Young Writers Society

Hey Wolf~

I love that you're writing about soldiers and Memorial Day. It's a great topic, and I don't think teens touch on it enough.

So, my main issue with this poem is the line breaks in the last three stanzas. The flow doesn't feel right. I think it's too choppy, and I feel like the way you've broken it makes some lines insignificant. I think it also makes the ending weak. Endings of poems, I feel- with certain exception, of course- should have a punch. This poem just kind of... ends.

Unlike Aley, I do relate with these beliefs, but I still find it hard to connect. I don't think you have enough imagery or metaphor or whatever device is your favorite. There's nothing to make this sparkle.

I think what this needs, and I could be wrong, I suppose because this is the exact opposite of any poetry advice I've ever gotten, but I think what this needs is to be fleshed out. Things can always be cut out if they don't work, but this is too bare bones. There's not enough sparkle. Right now it's just words on a page, it doesn't really grab me.

I also think that your wording is too restrained, and that might be because of your message? For example "A plan is unfolding." Okay. Who's plan is this? How does the soldier's sacrifice impact this plan? What is this plan going to achieve?

Right now, it's too vague for us to make any connection with that line.

I will be going through your other poems though... probably tomorrow. I want to see what else you added in this Memorial series.

See ya,
Megs~

Hey Writing Wolf

So first admission on my part before we get into the review, I'm not one much for heaven and the whole "your sacrifice was not in vein" ideal. To me, sacrifice is sacrifice, and life is suffering, so we all deal with what we have to deal with, and when we die, we're dead, instead of alive in heaven.

That being said, I think this poem is a little weaker than your previous one. You don't have the beautiful double meanings that you had in the last one because you're speaking directly with one person and just trying to talk to them doesn't make much of a poem. At the same time, I think you have a really nice rhythm and flow for this poem. I really like how you brought things to a close and really collected everything down to just this.

I think if you wanted to improve the poem, you should work with making it a little more complex, and adding more imagery instead of just having the narrator talking to the soldier. If this is a prayer to a soldier, I don't really think it would be that comforting to be told that you had to suffer through those horrible things, because it makes a reminder. I think if we focused this poem more on the good things, or the positive things, like that the war is ended, and that for a while we were safe and at peace. I think these things would be better suited, but also since war is still going on, maybe adding in the idea that even though the war is going on right now, we are safe and well, and no matter what happens in the war, we are protected by their choice to protect us.

I'm not going to really go into detail about this because I am not sure where I'm not connecting with the poem because of beliefs, and where it is because of the poem, so I'm not really a fair judge.

All I can encourage you to do at this point is to really check and make sure that what you say has meaning in every line. Check all of your determiners to make sure that any time you use "A" using "The" wouldn't make it stronger and more exact and things like that. Make sure your punctuation matches well. Honestly I think you're probably overusing periods because you have so many, but I may be wrong about that.

Anyway, I'll leave you alone now <3
-Aley

I really liked it. The religious aspect was really good. I haven't read the other poems so I wasn't sure what was going on. Good job. Your style is different from other peoples poems. It is really good so I will check out the other poems. Awesome job. Can't wait to read more of your work. Keep posting stuff and try something other than poetry. I would love to read a short story with this style. I don't have anything I think you should change. It was all really good.