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Young Writers Society



The Sky-Whale

by Liminality


On the pier, high winds

blowing in my face.

The space is yawning,

sky surrounding us –

the nation squeezed

into a single droplet

at the edge of

the floating isle.

.

A concentration of humanity,

of red woollen caps, and wide-brimmed sunhats,

with meandering exclamations

drowned by the whirring.

.

Up above, sky-ships

take a v-formation

– the horns blow –

I know what

it is, yes

I feel music

in my bones

before

my ears do.

.

She is descending, fluff-first,

white mountain of cloud

hanging upside down

and splitting into cumulus puffs –

.

The Whale! Oh, if only

you could have been there,

you could have seen

the Whale,

her airy gait,

the soothing hum

of her song,

and us, half a nation

barely flecks

in comparison.


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Mon Aug 08, 2022 7:34 pm
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alliyah says...



I really love this Lim! And I think it is a really great take on the prompt - I can kind of see this unfolding like a children's book with illustrations for each line or section, it seems like a sort of fantastical / regal tone too.




Liminality says...


Thanks alliyah! Ah a children's book - that's an interesting thought! I do think this piece could benefit from some illustration. Maybe I'll pull out my drawing materials again sometime. :D



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Mon Aug 08, 2022 12:15 am
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Kelisot wrote a review...



Your title reminds me of that one book about whales floating in the sky, I don't remember exactly the title was, but I found the surreal amazing awesome due to its futuristic appearence.

Anyways, this is Kelisot to review another poem. I'm not the best when it comes to criticize something, so this review will mostly be positive for the moment.

First of all, what I can mention about this poem is that the poetry is very visual and is very metamorphic. This slightly makes it hard for people to interpret the way you want your poem to be (which can be both good and bad). This is how interpreted your poem.

The first stanza is something visually sounding like from a ocean-related location, using words such as piers. Your personification of the winds moving and the space yawning is a great example of personification, and I loved the line. I'm not sure about the last few lines, but it seems that the world is now a floating island??? Or maybe metamorphic expression of talking how the Earth is a droplet of water??? I'm not 1000% how to interpret, but we'll just say this is the narrator's "world".

The second stanza is the most stanza and the most vague and least understandable one for me. I don't know what exactly it was supposed to understand, maybe talking about sunburns using the expression of red wollen hats??? I honestly have no idea of what real-life interpretation this is supposed to be, even if it even one.

The last two stanzas are my favorite. This is where the real sky-whale comes through, and she hums a great song that everyone listens with awe and wonder. Even the narrator shoots lines such as:

The Whale! Oh, if only
you could have been there,
you could have seen
the Whale...


This shows how much awe and wonder and amazing the whale was, as the narrator starts describing the whale. Using the 3rd stanza, I'm suggesting there possibley may have been more than one whale? Like they were swimming (or flying, levitating, whatever) in the air but like birds when they migrate. Anyways, the Whale!!!

I loved your poem. W H A L E S




Liminality says...


Thanks for the review Kelisot! That info on what you interpreted the first two stanzas as is really helpful! On second thought, I would probably change the word "pier" such that it's more obvious that this place is something like a floating island ^^' The bit about the hats is kind of literal but also slightly figurative because I'm describing the hats to describe the crowd of people. I can get why that could be pretty confusing! Thanks again!

P.S. Whales!!



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Sun Aug 07, 2022 1:01 am
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vampricone6783 wrote a review...



The beach air welcomes us.The salty wind tosses our hair into funny curls.And the whale emerges, majestic and glorious.This was a lovely poem! I could smell the air of the ocean as I read this.I imagined it all happening in my own head.That splash the whale made must have been a lot, though.Yeah. I hope that you will have an awesome and marvelous day and night.




Liminality says...


That's curious, because as the title "Sky-Whale" implies, the whale depicted in this poem is actually floating in the sky, rather than being in the ocean! You always come up with interpretations of my poems that are quite different from what I intended xD Oh well, I'll try to make my intentions clearer in the next one. Thanks for the review!





Lol.

Great poem!




When we are children we seldom think of the future. This innocence leaves us free to enjoy ourselves as few adults can. The day we fret about the future is the day we leave our childhood behind.
— Patrick Rothfuss, The Name of the Wind