Young Writers Society

This is beautifully set up, and worded. I loved it all, but I have a favorite part to it.
"you find that the world is round only because when we loosen the muscles of our hands,
they curl into shells, round and cavern like.

I find that I can hear the ocean when you cup my face.

we echo into each other and travel and find that the horizon
bends like a prism, and we bend with it, into each other,
again and again,
supple and close and soft.

iii. the sky is not always blue. the sun is not always shining,
it is burning up the galaxy and eating away at the atmosphere of Mercury,
it is flaring and interfering with the electricity.
the lights go out and I light candles and dip my fingers into the wax.
they don’t burn, but I do."

You did really good with this, good job. I hope you write more like this.

Forever free, Liz!!

I loved this! When you got to the second stanza I was a little confused but realized that it was an experience with growing older! Relationships are truly important in a persons life, romantic or regular. I feel like this poems is about the trials and knowledge one gains the longer that they are on this Earth and experience what people and things are truly like. Overall, this poem was the absolute definition of PERFECT! Despite how "old" it is. Have a beautiful day! JESUS LOVES YOU!!!!


Until The End
-Ari

This was a very vivid and powerful poem.

The thing that stuck out the most for me was how well you transitioned between thoughts. You take a line like "crow's feet things", which if you had stopped there would not have made sense, and use it as imagery to help emphasize the next line, "they scratch at the sides of your eyes..."

I especially liked the final stanza. To me this so accurately described the process of growing up and learning about the world. The image of dipping fingers into burning wax is powerful, and immediately brings me to thoughts of children touching flames out of mere curiosity.

I am new to the site, but this is certainly one of my favorite pieces i have read so far. I'll definitely be on the look out for more from you.

I've been leaving this one in attempts to save it for my second blue star. I thought, if anything deserved to be reviewed fully, this would be it. So I'm pulling up the old instructor sleeves and giving it the attention it deserves.

Persy, my love, you are undeniably one of the best poets on this site right now. If not the best poet, though that is a matter of taste and opinion. In mine, there's no denying the fact that you are incredible, and I believe I've been tooting that horn for a better portion of a couple years now.

What I mean to say is, and I do say this with the utmost humility, you are so fluid with your work, and theres such an ethereal near otherworldly quality to your choice of words that it seems damn near intrinsic the way you simply know. How it seems to mould and flow and capture and render as if untried, and unvaried. It's a gift, and a talent, and one that you may have had to refine over the years, but there was something always there for you. Always shining under the depths because it's there and it's beautiful.

You've got the shine. The spark. The glow. The whatever the hell anyone calls it, just that I didn't believe anyone could have something inherently when it came to the written word till I read your work. And I mean this, wholeheartedly.

Why I'm saying this now is for the simple fact that I've never stated it. Not in so few nor so many words, though I remember quite fondly any time I had the chance to say anything coherent towards your work. Maybe it's the nostalgia now. The topic at hand that I find I can't help but make note of how the growth in your work has made your intuitiveness all the more potent. The emotion in this bit all the more apparent. Cause really, what is poetry but an ache. If it does not ache, it has no power.

In the case of the poem, I feel almost indescribably for it. For the way it reveals in the more simplistic tone I feel some of your better work tends to favour. You've ditched that more pretentious diction and metaphor for a more realistic unravelling of truths, without really punching in that moral code. I see a theme, but you leave it to the reader to come up with how they should feel about the theme. You explain how it makes you feel only once, at the end of the poem, in that very last line in that very last stanza, and it's so much more powerful than if you were to describe your own feelings towards it throughout the entirety of it.

I'm going to go out on a limb and state that my favourite stanza happens to be the second, when you talk of the intimacy of bending yourself about the world, and how the world is round but how you make it round because whoever it is you're speaking of is the world and that is a really strong, unnerving bit of imagery there. Intensely so. The intimate aspect even more so, because the bending and curving and meeting as one seems almost insufferably beautiful when compared to the horizon you're bending against.

The first stanza was powerful because it was not subtle, which is something I found to be the only real critical bit. You're better than the need to be gimmicky, and in this particular case, that first stanza held just a bit too much gimmick in terms of drawing the reader in, like Shakespeare using terrible sexist jokes to calm his more uncouth viewers from throwing tomatos at the actors. It was good in the sense that it can be understood on any level, by any reader, and be dissected and used in English classes as proof of growth. Just, I don't see this as something strong for you. You are so much above gimmick. That second stanza shows it, and that third damn near denounces it.

Now, I bring up the third because thats where the real power was. Though I favour the second, I couldn't help but love the way you used your own feelings to end this, and not in the way you talk about the immediate 'you' and the undetermined 'I', but the way you define 'I' as dipping your hands in wax and feeling it burn. It takes you from being a truth to being alive. It gives human flesh to this poem.

