Young Writers Society

Hello there!

Wow. Nice. I really like it. Especially the first and last stanzas. I totally understand the feeling. I like the concept of the other person acting for you. It's really interesting. Food for thought.

Now, I think it's time we talk about the middle stanza. It's good, don't get me wrong. But it could be a little better.
"Most days you're just another yearbook face" is a good line, but it's awfully long. Also, it uses the word just. Just is a word that belittles all the words around it. Now, you could actually use it here, to emphasize the fact that you don't know each other. But. You could take it out. "Most days you're another yearbook face." Or. You could leave in the just, to emphasize the distance in the relationship, as I said before, and change "another" to "a." I think that would even further emphasize that you're not close. If someone is literally just a face in the yearbook, you're not going to know them at all. It makes things more intense.
"from a show that ended long ago" I just wanted to say that I really like the internal rhyme in this line. That is all.
"like a sliver in my subconscious" now, here's a question. Is it unpleasant to have this person stuck in your subconscious? From the way you're talking about him/her, I think not. So is it really appropriate to say they're a sliver? I know that slivers are things that get stuck, but aren't other, more pleasant things liable to stay? I would think about that simile and change it to something pleasant.
(I really like the rest of the second stanza. Nice.)

Nice job. I appreciated it. Happy writing!

I just realized I called

playing my lover as easily
as any role you portrayed on stage

a metaphor. I meant it is a simile. (Simile= comparing two different things using LIKE or AS)

sorry about that:)

hey niteowl!!!!

I would like to review your work if that is okay.

I did like the meaning. I haven't heard a poem quite like this yet, which shows individualism, quirkiness, and uniqueness. or it shows I haven't reviewed as much as I should. Well I'm not so good at this yet but I will give it a shot:

playing my lover as easily
as any role you portrayed on stage.
I know that you where probably trying to make the length look similar to the first part of the stanza, but breaking the sentence apart makes it hard to read out loud and in your head. but I do like the use of metaphors. it is very important that you include metaphors if you can in poetry. the same for similes.


By now, you should be
just another name
in dust-covered yearbooks
that I've all but forgotten.

But nights like this, you return,

this somehow works in this poem but be careful as in some poems this wouldn't have worked. it sounds like these two stanzas(stanza 2-3) belong in one big stanza. but that would throw the whole layout off.
so I guess I see why you kept them separate.

But nights like this, you return,
like a sliver in my subconscious
that I can't remove, even as daylight
reminds me that indifference
was the most you ever felt for me.

I think this is the best stanza in the poem.it shows such raw emotion and sadness. but I like how you made the depressing emotion and sad emotion hidden. you could still tell it was there, it was just hiding.
and I think that's why I like it so much. it's a real gift if I can pick up on that and you not say anything really sad and depressing. love it!!!

Pretend you cared, or better yet, lie and say
that I enter the world beneath your eyelids sometimes.
Maybe your acting could convince me

I really liked this part of the last stanza. it shows the longing that this guy actually said he liked you too. like you are in a dream world that everything went right. I'm not saying I didn't like the If we ever meet again, part. I just thought that the lines above are more interesting.

I hope you take my opinion into consideration. I had fun reviewing your work. you are a very beautiful writer. keep writing!!!!

~Lylas

You have pretty much put my recent diary entries onto paper and put them into the form of a poem. I have absolutely no reason to critique you (Even though I'm probably being biased) But seriously, I see no error. Great job!

Wow! Its obvious that you have put alot of emotion and thought into this piece of poetry.

The stanzas look nice together, and the odd number of lines on the last few add to the over-all appearance of the poem. The title caught my attention and brought a host of questions into my mind. 'Who is this person?' or 'is it a deseased family member?' and even 'Maybe it was a tragic accident!' This title made me want to read more. This poem meant alot to me because i dream of someone who doesn't even know that i exist. I found myself with tears near the end.

This was an excellent peice of work that I won't soon forget.

Hey niteowl!

I really like this poem because you've got an idea and a direction and the words you use all build up to an end that is satisfying to read. That might seem obvious to you, but it's quite refreshing for me to read a poem that knows what it's meant to be. So thank you for that! Confusingly, I'm going to work backwards through the poem...

My favourite stanza has to be the last one. The acting imagery comes quick and fast: "entertain me" is fantastic and I love the "world beneath your eyelids". It's pleasant to read, and it seems to flow a lot better than the previous stanzas. I like the length of the five lines and I think you get the line breaks nicely in the right places too. I can't help but feel that the final line is a little blunt and you could make it slightly more subtle, but apart from that it's great.

The third stanza is a bit of an oddity because you've got a lot of imagery of light and dark, day and night, and you also spell things out a lot more by talking about the "indifference" directly. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it might be nice to fold that into the poem's main "stage" imagery.

I wonder whether spotlights (that inevitably shine on just one person) or curtains (that obscure the truth from the audience) or even costumes (concealing the real "you" again) would make it into the poem? Perhaps it's too much and you don't want to go overboard -- I'm sure you know how to keep things tasteful -- but maybe you could run with the extended imagery a bit more? I think it'd be even more powerful if the whole thing tied together so nicely.

In the first two stanzas, it seems a bit like you're just warming up. Not only are the stanzas shorter than the later two, but the first one sounds choppy with the line breaks as written. If you read the last one aloud and then go back to the first one then you'll see what I mean. I dunno whether you sat down and wrote the poem out in one go -- if so, then it might be that the first two are weaker due to the time it takes to "get into" writing poetry again! In fact, they're both quite short so you could probably even merge them together and get away with it.

I think that's about all I can say on this poem. I did enjoy it, despite my criticisms! It was a pleasant read and with a few edits this could be a delicious poem. As always, feel free to PM me if you've got any questions!