wish for your compassion,
For your grace my heart aches.

I feel somehow that my shadows could aid,
In the growth of that luminous love that you’ve made.
For does the dark not make the light more intense?
I’ll remain by your side – I can help, I sense.

Answer and question,
Hope and despair,
Purify and taint,
Destroy and repair.

Guess I didn't need the Red or the Orange!!Bravo! This is such a beautiful poem, honestly one of my favourites on the site. It is brillant, ingenious and there is so much feeling in every stanza that makes one understand, relate and feel too. Bravo!!
Keep it up!! I have a reason to follow you,
xxx Upile xxx

Dream here, as requested!

Okay so I got really excited when I started reading this piece because it has form which is awesome! I love form ;D. Okay, now on with the show!

Sorrow and joy,
Black and white,
Yin and yang,
Day and night. <--- interesting beginning. I would flesh it out more. Comparisons are nice though, espcially when they rhymn like this!

Just as the moon ever chases the sun,
Can fire and water harmonize as one? <---LOVE this! These two lines are great!
Is it just an empty dream for the earth and the sky,
To intertwine with the other - together live and die? <--- this line is a little wonky cause it doesn't have the same flow as the others. Maybe have it 'They intertwine with eachother -to live or die?'

There’s a tear on my face, <-- this imagery is a little... childish. Try rewording it.
And a smile on yours.
My heart is silent still,
While yours elatedly roars. <-- I think when one is sad, their heart roars in sadness. Mine, personally, would never be silent if I were crying.

Is it true that opposites
Really attract?
Is this an accurate notion?
A cold, hard fact? <--- does not the tears and sadness answer this question for you? Maybe this part is a little unnecessary
Can my rigid spirit,
And those innocent charms,
Synchronize in reality,
Amid your comforting arms? <--- interesting choice of words. I like this part!

You look in my eyes,
To see no flaws, no mistakes.
How I wish for your compassion,
For your grace my heart aches. <-- you put the idea of this person having grace and yet you speak of them poorly in other parts. I would change this. Try to not be inconsistent.

I feel somehow that my shadows could aid,
In the growth of this luminous love that you’ve made.
For does the dark not make the light more intense?
I’ll remain by your side – I can help, I sense. <--- I kind of like this stanza. Its interesting. The imagery is cool too.

Answer and question,
Hope and despair,
Purify and taint,
Destroy and repair.<-- this last stanza is perfect. If anything, don't change it.

Okay Green is what I liked. Blue is personal opinions against your choice of wording. Red is immediate changes.

Overall:

Okay so, in my personal opinion, I really like this piece! I love form and I love rhymning. I love the way you worded a great portion of this and the different sizes in stanza. Mostly, though, I loved this piece because it was clearly a poem and one that you thought out quite clearly.

There are some points where you get your thoughts mixed up, like you shift your opinions. I suppose this could be alright, but when you're writing a poem, you want your opinion to be solid. Its like a thesis for an essay. If that thesis does not make sense, the essay is pretty much a waste of 1000 words. So really try and get that point you're feeling across. Its pretty much the heart and soul of a poem.

Other than that, you have a talent for words and form. Your theme is interesting and your passion is there. Just work on keeping that passion directed towards one specific thing and try not to change that conviction throughout your piece. If you can manage that, I would call you a first rate poet!

Tata!
~The.Dreamwalker

Alright, I can see the changes you've made and I definitely give you a thumbs up for the better.

Okay, so, because I already quoted it up originally, I'm just going to jump into my overall as you did take my nit-picks and worked with them.

Overall

Okay, I definitly see improvement with this piece. I like the way that you changed the silent heart to a heart that aches. That makes quite a bit more sense and I give you a thumbs up on that section.

A line that I think might need to be replaced would be this one:

To intertwine with the other - together live and to die?

It doesn't give a flow that would be necessary in any way to this piece. Because of that, maybe a complete rewording would be the best option as I can't see a good way to reword this.

Other than that, you have a good flow and I'm starting to see the point behind the emotion which is totally cool ;D. Is it that pain comes with pleasure, and that no matter how good things may be now, they will always get worse before they can get better? Cause I'm feeling a lot of strain, as if things were broken and just newly fixed. That being said, the narrator is showing strain because they don't seem to understand how to cope with whats been wrong, whilst enjoying all that has gone right.

