Young Writers Society

This is quite nice. Definitely a classic example of taking a simple, commonplace moment and exploring it, in this case driving along in December.

That said, I don't feel a lot of emotion coming from this. I appreciate the moment and the image, and for me that's honestly enough - I don't need all my poetry to inspire extreme emotion. But if you were trying to make this a gut punch, it's not really. We just don't know enough (anything, in fact) about the 'you,' and although to me the shadows and snake imagery do set the mood well, we don't have anything concrete enough to feel real emotion.

I think your first line would be much stronger if "shadows play across the pavement." was its own sentence, punctuated with a period. ('mingling' would then be changed to 'mingle') It would be such a firm opening, introducing the mood and the setting in a way I think would set the direction of the rest of the poem.

I also think you could punch up your adverbs here. You don't overuse them, per se, as there's only three, but the poem is rather short and none of them really do much for the poem with the possible exception of 'lowly.' (Which is not usually used as an adverb, so I'm not sure if you're using it as a synonym for quietly or its more usual meaning.)

"It's black twin" should be "its" since it's a possessive, not a contraction. Also, your punctuation is a little inconsistent - you put a period at the end of the first grammatical sentence but not at the end of any of the rest. Maybe choose your punctuation with a little more care - I can't really see why you would want a period there but not anywhere else.

And that's all I've got for this one. See you with the next.

HEY YOU

DO THIS MORE

ITS GOOD

Hey Matt, as promised Im writing this review, whether it's helpful or not will be decided by you.

As I read through this I can envision the moving pavement, it's one of my favorite things to do on long car trips actually, and the way you described it was perfect. I think there could have been a bit more description on that, maybe add the shapes of the cars on the side of the road as they drive by.

I had an issue with the third line, It wasnt as clear as it could have been and I had to read it multiple times and I still can't comprehend it. So maybe make it a little clear about what you're describing.

frost nips along the edges of tan metal heated up
purring lowly in the midst of December
a speedy heart pulls forward slowly
it's black twin visible on the ground below
snaking forward swiftly

This is Kaos here for a review, as promised!

So this is shorter than your usual which is something that interested me. I liked the structure of this poem as the lines got smaller as the poem goes on and I think that's something you can play with. Structure is something that definitely changes how your poetry is perceived and this is a positive factor to the poem as it feels more short-breathed as it goes on. This is something that I think works well with the poem, but more onto what I had trouble with for the poem. The main thing that I didn't really like was how you worded some things like the twin and some of the imagery didn't really fit with me.

I don't really get a realistic feel to the poem but I do keep getting these images of art and silhouettes and it felt more surreal than anything else because of your main image that you use. Another thing that I wanted to bring up is you use this one image of wax lit streetlights, which for one, is an odd choice (that doesn't mean it's a bad piece of imagery) but it feels like a punchline. What I mean by that is it seems to be your centerpiece and you use the whole poem to build up to it. I'm not saying you can't have a main image either, but I would like to see you building things around that. I can see you working art and painting-related imagery into the poem if you wanted to take that kind of turn but this was pleasantly surprising.

At the same time with the wording, I did like some of the things that you used like the first few lines that work well together. The only other thing I really had to comment on was the ending, which to me was weak and that it could have been stronger. The "in remembrance/to you" line sort of comes out of nowhere with the rest of the poem not really mentioning this 'you' person. We don't really get any context of who they are or how they relate to the rest of the poem, and I wanted more of that instead of no explanation of who they are. It doesn't have to be outright about it, but I just wanted a little more from that. You're improving.

I hope I helped and have a great day!

ZeldaIsShiek here for a review on more dramatic poetry. (Hi Casanova!) Let's get started, shall we?

The first line that caught my eye was not the personification of the shadows dancing, but that of the yellow snakes playing together in the middle of the pavement. I really liked your use of vivid imagery, and I think your really pulled off an after-dark-but-street-lit vibe. I imagined two yellow snakes twisting around each other and then lying down on the street and becoming two yellow lines when I read this. Very well done!

The only thing that you necessarily got wrong was the whole romantic part. I like the metaphor of the streetlights being "wax-lit," but I think that it really changes that vibe when you say it is in remembrance 'to you' I like that, but I didn't really feel romance throughout the poem, and this both confused and dazed me in both good and bad ways.

TLDR: Great work, but I don't see much romance until the end. It could just me being less romantic... Many 13 year olds aren't...

the thing that sticks out to me mostly is vagueness.
so along with the imagery, which i quite like in most areas, it feels like you kind of go through the motions rather quickly and go off listing things. and that's not to say the speed is bad, because the pace in general is very fitting for what it is. but the time taken to explain more of the images doesn't seem long, and i'd love to see elaboration on shadows dance/wax streetlights, because to me those seem to be the strongest more lingering lines in the poem- the things that had the most impact for me.
with the shadows dancing bit, this may just be me, but i really want more explanation on the movement? a chance to to expand your vocabulary a bit too and experiment with descriptive motions.
and with the wax streetlights, i definitely want to see more explanation on that. you can describe more of what that is, portray what it means to you more. plus it expands the poem, which will widen the impact it'll have on a reader if it's more sketched out.
(there's also some spelling mistakes that you can go through and fix, but it isn't really worth focusing on.)
hopefully i helped.
-amelie.