Young Writers Society

Hi francesca!

Boy, am I a fan of Maya Angelou, so I clicked on this poem hoping for great things.

However, poetry is supposed to say something new, or something in a new way, at least. This doesn't really say anything new or insightful about Ms. Angelou. It only lists a few of her excellent qualities. That's nice, but it's not really effective as a poem.

To make this poem more effective, you can try adding more details and examples of how Ms. Angelou helped "colours of all skin" and how she was "a lady of wisest words". Perhaps focusing more on what she did instead of her herself would help.

An interesting thing to do would be to write this poem in the style of Ms. Angelou herself. I know that it's hard to imitate, but I think that it would be a strong choice. Read some more of her poetry and get a feel for her style. It relied many times on vivid imagery and repetition.

This poem doesn't say anything about how she advocated for women in her poetry, and that was a huge part of it. If you do nothing else, include this.

Try adding imagery and details to get the reader to feel something. I didn't really. I mean, I thought about her, and how nice she was, but perhaps document her struggles in life. Write a biographical poem with imaginative filling of the gaps in history. I think that that would be more poignant than simply two stanzas of praise for this remarkable woman, when she deserves a lot more than two stanzas.

Altogether, I like whom you have chosen to write about, but the execution needs a little polishing. I hope that this review proves useful to you! Merry writing, and happy fahrvergnügen!

Hey Francesca, Strange here and I have a review for you!
It's obvious Maya Angelou was a big figure to you and many others, but this poem just doesn't effect me as much as I hoped. I hoped that a moving piece was valid, but it wasn't.
The best part about this poem is the praise, and that sure is present in this poem. You talk about she brought peace to this world using poems. Poems are great and moving, and I bet her poems were.
This needs more detail on how it effects people. For example, the line "For all of us, she spoke" what did she say? To improve on this poem, you need to express what she said and her whole ideas. For a person who never heard of her before she died, this does nothing for me, I'm sorry.
Overall, decent job.
Strange gives you...
6.1/10
Decent job
Keep writing
Stay groovy, my friend

Hey,

I was actually unaware she died. She will be sorely missed.

I suppose, moving on, I think you've had a good attempt at catching the idea of an eulogy, it gives us a little information about her, talks about what she is known for, and it supports what she's good at, but I think you can improve this still.

One of the biggest ways to improve this is to ask yourself exactly what you want to say about Maya Angelou and simplify this down to that, even expand it! Right now you're trying to grasp so much that you're having to go very vague to catch it all. From what I see, you should focus in on how Maya Angelou helped teach everyone about freedom for all. You have a lot in here about that already, but not much that's completely concrete. For instance, "Carrying the olive branch" is a great start, but your next line leaves something wanting. "gaining freedom from each peaceful march" is nice, but what does it really say? Was Maya Angelou at a lot of freedom marches? What does a freedom march even look like? Why are you summing it up in such a quick slip instead of expanding on it and showing us her holding the olive branch at the front of a crowed of all the people she helped release? Give us a complete powerful image instead of just the image of someone, you weren't specific who because you started out with a verb instead of a subject, clutching an olive branch.

I think another point you have to work on is the last couplet. Who is "she" and if she spoke something, what did she speak because right now it seems like she speaks "Maya Angelou, lives on." which in itself is kind of creepy because she can't literally be living on, she is dead. The thing is, why SHOULD we care about this ambiguous She? If the line was "She spoke for all of us." and then "Live on Maya Angelou." that would make more sense, but you don't have the punctuation for that. Instead its "Carrying the olive branch gaining freedom from each peaceful march liberating love and hope and words for all of us, she spoke Maya Angelou, lives on." which is a really awkward sentence.

So overall look at your grammar, check out your sentence structure, and add in some more concrete imagery for us to see. I think those things will help improve the poem.