So for that, I love the contradiction of emotions in this piece and you portray it well.

That line, though.... ugh. It needs to change. I don't know how but it definitly needs to go.

Other than that, I'm starting to see where you're getting at and cudos for being a meticulous writer! Means you care about your work, which, in all honesty, is more than I can say for a lot of YWSer's on this site. Just recently I had my own poetry torn apart and am not going to even attempt to fix it. Oh well.

Either way, good job and keep up the good work. I can't wait to see more.

~The.Dreamwalker

Gosh I Have Nothing To Correct :/ But I LOVED IT! I Had To Break Out A Dictionary 2x Just To Understand It! But In My Opinion Poetry Isn't Meant To Be Corrected Cause Poetry Is Soul In Words. Sorry For My Useless Comment, But Hope It Helps Out!

~Xiahou Zay

This is well-written, its not a type of poetry that I read a lot of, but its well-written and I like the ending

wow... this was like.. wow..
Captured every emotion n everything i was feeling when i read it.. it's amazing!

I apologize for the delay in reviewing; I'll try and get to those points that Dreamwalker and the others missed.

Daisuki wrote:Sorrow and joy,
Black and white,
Yin and yang,
Day and night.

This is a good opening stanza; the brevity of the sentences and the rhyming give way to a very good flow.

Just as the moon ever chases the sun,
Can fire and water harmonize as one?

This word seems to go against the pattern of brevity the others have followed so far, but it is only just excusable because it relates directly to the sentence it is in, and to the poem as a whole. This isn't the case later, though.

Is it just an empty (1) dream for the earth and the sky,
To intertwine (2) with the other - together live and to die? (3)

1) It's my personal opinion that "empty" isn't necessary in this line. The line is fine without it, better even; in adding "empty" it's almost like you're trying too hard to give this dream description.

2) This is another word which goes against the brevity of the others, and is inexcusable in this case because though it relates to the line, I think another word would have fit better. "Unify", for example.

3) The problem here is that you should either get rid of "to" completely, or put it before "together" (without putting another "to" in its former place). The way it is now isn't quite correct, grammar-wise.

Is it true that opposites
Really attract?

Again, this doesn't sound right because of an arrangement problem. Put "really" before "true", and put "opposites" were "really" originally was.

Is this an accurate notion?
A cold, hard fact?
Can my rigid spirit,
And those innocent charms,
Synchronize in reality,
Amid your comforting arms?

Long word warning for the underlined part, and generally this stanza feels a bit off to me. It's almost as if you forced yourself to find rhyming words.

There’s criticism (1) on my face,
And acceptance on yours.
My soul is solumn still,
While yours elatedly soars.

First line: criticism of what? Of Taiyo's behaviour? And is the second line acceptance of criticism on Taiyo's part? Seeing as you've been going for contrasts here (and this is not one), it would be better to alter these lines to fit with the theme of contrast, perhaps showing Aiyo's pessimism and Taiyo's endless optimism.

Third line: Solumn, is not, to be knowledge, a word. Maybe you meant solemn.

Fourth line: "Elatedly" is not a word either. There is elated and elation, but no "elatedly".

You look in my eyes,
To see no flaws, no mistakes.
How I wish for your compassion,
For your grace my heart aches.

I feel somehow (sentence is better without) that my heart is now driven,
by the hand of this luminous love you've been given.

Don't you mean "...love you've been giving", not "given"?

For does my dark not make your light more intense?
I’ll remain by your side – I can help, I sense.

The rhyming was particularly forced here.

Answer and question,
Hope and despair,
Purify and taint,
Destroy and repair.

The ending stanza is, like the first, great in its simplicity, brevity and rhyme.

So overall, this was okay. It had the potential to be so much better, though. Though the beginning and ending was great, in the middle of the rhyme: a) the rhyming got very forced. b) it seemed as some points that you were writing just to fill the space c) you lost track of whether you were directly contrasting their personalities (with or without the use of imagery) or whether you were just showing how their personalities clashed. d) your rhyme scheme went all over the place. Hopefully you'll be able to improve on all of this next time, and turn your poem into a masterpiece (it was well on its way to becoming one). Also good luck in the short story, and KEEP WRITING!

Tiger