Young Writers Society

I'm new to this and honestly don't know what I'm doing so I'm sorry if I say something wrong . The poem was great, it provided an amazing description with imagery. The metaphors were also well placed and the overall message was nice. I think some words and phrases could have been changed up a bit or moved to fit the poem better such as the part that says environmental impacts. Most of the word choices were great as well because of the way they impacted the poem and portrayed both your thoughts and just general ideas facts or ideas. Good job on the poem!

Hi bloodstring! I'm here to review your poem. I'll be using the Knights of the Green Room challenge questions to format this review.

1. What are your first thoughts after reading this poem?
So I've actually read a lot of poems lately that have been written as persuasive opinion pieces. And I love the passion that people are able to get through poetry that isn't always an option when writing prose or an article. This piece is on a very relevant topic, so I enjoyed the theme that was discussed.

2. What did you like and dislike? Why?
Likes
I liked the areas where you describe the environment through metaphor. Like in these lines: "Drowning our shores and even our lands;

completely wrenching them from our hands." I think this is a particularally effective way of making poetry "make a point" and connect with readers. By painting an image and creating a new understanding than simply the world we see or the words on a page.

Your imagery at the beginning was also very strong. I would have loved for this vibrant imagery to have continued throughout some of the more academic parts of the piece.

Dislikes
The tone of this piece wavered back and forth for me. At times it was elegant (like when you're describing the beach and even the waste) and then it turns academic and demanding. For instance this line, "I thought deeply about the environmental impacts" sounds a little more like an essay than one in a poem. I think that keeping the tone a little more consistent even in areas where you're trying to be convincing and make a point would help readers stay connected to the piece.

This line also didn't sound as elegant as the other lines, "Don’t we realize the distressful concentration of CFCs". I think to reach a wider audience you're better going for the emotional claims and points rather than the more scientific ones. Really try to explore how you can blend the science and the more emotional claims maybe.

I also didn't love that the rhyme scheme had a few points that were not even close rhymes. Like "land" and "Earth". Having an inconsistent rhyme scheme becomes really distracting for a reader because they either think it's a mistake or look for hidden meaning in the words that don't match the scheme. I would try to go back and fix this a bit.

3. What did you think the meaning of the poem was?
The meaning of the poem seemed to be that the speaker is using a particular moment of walking through a beach and seeing a trash heap on flames to illustrate a wider problem about how people are ruining the environment and draw our attention to solving climate change. The call to action at the end is a little weak because it doesn't seem like the last two lines would truly solve the problem, but they present a possible first step of a solution.

4. Was there anything that seemed "off" to you? Why did it seem "off"?
I'm not sure that having all of the text in bolded font gave this any extra meaning, for me it was a bit odd that all of the text was in bold. The last four lines I think could be a little stronger too. People are rarely receptive or eager to be told to do something, even if it's for there own good. In my opinion the end would be more effective if you illustrated a personal change in the speaker or gave a more emotional appeal in the end with ready solutions rather than the somewhat vague call to "be green".
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It was overall, a piece with a pretty unique topic. I'm glad you decided to tackle a piece like this, as it's not something I get to read every day. There's a few parts that could be improved, but overall nice work!

~alliyah

This review courtesy of

I like this and your thought behind it, but I think if you played around with your word choice a bit it would help improve your poem. Good job!

Hey there bloodstring and Happy #RevMo . It's just lizzy dropping by real quick, so without a further ado, let the reviewing begin.

Here's a thing before I even jump into the actual content or flow or anything like that.
The bold is rather shocking. Shocking is a very nice word for having an entire poem in bold for emphasis and repeated bold, makes it not very bold. This might have been an error that came through the publishing center but if it wasn't, here's some advice.
Using bold or italics in a work, is very similar to using colorful language in a work, where it has shock value but not for very long. Which is why people continue to repeat it, over and over and over again. There are times in a piece where you just use them too much and this is one of those cases. When I get down to the bottom, it blends in with the rest of the work that was just shouted at me.
So only bold lines that you really, really want the emphasis on instead of everything you want emphasis on. I can understand bolding the entire thing for the point of grabbing attention but it's just rather bland and you should be resting on your own ability with words instead.

Another thing is that there's no stanzas here and that might have been another flaw when this was moved through the publishing center, it has a way of doing that to you. If you haven't already designed some spots for stanza breaks, I would really encourage you to do so for full effect. Like I kinda started to say above, it just all blends together after awhile and you need to split it up to keep it fresh. (that's a horrible wording but you know what i'm saying)
How you move through the rhyme scheme has also been bothering me because at some points it is really strong and then in other places it doesn't exist at all. This is one of those secondary worries since this is free verse and rhyming would take a long time. Might be best to snip the few bits of rhyme you have or make them into more isolated stanzas. If you want help with splitting up the poem into stanzas, just ask.

Now let's take it from the top with content.

Go Green.

Along the beach I stroll,
on a fresh summer morn.

Leisurely as a bird
sauntering along the sand.
I hear the wind sing
in majestic symphony
but the smell in my nostrils
defied the beauty of the surroundings.