Young Writers Society

This is Nikayla here for a review!

Seeing as you said you would write a poem when I went to bed, I assume this is the one. I'm going to go ahead and tackle this since I think it's something interesting, and because it's your poem. The first thing that I noticed about the poem is that you use graphics and text to your advantage here, and I'm not quite sure how I feel about it. I would have liked to see more of it used with more meaning behind it rather than it just being used? There also seems to be a bit of an abundance of it and I think you can trim some of it out to make the poem stronger because, for me, it's distracting me from the actual reading.

That doesn't mean that I disliked all of it, because I enjoyed the usage of the graphics with the fingerprints and the 'open' and 'closed' thing that you did. It definitely feels like a rollercoaster of a poem, but let's delve further into the actual content. The voice of the poem is something that's quite apparent to me, and I can tell that it's your poetry, because it has a bit of a lack of structure? It's rather chaotic and I'm not saying that's a bad thing, but I would like a stronger focus here. You jump from thing to thing, like with the open and closed going to the mist clouding on the speaker's skin.

The part that I also thought was clever was your usage of darkness and then the metal beams because it definitely gives the feel of going on a rollercoaster and the anxiety that comes with it. At the same time, the poem has a lack of focus which is probably the biggest weakness that I found here. I want more of a focus on the meaning, what are you trying to portray or get across? Because right now, it's hard to tell. I found the ending the most lackluster, but it is something that I'd expect from you. The reason why I'm not all that fond of it is because it's so abrupt.

I'm not saying that it's always a bad thing, but I don't think it's used correctly here. Maybe if the ride screeches to a halt or some other thing of that sort would make for a stronger ending. I'm iffy on the imagery that you use in this piece because it hops around a little bit, and it didn't feel as strong as it could be. I suggest using more sensory details, and maybe define the feeling of anxiety instead of just using the word. Is it a bowling ball sitting in your stomach? A jittery feeling you can't shake? Explain it. Define it. Give the poem more of a focus and work on the structure, and I think you have something here.

I hope I helped and have a great day! If you have any questions, feel free to ask.

Hey Castor! It's Quill, here with a quick review. I'm usually a bit nitpicky, so I'll dive into that.

I feel like punctuation changed around the second section -- it just isn't as cleanly punctuated as the rest. Also, you're missing an 'e' in 'anyone' right next to the fingerprints.

That being said, I really enjoyed this piece. I loved how "this. won't. happen. again." was not only the speaker's decision (probably not to face the fear willingly again), but also foreboding on how the speaker never will feel that feeling again. I think in your second section (I'm sorry, not sure what to call them -- they're separated by the single dashes in your poetry), the line before "no drums to beat." may read better if the period after 'save' was turned into a comma. It sort of gives this... added weight, or finality. I don't quite know how to describe it.

I really enjoyed the pictures that went along with your poetry. The play with the colors and the fingerprints and all. It's all very enjoyable and nice.

I really liked the allusion to rollercoasters, as that's something quite relatable. It's very interesting.

You did a great job on this piece. Very enjoyable.

Always keep writing!