Young Writers Society

Autumns, I remember this was the poem that first made me wanna be friends and jam with ya! I saw it was hanging out in the green room, so I thought I'd take a reviewing eye to it.

I think that over-all it's strong and evocative, which is what drew me to it. What I especially love about it and a few of your other poems is the strong sense of place you bring to the poem by using specific, authentic details like clothes-lines, the radio, the grandmother. These are simple and seem like they would fit in a poem about any place, but somehow seem so specific in this setting.

There are a few places that I thought could be made a bit stronger to match the rest, so check them out to see if you agree!

* The line breaks from "a shard of broken glass" to the end of that stanza feel awkward to me.

* The phrase "Syria is home sweet homes" doesn't evoke as much image or emotion as almost every other line does -- I wonder if something else can go here.

* The repetition at the very end seems like it could be combined in a better way. I think the image of the crowded boat is valuable, but it could be descriptive, like maybe "of a child, half asleep among elbows / on an uncertain Mediterranean" -- so that you still get the same image, but without the extra line/repetition.

As I said, I feel like this is strong, so there's not a lot that I dislike. If you love these places I've pointed out, there's no need to change them!

Feel free to reply here or PM me if you have questions/comments on this review.

Thanks for sharing,

Hannah

What a beautiful and especially relevant poem about Syria.

I'm going to leave just a few thoughts, by overall I thought this was a significant and well-done piece.

Formatting
I liked the way you did the stanza breaks and indent - it made the poem look a little scattered on the page, but I think it matches the tone of the piece which I read as being hectic and sentimental at once.

In 3rd stanza I don't understand why there's a stanza break after "of hearth and home" or why there's a stanza break after "Syria is a survivor's accent" - Both of those stanza breaks puts a line all by itself which draws a lot of attention to it.

Word Choice
I like the simple but emotionally charged word choice throughout the piece. You built some nice imagery along with some really good thoughts. One part that I found a tad lacking was the personal connection - While the mention of the "child, half-asleep" and the "grandmother's garden" bring in ideas of people I wanted more of those human elements at the beginning of the piece as well. I think the line about "vegetable gardens" was probablly my favorite. So quaint, relateable, and kind of iconic. I just loved the simplicity of that line and could really connect to it because of that human element.

Tone
I think by far the strongest element of the poem was the tone you were able to set with having these really sentimental elements juxtaposed to the elements of a war-torn country. The linebreak between "dolls" and "blown to pieces" is one line that particularally exemplifies that. I wonder if there are some more places where you could apply that interesting style of line breaks that challenges the line above.

Overall
Again overall a really good piece of poetry! I'll also say I didn't see any grammar/spelling issues that looked out of place and I think the lack of punctuation kept the poem moving as well as kept everything tight and consistent.

-alliyah