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Young Writers Society



Directions

by AuroraThorne


To the North we seek, the silence of the seas.

To the South we hear, calls of the unknown winter.

To the West we see, the light of truth.

To the East we wonder.

To the North, silence rings. Silence drifts like ice in the sea, know by man and spirits, but never truly seen.

To the South, cold is gone. With dance and music, silence not common. Winter winds long silenced summers warmth.

To the West, the true light. Of mans curse to the world, and of mans gentle words. Of words and spells, we truly seek.

To the East, wonders. Wonders of the past, hopes for the future, and silence of the present.

To the North.

Words are dead.

To the South.

Words are alive.

To the West.

Mans curse is seen.

To the East.

Wonders never cease.

Directions are different for many reasons, many of which we may never know of. But somewhere, in a place lost to man someone knows. Someone knows of the directions for what the truly are. Not a sign on a map, not words, not symbols. But as people, objects and as a curse.

But where we wonder, well only the directions know.

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Sun Feb 24, 2013 10:43 pm
Kale wrote a review...



Hello there, AuroraThorne. In the name of the Knights of the Green Room and our Most Sacred and Tireless Quest to ensure that no works go unreviewed in the realm of the Literary Area, here I have come to free your long unreviewed piece from its state of reviewlessness on this fine Review Day. I hope you don’t mind. :3

To the North we seek, the silence of the seas.

Ack! The comma splices!

If you really must have punctuation in those spots in these first four lines, a colon or em-dash would be more appropriate. Personally, I'd go with the em-dash because I think they look prettier.

Winter winds long silenced summers warmth.

This reads as the cold of winter killing the warmth of summer, which contradicts the rest of the stanza. It's easily fixed by sticking a "by" after "silenced".

Of mans curse to the world, and of mans gentle words.

Why have you written "man's" without the apostrophe?

But where we wonder, well only the directions know.

Kill the "well". It adds nothing to this line and only weakens it.

Overall, you did some interesting things with your alignment, which was interesting. I do think that you could do with making some of your lines a bit more concise though. For example:

To the North, silence rings. Silence drifts like ice in the sea, know by man and spirits, but never truly seen.

reads more smoothly and less repetitiously as:

To the North, silence rings and drifts like ice in the sea, know by man and spirits, but never truly seen.

While your structure was quite interesting, lines like the one above gave me the impression that you'd shackled yourself to the structure, which doesn't really help the poem overall, as you have some rather repetitious-to-the-point-of-redundant words floating around, like "silence" in the case of the line quoted above.

I'd recommend not adhering to your structure so strictly, and letting your structure showcase your words instead of the other way around.





But answer me this: how can a story end happily if there is no love?
— Kate DiCamillo, The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane