Young Writers Society

Hey there! First of all, welcome to YWS! I love how you have already posted two poems after joining just two days ago <3 I saw this in the Green Room and decided to check it out!

To start off, I really liked this poem! It's such a cool way to describe writing poems. I love the idea of "drowning in paper." Comparing writing to entering a harbour is a neat idea, and I like how you describe the harbour as "busy" so it seems like there are a lot of cool poem ideas in your mind. The mind can definitely be a busy place, so I think that was a neat touch. I also love this section

As I watch the unusually colored sea one wild idea sprouts

What would the taste of such sea be like

So I bend over and reach with my hand

Trying to get a drop of it on my finger

But, careless as I am, inevitably I fall over.

I love the idea of trying to reach something but then falling over in the process. I really enjoyed reading this poem <3 There are some thing I'd like to mention about this. These are just suggestions, so please feel free to disregard them if you don't agree!

The first thing I'd like to mention is stanzas. Right now, your poem is a large chunk of text that can be intimidating. Organizing your poem into stanzas can help make this easier and more enjoyable to read, as well as less intimidating. I'll give you one way you could divide this poem up in the spoiler below. Obviously, this is just a suggestion; there are so many ways you could break this up!



The next thing I'd like to mention is line length. This isn't that big of a deal to me, but you have some very short lines like "Late at night" and then really long lines, like "A pale white, resembling my notebook pages in the dim light of my treasured." I think having about the same line length would make this more visually pleasing and organized. This is just a suggestion though; feels free to ignore it!

The next thing I'd like to mention is you punctuation. Punctuation is a stylistic choice in poetry, so please feel free to disregard this if you don't agree! I'm not really sure how you chose to punctuate this poem. In a lot of places, it seems that you chose to put a period at the end of a "sentence." But then there are spots where you don't put a period at the end of a sentence. Because your punctuation is inconsistent, it's a bit confusing. I'm having trouble finding the punctuation pattern. Personally, I would go back and establish where I would want to put the periods (example: at the end of sentences) and then stick with that throughout the poem. But if you're happy with how it is, that's totally fine!

Another thing I would like to mention is your title and your poem. This is called "drowning in paper" but I'm not really getting a drowning feel. To me, drowning feels chaotic and rough. You have gentle words here. You definitely have some harsher words that give me the sense of drowning, such as "busy" and "loud yell," but your softer words don't really give me the feel of drowning. I'll point out one place I felt this.

Watching the sea that lazily sweeps over the worn out stone base

small note: I believe "worn our" should be "worn-out."

Here, you use the word "lazily." I kind of expected something like "aggressive" or "rough" to get that drowning feel.

Now, this is just how I feel about your poem. Personally, I would use stronger or harsher imagery to get the idea of drowning, but there is absolutely nothing wrong with the way your poem is written now! I just wanted to point out how I felt about your poem!

Overall, this is a lovely poem. I love how you used a club prompt to write this. You have such a neat concept here, and I enjoy your descriptions. I think it was neat how you compared the colour of the sea to your notebook pages; that was a cool touch. I really enjoyed reading this, and I hope this helped!