Young Writers Society

Hiya, Clock! Indie here again for a review for ya!

So I like this little poem. It's definitely simple, and in a good way - it's the kind of simple that makes the reader think. But it's really not..profound enough to be so short. If you're going to write a one stanza poem, and you really want to impact your reader, give it some spice. A little punch. Impact is the key here! This has sort of an synesthesia feel to it, and its such a wonderful element that few use in poetry that you could really do something breath-taking with it. Synesthesia is a type of style/writing in which you use one sensory image to describe a completely different sensory image. Like how you did this with "brittle" - this word represents a physical/touch sense, and you use it to describe a verbal/sound sense (words). Check out e.e. cummings, a poet famous for his short, abstract-but-deep poems.

More about your word choice: "brittle" is really the only adjective in this whole thing. Actually, the only interesting word. All the other words are just kind of drab and boring: 4 pronouns, 3 "speak's", 2 "too's", 2 "maybe's", and 2 conjugated forms of be (do, are). Yawn! Come on now, let's spice up our syntax here.

Rhyme/Rhythm: So I see you have a little ABCB rhyme scheme going here. This would work fine, except that your rhythm doesn't really match up with this. It almost feels like the third and fourth lines should have more words, more syllables, to keep up with the first two lines.

Form: I really don't think you need to double/triple-space this. It would appear more compact and draw the reader in if you kept it single-spaced. I commend you for writing a four-line poem! - but don't counteract that with extra spacing to try to make it appear longer. It's not necessary. Be proud of your poem's simplicity!:) Also, you don't need to capitalize the first letter of every line, unless you're starting a new sentence. But even then, you don't need it! There should be a period after your second line, not a comma.

Overall, good poem, I just think you could do more with it! Loved the quote you had in the subtitle

~Indie.

Hello their Inverted! Tucker here with your review today . Okey dokey, interesting piece you have here. On a quick side note, I would highly suggest that you don't capitalize every single line of your poem. I think it just looks less visually stimulating than the variation of capitals and lower case letters. Of course, grammar is entirely up to the writer so do what you will. On another quick grammar note:

"Maybe I speak too little,"

I think you should have a period here. But I suppose it could go either way, but I think a period would help the flow.

Ok, content wise. I think the length of your poem and your content is ironic of course. I'm not a fan at all of these really short poems because it doesn't get enough to the reader most of the time. Also, brittle means: "Hard, but liable to break of shatter easily," so than, the only way you could make this poem work and still keep it's length if you make the words that you use clearly "brittle." Which I really don't notice at all, firstly because I can't really see how words can be brittle.

I really love the idea of this poem, but unless you change that last word in the last sentence, you can't keep it this short. I love the imagery that you use so impressively in your writing, I want to read more of your incredibly smooth writing. Of course, that's just me. But you have such an amazing and wonderful to read writing style that you should use it more in this piece. Expand a little on the topic perhaps. Give us something else to chew on.

All and all a great idea, i think this is an excellent stepping stone for an amazing piece. With some polishing and touching up this could be a masterpiece. Let me know if you need a review any time. Keep up the good work!


TuckEr EllsworTh

Hellloooooooo! Guineapiggirl here to review!!!!!!!!!! Now, I've got to try and make a two hundred and fifty (you see what I did there? wrote it as two hundred and fifty instead of 250 to get more words? You see what I'm doing now? ) word review of a very short poem!
Oh, welcome to YWS! I hope you're enjoying yourself with us! I see you've posted a few things already, and done many reviews! Well done!
Now, I tend to think that short poems have to say something in very few words. Well, that is actually what they have to do, I guess. But I mean, they've got to put across their meaning in not many words
This poem doesn't really say a lot. I mean, what do you mean by your words being brittle. It seems almost forced to rhyme with little, and when you've only got the one rhyme in the poem it needs to be really good.
Also, when you say, 'but when I do speak' you're not really contradicting anything you've said before, so the but doesn't feel necessary. Also, the 'when I do' feels more like it's agreeing with the second line. When I do speak... It sounds like the speaker doesn't speak much. If you just said when I speak it could be with either. But then if you listened to both those pieces of advice you'd only have three syllables...
You could say 'Whenever i speak'?
Perhaps you need that connective to make it feel connected to the first half.
So I've criticised pretty much every aspect of this. i actually think it's pretty good. If it was a stanza in a longer piece I probably wouldn't say anything about it, but because this piece is so short I think it needs to be sort of perfect?
I hope I've helped a little! And again, welcome to YWS!