Young Writers Society

Hey~
Here for the poetry exchange. I'm sorry it's taken me so long to get here. I've been kinda busy lately.

You've had some pretty great reviewers, but I'll try to add an original thought here and there.

From hips so thin it broadens out.
Curves around from base to top.

I just love the way these lines sound. They make me happy. I love the image the word hips brings and then you turn it around to mean the opposite.

So, my OCD is calling, and there's one thing that really bothers it.

Yet time devours.

It flows back and forth

Like bees to the flowers.

Devours and flowers rhymes while nothing else in the poem does.

As others have said, I sometimes get a little lost with your pronoun use.

Time it tells

Yet time devours.

I believe this is a good example. I'm just not sure what's being devoured. After contemplating a while I think it might be sand.

And then you switch the meaning of it from sand to hourglass here:

It is

An

Hourglass.

Not that big of a deal, but it still causes some confusion.

Other than that, I thought this was pretty brilliant. I'm always impressed with poems like these because I can never make them as pretty as other people do.
Anyways~

Keep poeming,
Megs~

Hello!
This was actually really impressive!
I love how you made it into a shape, and the lines fit the shape really well, and I love how when you reach the narrow part, you have to slow down and give extra emphasis on those words: "It is. An. Hourglass." It was pretty powerful, and it was a simple sentence.
I like how in the top part you describe what it looks like, purely physically, and in the bottom part, you describe its majestic, elegant function.
There are a few lines that I don't like though. They just sound awkward to me, and I'm sorry I can't give you any recommendations on how to fix these lines:

It rushes to the edge and falls away.

What rushes? The sand? Say that!

Small and grating yet big

Grating? What do you mean? What is grating?

Yet time devours.

It devours time? o_O I din't know that. How exactly do you mean this? do you mean that people waste time setting hourglasses, or watching them, or making them?

Cease does it from the ravage of time?

Yoda are we speaking as? I don't know what you were trying to say here in the first place, but it feels like you switched around the words unnecessarily.

The rest of this I liked a whole bunch. Great job! Keep writing!
~fortis

Hello! Here with the poetry exchange!

I really liked the form. Honestly, I had never heard of this form before, and had to do a bit of research on it before I really looked at this poem.

I like the images you use a lot. Some lines I really liked:

Clothed in fragile glass and cased in wood.

It flows back and forth
Like bees to the flowers.

I find it interesting that you start and end on the same word, seeing as this poem is an hourglass, and is about an hourglass, meaning that really, time can start on either side and flows whichever direction it will until someone halts it by reversing time again.
However, I don't think that word should be "it."
I wouldn't start a poem with it unless you save the reveal of the object till the end, or wish the object to be ambiguous to the reader. Here, it is obvious what the object is, though it is unclear what the starting and the ending "it"s are referring to. Make sure you're clear in your pronouns.

In the first four lines, you establish a pattern; a complete thought is contained by each line. You then deviate from the pattern. I'd watch what habits you fall into early in a poem because the reader expects you to return to these later on, but in this poem, you don't. Perhaps use different punctuation at the end to disguise these complete thoughts as something else. Using semi-colons here would benefit you; they connect two related complete thoughts, and you certainly have related complete thoughts within the first four lines.

Since this is an hourglass, I suggest that you might take it a step further and make the poem readable backwards. It doesn't have to make total sense, but it would be cool if you could get through reading it backwards.

I know that this goes by number of syllables, but I think you should repair the visuals of the two lines that don't quite fit. Find another, slightly longer word that has the same number of syllables, and you'd be good. I'm talking about the first line and the fourth to the last line, by the way.

I am surprised that you got through a whole poem about an hourglass without mentioning the word "sand." I'm not unpleasantly surprised; on the contrary, I'm pleased that you got the images across without having to tell us what you were talking about.

This poem makes me think about the hourglass that the Wicked Witch of the West used in The Wizard of Oz. It's big and beautiful, and quite a bit sinister.

Another nice thing you did was talk about the physical appearance of the hourglass above the middle, and talk about the concept of time in the latter half.

Time is short and grains are few, what is it?

The comma there should be a period. Right now it's a comma splice sentence.

Cease does it from the ravage of time?

This sounds a bit awkward, and since you're simply using syllables to do this poem, I'd say "does it cease from the ravage of time?" because it sounds less awkward, and it's got the same number of syllables.

Your spoiler isn't showing correctly, by the way.

This is a bit of personal preference, but I think it would benefit this poem if you didn't capitalize the first letter of every line. Some of the lines are very short, and makes me want to start over instead of continuously reading it. I think only capitalizing when you start a new sentence is a good idea here.

Altogether, I really liked it. Nice job, keep writing, and happy poetry exchange! I hope you found this helpful.