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140,616 Literary Works • 673,554 Reviews
Some of these reviews... must... STAHP.
I'm not sure what half the people are all talking about, and I'll admit that I'm not very good at poetry, but still. I think people need to give you a little more credit for it. OK. Anyway.
So the thing about this poem is I've had to read it multiple times. Some people might freak out about that kind of thing, but I sort of feel like that's a good quality for a poem to have. I like the thing about the spring because immediately you take us to the seasons, and then you pluck us right out of our image into the water and I love that. There's a lot I don't understand about the poem. But I'm OK with that.
But all these reviews about structure and "flow"... No. Contractions? No. These sentences are not too heavy. They are not too light. They are doing just find standing where they are and in the manner that they are, so I suppose you should simply let them do just that.
I'm sorry my review was not exactly helpful. But whatevs, man. Do yo thang.
Hey Hannah!!
I must say that this is quite an interesting poem, I don't think I've encountered one quite like it.
Firstly - just want to say that poetry is not my fortè, but I'll do my best to give you some constructive criticism.
The first issue I have is with the tense. I can't quite distinguish what it is!!
Is it present, past, future? It feels like a mixture of them, which makes it confusing for me as a ready to understand the situation.
'I have been in a winter
on the edge of a spring --
the kind that slips and smells like water.'
What I understood from this was that you're saying that something slips and smells like water. I really don't understand what you're trying to say.
Maybe it's just me, but as far as I'm concerned water doesn't have a smell, so...
'I have lost the way to my cheeks by finger,
so how am I to stand in the creek
that you claim is cool
but burns and burns and burns me?'
I love this! I think it's cleverly constructed, and it does convey meaning that I can comprehend. - which is great.
The repetition works - I like that too.
All in all, great work, keep it up !
YOLBYI xx
Hi! I'm a fairly new member of yws, so i'll try to review your poem best i can and hopefully it makes sense
I think your poem is really good, very creative and I like how you have included yourself, - thoughts and feelings into your poem.
But i have some suggestions to make, which might improve your poem.
It's lacking in poetic flow, it might be due to your choice of wording, there are some unecessary words which don't read smoothly, e.g. using words like "have not" why not just use haven't or I've? It generally makes the words drag, it would be better to shorten those small phrases, in this case.
Firstly, i think your opening sentence, "I have been in a winter on the edge of a spring"
it's a weak opening because nothing really stands out from it, it falls a bit flat, so maybe try starting with a bold statement, perhaps;
"I've been through a winter, I was in a winter, holding onto a spring"
Maybe something like that?
For the line,
"the kind that slips and smells like the winter"
It's kind of awkward in my opinion because water doesn't really have a distinct smell to describe fully and the word smells, itself doesn't seem to fit right.
The repetition of burns is ok, but it being repeated six times in your poem looks a bit odd, especially the first three times. It worked well for the last line i think but not before.
It's also a bit of a contrast between the winter, cool feel of the poem then adding burns in it, maybe adding a cold type of pain?
Overall this was a great poem you wrote, hopefully this review made sense and was helpful to you
- Infinity x
Okay, this poem is good, but it needs a lot of improvement in structure.
First of all when you go on to the next line you should always capitalize the first letter, even if it's not the beginning of the sentence. If you don't capitalize the first letter, then you need to indent.
Also, I think there should be some breaks in the poem. It almost seems too cluttered without the clear capitalization and without any spacings. I would suggest you put a break between each sentence of the poem.
Just some good tips for improvement. Not trying to sound too critical, but it was very distracting and kind of difficult to read. I do really like it though.
No.
I love this reply. 20 heaven points for you.
Let's discuss how this could be improved.
So has everyone! Why should I care? "I have been" is too ambitious an opening for something so commonplace. You can disguise it with ornate phrasing, but really all you're saying is that you were at one point in time at the end of winter, which tells me nothing. Try something less passive: "I was in a winter," "I am in a winter," to give the reader a more solid sense of present, and not leave them floating in the passive ambiguity of "I have been."
I have a couple issues with this line. First, it isn't long enough to balance out the noun structure, which is why it feels incomplete. Second, it's unclear what verb "like water" is being attached to%u2014does it slip like water, or smell like water, or both? Adding to the confusion is the fact that "smell" cannot stand on its own here. It's a terribly vague simile.