And that, of course, is what I mean by it hurting my heart, love. You make poetry human, when poetry is truth. You make humanity a truth.

Bah, I'm rambling. I'm in raptures with this, and feel it deserves every like it's received. You're going to go somewhere with writing. It would be far too large a shame if you didn't.

Much love, for always,
~ Walker

I really enjoyed this piece. My favorite stanza was definitely the first one and I feel like this poem has a really strong start. I felt like the third stanza was weirdly formatted and didn't quite flow like the rest of the poem. Other than a few nitpicks I thought this was a great piece with a really relatable message.

Hey! Truly An Amazing Piece I Say. Though The Title Seemed A Little Awkward but are you sure this is a poem? I mean most of the lines are too big for a poem. I think you need to shorten those and maybe a bit of rhyming would also make the poem far more interesting for the reader to read though that's not compulsory. Overall The Message And All Is Good. I Enjoyed Reading This! Keep up the good work! And Keep Going!

Sometimes I try to review your poems but find that I just want to read the best lines over and over again, the same way I guiltily glimpse at old photographs and letters....they're almost addicting.

The words are supple in the way they bend and meld into each other, progressing well - in fact, you start close, then pull away, drift out from a small little idea and end way out in the galaxy. I don't know if that way intentional, but the expansion of it worked really well. You just kept building, and building, and building outward. I could feel the whole thing drifting and fading (in a good way).

Conceptually, stylistically, etc., this was pretty close to flawless. The rhythm is great and it progresses very well between ideas. I'm frustrated by my lack of complaints.

Keep writing, and best wishes. xxx

Wow, this is really good and I really love your poem!
I love the structure that you used and that you divided the poem into three sections that each focus on a new discussion that all ties up into the central idea of the poem. There are a few spelling errors, but there not much of a distraction while reading. The usage of strong imagery really makes the poem come alive. You used great detail and description to make the imagery powerful. Your poem flows very well and your usage of rhetorical devices flowed very well.
You're a great writer and I'm hoping I can read more of your work!

Pers! <3

I like how section one, we're in our own heads, in our own insecurities. (Watch your typos: sleepless not sleepness) The tone here has a humble/humility to it with all the "that-sorta-things", kind of like a passive sigh of admittance. This works well in your style/aesthetics, all your spacings and heavy lines aid that -sigh- sort of feeling. /totallymakessense.

Section two, we're out of our heads and into the world, sort of gazing out at the edges of the horizon. Pacing/spacing here is excellent, it makes me feel like I'm experiencing forever in a moment. Favorite section of the bunch, which is good, cause it's the meatier bit.

And section three, we're in outer space, and it's like we're progressively moving away and out of ourselves throughout the entirety of this poem. When I originally read the title and those opening lines, I'm thinking: old age = saggage. But by the time we get to this point, an additional meaning sort of arises, like this whole circle of life, we become one/skin thins heavy holding in those experiences. Least, those were my interpretations, but I feel like there's something else here that is expressed, but I'm not getting.

Because of this, I'm not sure I like the concluding lines about the dipping in the wax/burning, I just felt it out of place and in the wrong sequence. It's possible that I've confused the interpretations though.

But your sounds in this section are most excellent, your repetitive r's in this line:
flaring / interfering/ electricity
have a cool sound progression (a long err to a sharp tri) that paints a vivid picture and contrast of that fire/electric images.

Overall, it is something I want to read over and over c: I'd just work on the conclusion a bit more.

~ as always, Audy

Well I have to say, that I thoroughly enjoyed reading this. I wasn't sure I'd like it L because of the title, but I am happy I opened this. You used beautiful analogies, metaphors and similies here. It flowed well while still maintaining a meaning. The only thing is that a few lines seemed out of place due to their length. If you could maybe separate those lines, I think it'd be great. Other than that, I don't have much else to say besides that this was a pleasure to read.

Great poem! I've never reviewed one of your works but I can tell you're experienced and strong haha. I'm going to ignore the grammar stuff actually because while it's important I honestly think it's the meaning that matters most and the technicalities need to be great (which you have) not perfect (though that's the idea o.o)

The meaning behind the poem is fantastic... the analogy in the second stanza for the round world to the loosened muscles of the hands is ingenious and beautiful. The extension of the figurative language about the ocean and the connection between the three parts is outstanding as well... I haven't quite read a poem like this and it's pretty amazing. Good work!

One thing I want to point out that really sold this for me (and I don't know if you did this intentionally but if you did holy crap you're a genius) is that the SOUNDS of the words for each section mirror the tone that you're trying to achieve. Like "supple, close, soft, ocean, prism" in ii. too "flaring, electricity, and eating" in the iii.

Loved it