Young Writers Society

I thought it was really good, though like others said, the tear compared to ashes threw me off a bit too. But good job.

Hi there.

Hey, this is pretty good. It leaves me with a certain wistful longing. It's a good effect poem.

My tears
are ashes in the wind

Hi, i'm a fairly new member so i'll try my best to review this well.

This is an emotive piece of writting, which you have written empathetically to the reader, it has a certain sadness to it, that gives a sense of longing. But there are weak points of this poem i'd like to adress.

Your first stanza seems to be lacking a lot of rhythm, especially how the word newspaper has been split up into two seperate words and the sentence "on newspaper cast into the fire" started kind of awkwardly in my opinion.
Also in the third stanza "Dark lights snuffed out" the word snuffed doesn't seem like the right choice of word to use, you could have used a substitute word instead of snuffed, it doesn't quite fit.

The poem started to fall a little flat because some of parts weren't flowing rhythmically well together. You also described your "distant memories of ignorance", which was quite confusing to the reader, instead of the word ignorance i suggest you use another word which would give another imagery to what kind of distant memories you encountered, you could give a slight example of what kind of memory that was?

I really liked you closing stanza because it left a bold statment to close the poem, especially the last line in particular. It was a creative idea and you put the essence of the poem along well.

Hope i was of help to you.

Infinity x

Hmm. The tone of this piece is nice and strong. I feel how I think you want me to feel by the end: a quiet sadness, a distance emotion. You're not close enough to watch, and not close enough to your emotions for them to burn, so they just have to ember out until they are gone completely. You are finally getting over a raging sadness, I guess?

But there are some weak points here, too. For example, comparing tears to ashes seems odd. Tears are very liquid and globby while ashes are solid and flakey, so they can't move the same way. Which means that even though I like that you turned the tears into ash, I'm confronted by the idea that those same tears can blow away on the wind. I'd rework that, but I like that it's newspaper. BUT I think you're wandering into another part of description. I might chalk that up to your style except that you don't do it anywhere else in this poem, so it's out of place, going from comparing to bringing that comparison into more motion that doesn't go with the thing first compared. Tears are not made from newspaper! haha

Next weak spot is that I'm not sure I am feeling the phrasing of "memories of ignorance". I mean, I kind of get it if you're remembering how you didn't know before, but I guess "remembering" doesn't really work there for me. I'd say maybe just give a verb to the ignorance, since the fact that the speaker's bringing it up implies they are remembering. So like, "The ever distant throbbing/ of ignorance"??

The last two sentences are really tight, though, if a little simple. I like the evocation of a south wind, because that really calms us instead of chills us. We realize it's an understanding fall instead of a thrilling fall like a north wind might make us think of.

Is there anything more you wanted to communicate in this poem, though? Or just a moment of realization, letting go, forgetting, letting the world pass by?

PM me if you have any questions, please.

Good luck and keep writing!

Hi there,

I like this poem, I like what you're trying so say and I think you're on the right path to saying it well.

What is less awesome is the formatting of this piece. I think you have far too many line breaks here, too many single words and concepts which seem to be floating all on their own. Line breaks are super helpful for making bold statements and inflicting emotions on your reader.Take your first stanza for example:

My tears
are ashes in the wind
old news-
paper
cast into the fire
I thought would keep me warm.

Dark
lights snuffed out
and flames
blown away south
but sleep never comes
so I wait
yet hardly watch.