Young Writers Society

grt stuff audy! "siberian nights" the title of the poem is nice. i really enjoyed ur work. u hv started ur work with grt start. from top to bottom i felt good, while reading ur stuff!
it seems as if u really enjoy ur work while framing it! and it should be! u are a good poet! no doubt in this!

your every stanza is self explanatory! as a reader i took no any pain in understanding ur lovely "siberian nights"

grt! keep it up! i will give u four bournvilles for this lovely extra sweet work!

There's a lot I like about this poem, Audy. I like the specificity of words you use, and the boldness with which you choose them. You don't back down into choosing safe words, which helps build the believability of your character and subject matter. I don't have a lot to say on that point.

But! I do have a couple of moments I want to point out that could use work.

First, the transition between the simple idea of the devil into the devil having bones is very jarring, especially because you don't carry through with that very-close-up view of death or a person in any other part of the poem. The rest is wide and expansive, so it's as if you gave us a video of a sprawling arctic scene, swooped in to focus on the lines in a seal's eye, and for the rest of the time kept us far out, sanitized. Was this intentional? I think taking the individuality out of that stanza would make the images, the bones, work far better. They could then be anyone's bones, not this personification of the devil.

The second part that really bothered me was the odd sentence made by the third and fourth stanzas. The part before the sentence is a full independent clause. It's fine. but then the fourth stanza is a fragment, unless I'm tangled up in the sentence and reading it wrong. The part after the stanza, without all specifying material basically reads "the chasm" and has no verb. Your "of" makes the arctic creations part of the description of chasms, and of course the "who" makes the rest describe the creations. So~ That needs to be given a verb or reworked, 'cause the language is strong but to have it go no where cheapens the direction of your poem.

I don't necessarily like the predictability of the last stanza, but it's done in a rather unique way with the phrasing of "the slow of hearts". I do love the idea of eating raw in the first stanza, though, as it might evoke either frozen raw meat or STEAMING raw meat that sends up clouds in the cold air around it.

PM me if you have any questions, please.

Good luck!

Hey there. Silver here with a review. Before I dive into it, let me just say I think this poem is pretty amazing, and I can tell already I'm going to have a hard time finding something to criticize. Either way, since this is pretty short I 'll go stanza by stanza. Here goes.

"A Siberian night
could devour
the devil raw."

Love, love, love this. In just a few words you've made an image that is incredibly impactful, and that's really what poetry's all about. Already, the reader gets a feel for the intensity of the poem, and can imagine just how tough a Siberian night really is. Great job.

"She slips through
his fibula,
coddles
perforated bones,
transmogrifies
ice."

Wow. You really have a way with words. This is incredible. I'd also like to point out that somebody below me said that your pacing of words really paralled the coldness of winter, and I agree with them 100%. The words come out slow, almost like dripping ice. My favorite stanza, hands down. Haunting, in a good way. Nicely done.

"Her whispers
clarify the second's
eternity."

For me, the poem becomes just a bit weaker here. We go from this mood of Siberian nights being raw, fierce and tough, and then we get, well, a litte soft. It seems like this stanza could be taken out and put into a love poem and fit very well. I think you mean well, to say that a second seems like an enternity in a Siberian night, but as written it doesn't really come out that way, and I don't really like the usage of the word "clarify" either. But with a little revising, this stanza should be fine.

"the chasm
of arctic creations
who sob of an ancient
hurt."

Okay we're back on track here with this stanza. Very powerful. Except maybe I would use "that" instead of "who"? I'm not sure, but I think it might work better.

"She holds on
to the slow
of hearts
and triumphs
death.
Her Siberian hell."

Wonderful ending. I challenge you though, to find another word for "hold", just to keep with the elegant language you've already used. And by the way, I see that you had "champions" earlier? In my own personal opinion, I liked that better. Like I said before, fantastic ending, but I strongly believe that the last line is completely uneccesary. It's confusing and takes away from the power of the lines before it. Try taking it out.

All in all, I believe it was an extraordinary poem, and you obviously have a lot of talent. Keep it up, and I'll continue to read it!

All the best,
Silver

Hey Audy, this is some good stuff. It's pretty tight, so there is little to critique here, but I will try my best to be a little bit picky:

Those Siberian nights
could devour
a devil raw.

She slips through
his fibula,
coddles
perforated bones,
transmogrifies
ice.

Her whispers
clarify the second's
eternity,

the chasm
of arctic creations
who sob of an empty
hurt.

She holds on
to the slow
of hearts
and champions
death.

Hello Audy,

So I really like this. I only have a few suggestions/questions. I won't say much because there's very little here that I don't like. Instead of "Those Siberian nights ..." I would just put "She". I can see what you're doing with "Those Siberian nights" but I guess I just get hung up on the transition between the first and the second stanza, when "Those" becomes "she".

The only other thing I harbor even the smallest amount of dislike for is the word "transmogrifies".
It is a convenient way of condensing a few words into one but it feels like a thesaurus grab to me.

Other than that this is great.

Hi there, Audy.

Wow. This is beautiful. I love the layout and the pacing. It's about the cold, and you do a good job of keeping it slow to parallel the stillness of ice and winter.

My favorite stanza would have to be the first one. It's lovely.

The images are lovely. So lovely that they might be a little confusing to people who aren't the author (that's me).
I'm not sure what you're getting at in the second stanza when

she slips through
his fibula,
coddles
perforated bones

the chasm
of arctic creations
who sob of an empty
hurt.

Really poetry is not my forte but I can tell that you have some potential, though I didn't totally get the expression. It's about siberian nights, this much is clear.
The first two lines are good and set a level for the poem.
It's really great the way you describe these nights in the lines.
The thing which sounded odd for me was the "slow of hearts", try faint of hearts, it might sound better and it should be "champion's death."
It was nice and different.
Hope my review helped, though there isn't much.