Y O U.... In Another Form

Good afternoon (it's probably closer to night where I am, but meh), ABJ! I've been wandering through the Green Room, noticed your poem, and thought it'd be appropriate to provide a review. So, here we go!

Personally, I rather enjoyed this poem. It's solid, heartfelt, and vivid. You have a wonderful tendency to build and expand upon the complexities of your main character and her love interest, which I found interesting. I got to know a lot about her and her thought processes, in particular, as well as her reputation and the one saving grace that might pull her from it. Honestly, that's what I most admire about this poem - thematically, your skill with crafting emotions and pictures of your topics is graceful and skillful, and I admire it. So, in that respect, nicely done!

I admit that I found this poem fairly blunt, on the other hand - it didn't rely a lot upon figurative language or interpretative meanings and the like. However, that's part of its success - that it is capable of communicating a strong and profound message without going into semantics or failing to discuss a topic by weaving around it. I respect open and honest poetry, particularly in topics dominated by less literal or almost-unhelpfully complex poems, especially when it can make the topic stick in my head. As it does here. By being frank about your narrator, and her problems and struggles, as well as the realization that she comes to about who her "ideal spouse" may be, you make the poem a little stronger and resolute.

My greatest complaint here is that you tend to shower this poetry with periods, and that provides a lot of awkward stops and pauses. In many cases, the reader will naturally pause when jumping from one line to the next, so incorporating an even stronger pause divides your ideas further and makes them more confusing. You could remove most periods here altogether, or merely replace them with commas. For instance,

You being the only challenge I've ever come across I can't help but wonder.

Is it you that I love or the thrill of the hunt.

...you could probably remove the first period with either a dash, or with nothing else at all. Similarly, you tend to capitalize the first word of each line (which makes "A Mouth" particularly odd and a little glaring compared to the surrounding lines), which is often not advisable when several lines can be stitched into a coherent sentence. In that respect, imagine writing this down as a story, and how awkward it would be if you capitalized every few letters. That actually brings me to my major point - in general, I'd highly suggest writing down your lines in a short story format, and consider your arrangement of punctuation and capitalization. Treating each line in this poem as its own sentence makes the situation far more awkward and a little tougher to read than does rearranging it into a story, analyzing your usage of punctuation and capitalization, and breaking apart the resulting lines accordingly back into a poem. That will save some time and make things a little easier on your readers, while preserving the general message of the poem, yet also assuring that it can be read coherently and proficiently.

Beyond that, your sentences sometimes struggle to be coherent, such as your very first one, which relies on a dependent clause without providing any form of clarity or ending to it. Thus, it feels a little imbalanced, and almost forgotten as it slips onward and into the key message of your poem. This, of course, relates to my above point, so keep that in mind. Lastly, I'd just like to point out that all of your question marks are spaced away from the sentence that they finish, and, in general, you want to make sure that those said question marks are right next to those sentences. It makes the poem seem a little more formal and less choppy. In that respect, "This?" is often better than "This ?".

And that's about all. I loved this poem, and I enjoyed reading it from start to finish. It's well-written, nicely composed, and heartfelt! Great job creating your emotional narrative and developing the characters within it and their struggles!

Hello there!

Welcome to YWS. I'll be reviewing your lovely poem today- remember that all the suggestions I make are merely suggestions! You can take them or leave them.

As I sit in silence waiting for an answer, a reason , an inkling of understanding to the questions I never dare to ask aloud.

I like this sentence, but the to doesn't really work here. You could say an answer to, or a reason for, or an inkling of understanding of, but it doesn't really work here. You either have to pick one ("an answer to the questions I never dare to ask aloud") or move the words around and make a new line. For example, you could do something like this: "I sit in silence, waiting for an answer, a reason, an inkling of understanding / thinking of the questions I never dare to ask aloud." As you can see in this example, there are two lines. I also took out the "as" at the beginning because nothing is happening at the same time as your first line.

Why out of everyone I've been involved with, you linger ?

I think you might want a do in there somewhere. I would suggest something like this: "Why do you, out of everyone I've been involved with, linger?" or "Why, out of everyone I've been involved with, do you linger?" Try reading these out loud. I find that they flow better than your original. That is also one of my reasons for the different comma placement, but you can mess around with it and experiment. In fact, I encourage it!

You being the only challenge I've ever come across I can't help but wonder.

The being here seems a little awkward- I would say change it to "are". Then the first part of the line should be separated from "I can't help but wonder" somehow, I think. Either with a hyphen, a new line, or the addition of "and".

Is it you that I love or the thrill of the hunt.

I think you might want a question mark here. Also, earlier when you said that this person lingered, I thought the relationship (or whatever was going on) was over. Here, you imply that the narrator still loves (potentially) the other person. Is it supposed to be past or present? You should sort that out and then make it consistent throughout the poem.

Are we meant to be together ? It's highly unlikely, but you've opened my eyes to what I truly seek in my spouse.

I think you could make the "highly unlikely" work, but right now it's a bit cumbersome. I might also break up this line a bit-
"Are we meant to be together?
Highly unlikely.
But
You've opened my eyes
To what I truly seek in my spouse."
Personally, I love short lines, which may not be your style. However, it can help to emphasize things without italics or things like that. As you can see, the "But" on a line of its own is pretty distincive. You can play around with that too!

Feet like yours that has never walked away from me.

I think you might want have here, not has!

Y O U*emoji**emoji*In Another Form

I don't really see the point of the emojis here. You've expressed your emotions through words, like poems do, and this isn't a personal or text message. I would suggest removing them. Also, I don't think it's necessary to have you in all caps and have spaces between each letter.

Anyway, overall I liked the ideas of this poem. I think you could do some experiments, mess around with rhythm and flow. I would also say maybe don't use so many periods! Some poems are just big run-on sentences, and though yours doesn't have to be that, not every line has to end so definitively. That's what the lines are for. This is pretty good! Keep up the hard work!

-Falco