Another passive line! "Have" does nothing for you here. You will find it difficult to immerse your reader in your imagery if you don't anchor down your poem with concrete, active phrasing.
Less bulky would be "so how can I stand in the creek." Also, "so" connotes cause and effect, but no cause or effect is evident here. I think you're trying to connect the finger image to the creek image with a link that isn't really there.
It might be preferential, but I like the sound of "that you say is cool" better. It might be the alliteration that's turning me off.
I like the repetition here
but not here. It begins to draw too much attention to itself and all this repetition stacked up at the end becomes almost overwhelming. Also in the last line: "but" is implicit of a contradiction, but I can't find any contradiction. Again, you're groping at a nonexistent link. Try "and."
In the penultimate line, "I know you have not been in my" is cumbersome. I'd suggest using a contraction somewhere (combining "have not" into "haven't," etc.), but even that doesn't completely cure it. Cutting out "I know" is your best option; "you haven't been in my winter/and it burns...." is both more assertive and less wordy.
I hope this helped. PM me or leave something on my wall if you have any comments or questions.
-Kafka
I don't particularly like this review, and I can't exactly explain why and so I think I'll just say that sometimes a person is contracted to build a structured house and sometimes a person just needs to build a shelter out of the branches and leaves around them because sometimes that's just the way things go. I hope that makes sense.
LATAH.
I decided that I would be really cruel and defeat you by reviewing this piece of yours. Although I still need one more after this so perhaps it won't happen and I'll be made to eat my own words. Either way you'll have a review and I won't go hungry.
Specifics
1. I like the first two lines, they're a really interesting contradiction and the sound of them is nice as well. Lots of little thoughts to get my head around.
2. I'm not sure about line three. I think Trident puts his finger on it when he sayd it's something about slips and smells. It's something about the sound of them but also the vagueness because you introduce it as 'the kind' and I'm expecting a strong image but what you give us doesn't have enough of a picture behind it. I'm sort of thinking water and maybe muddy banks? Icy banks? I don't know - there's too many possibilities!
3. Line four feels a little awkward to me. I'm not sure if it's because cheeks is plural while finger is singular and it almost feels that should be the other way around since the fingers are the measurement and cheek the place. But could you have 'I have lost my way to Cheek by fingers'? I don't know. Maybe!
Overall
I'm not sure about the repetition of burn as the fire feels out of place in a poem with such a cool and wintry tone and then to repeat it, it feels kind of false. I struggle to really pay much attention to it or conjure images of fire tearing through this rather stifled but tranquil scene. I'm not fond of the ending in general. I feel there needed to be more of a statement or resolution and where does the edge of spring come into this? It's in the beginning but then it isn't revisited. I was waiting for a thawing period or for there to be some suggestion of warmth to come - I'm struggling somewhat to put my thoughts into words.
It feels like an incomplete ending. Also, I'd have liked to know more of the 'we' from the title. Not a lot as I do like how that wasn't the focus, but if there's going to be different sides, I feel the need for a firmer suggestion of what each side is. Two people? Winter and spring? Two banks of a river?
I like the way this starts out and the tone is very nice, but I think it needs a little polishing still.
All the Best,
Heather xxx
Hm, I wasn't sure what to think of this when I first read it. I will try to give you some of my thoughts:
I like the first two lines. With the seasonal references, I'm getting a feeling of, like, pureness almost. Kind of like the snow is melting all around you and washing things clean. But I wonder about "slips" because along with "smells" I'm just not able to merge the two verbs into anything. And if "slips" isn't meant in only the most literal sense of it, you might consider using something else.
The "lost way" is interesting, kind of evokes a sort of gentle touch that can no longer be felt. Which is terribly sad. I like the image of standing in a creek, and after all this talk of winter and spring, I'm imagining this person standing there with snow on the banks, but the creek is clear and rushing.
I...am not a fan of the repetition. While the double use of "and" in the first line I have here is just fine, it's tiresome in the last. And since you don't really rely on that device elsewhere in the poem, it just seems to stick out there.
I certainly am imagining a frostbite sort of burn, so that's well done that you didn't have to smack us in the face to tell us that. It is somewhat of an inference, at least that is what I imagine you had in mind. But it is feelings like this (frost burn) that can really connect with the reader because they can feel it in their head. And it is sorrowful and numbing.
Nice work, I enjoyed it. A nice exercise in connecting tactile senses and nature and giving us the emotions of the narrator without telling us them exactly.