Young Writers Society

Hey Charm, it's Myth here with a review for you.

Today, I'm going to be giving you my interpretation for each one of your verses and tell you how I related to them.

First, I'd like to say that the title is what got my attention. You see, I relate a lot to anything about the "fear of failure.

Let's begin.

"The words that I kneel over....
........looks worse in the light"

I understood this to be everything a person does. How, in their perception, their personality seems bad for them - the lack of self esteem.

"I'm beginning to think that life is just a cycle........
............even if it feels like wandering in the night."
To me, these lines described my very conscience. I always seek to be perfect. That perfection is what I see in my sub-conscious mind. I always seek to be that guy, but I'm literally chasing my own shadow, as it changes form by the rising and setting of the sun.

"It's quiet here.....
.....day after day, I'm waiting."
This really hit hard. I understand what it's like to wait for a miracle that I don't even know about. It's like I'm waiting for things to turn around, but I don't expect a certain direction.

"but for what?
time slips away and yet......
....everything looks worse in the sunlight."
A nice little refrain there - the repetition of the phrase "everything looks worse in the sunlight".
This comes back to the reality of life. I just wait for something to happen and make things perfect and what I don't realize is that I have come so far from where I was, and all this time I've been comparing myself to other people and haven't looked at myself as competent even once. Hence, I perceive my life as the same imperfection, as I did at the very beginning.

This was a beautiful poem and very relatable too. Please write more of these. That's all for now.

KEEP WRITING!!!!

Yours sincerely,
Myth

Hey Charm!

Just a few quick thoughts - first; gorgeous imagery especially in the second half of the poem - I really like that line of "the future unfolds as the sun peels into the sky, day after day, I'm waiting" -- the repeated chorus of "everything looks worse in the light" is very evocative too because it can be interpreted so many different ways and takes on extra meaning by the time we get to the end of the poem so is a smart use of repetition.

Also the image of "words sizzling in the sun" is so unexpected, and a great opener!

Formatting-wise, it all feels gentle-flowing and stream of consciousness, I think it might feel more consistent to capitalize the "The" at the beginning and "Time" in the last stanza just because you capitalize after end-punctuation at the beginning of the third stanza and mid-last stanza. But if you were trying to smooth the transitions between stanzas that's a valid reason to keep it lowercased too.

I'm having some difficulty with interpretation. I think there's a strong sense of image and mood in this poem, of longing and sorting, but not a strong-clear sense of meaning or narrative. I guess I'd interpret the poem as being a reflection of a speaker who is debating her words (maybe in writing or conversations) ,inspecting them and feeling like under closer inspection (ie. in the "light") they just aren't as beautiful. They struggle with self-doubt to the point that they're not sure who they are, their sense of self becomes intangible and they feel like they're just chasing their sense of self-definition. The line "it's quiet here" contrasts with the words and sizzle filling stanza one with sound. But I don't necessarally get a sense of what that means. Has the critical self-inspecting voice stopped, or is that highlighting how in the "silence" it's even easier to be introspective and self-critical.

Interestingly in stanza 3 there's almost a contradiction? or irony maybe? they talk about waiting for some sign of the future they shouldn't be waiting for; and all along they're observing the sun! which is the clearest most obvious sign of the future. I'm not sure how that connects to the rest of the poem, but maybe there's a sense of pointlessness / waiting on the inevitable that hasn't happened (or just hasn't been observed yet). Then in the final stanza they realize they've wasted a lot of time being afraid "to write" and now their self-critical eye is turned on to their procrastination/hesitation.

^ So it's interesting to see the cycle of how their self-criticism becomes a self-destructive cycle, but I'm not sure the themes about time passing and self-identity are drawn into the poem enough. The poem is clearly about a speaker who is critical of their writing, but there's some stuff on the edges that I'm not sure how it's fitting in yet. There's some sense of continuity with the light and word/sound imagery, but the poem feels kind of like you're lightly brushing the themes but not really diving into them.

Right now I think the second stanza has the least amount of connection to the rest of the piece - it's interesting, and I think it makes sense on it's own, but it's a bit of a burden to work in how it adds to the rest of the poem. I also don't know if I'm really feeling the title "fear of failure" being expressed in the content of the poem - which seems more about being afraid of what the sun is revealing. There's fear, but you haven't really talked about failure in the poem I don't think.

Overall, you've got an interesting premise and some great nuggets of imagery, but I'm feeling like adding a bit more detail and continuity is going to help this poem shine even more.


Edit Ah! Just saw your wall post about this poem - I love that you took pieces from 2018, because that definitely fits the mood of the speaker and the procrastinating or their fear of words looking off in the light. It might actually be interesting to have a comment within the poem that it took three years for the poem to sprout or something commenting a bit more directly on the writing process.

Some title suggestions because I love titles: in the sun, what do you see?, shadow thoughts, here I am, words caught in the sun.

Happy writing!

~ A

Hey there Charm! Tuck swinging by for a quick review today. Let's get into it!

I really liked the idea of "everything looks worse in the light". It was a new idea that I hadn't seen in poetry before, but something that I felt I could connect with. I interpreted it as a personification, of sorts, of when you write a bunch late at night, wake up and read it in the morning, and realize it's not nearly the literary masterpiece you thought it was. That feeling translates into other aspects of life as well, but writing was the first example that came to mind. It was my favorite part of the poem, and perhaps even a new title? I know you had mentioned you weren't too happy with the current title, and I think it's a pretty all-encompassing and original title.

The second stanza had a lot of strong poetic language, but I didn't feel that it connected well to the first stanza. It also had a lot of cliched language and ideas that I see in a lot of poetry. It left me wondering, what about this stanza is different from dozens of poems I've seen that explored the same idea? I challenge you to think of a way you can make your take on this very commonly explored topic different, and bonus points if you're able to manufacture a stronger connection to the first theme you introduced within that.

That being said, I think you were able to bring it almost full-circle by introducing the idea of feeling frozen in this cycle, not being able or willing to make a change. It's an idea everyone is able to relate to, and the way you were able to unify both themes was impressive in its simple execution.

Another point of critique is the line "I'm waiting for a sign though I know I shouldn't be". This line didn't seem to have the impact that it could, perhaps because the language wasn't particularly strong. I think a way you could increase the impact of this line is to provide a reason for this -- why shouldn't the reader expect a sign? Spelling this out a little bit could perhaps give this line some more power.

I hope some of these notes were helpful for you! I felt a little out of my element critiquing a poem of this magnitude, so a good part of this review was me thinking out loud and spitballing some ideas. I hope that you're still able to glean something useful from this, and if you have any questions of course feel free to let me know!

Best,
tuck

First off, I love the first line. You’ve got a lot of elements of figurative language (imagery and alliteration), and it’s such a strong, definitive first line. There is so much meaning and sadness in that first line, and you expand on that meaning in the second line.
The second stanza is great, but I think the transition between the two stanzas is rocky. They seem like two completely different ideas, and I don’t really understand how they relate. The second stanza is great, though. I love the idea that we spend our whole lives chasing after ourselves. Personally, I can relate to that. And sometimes it does feel like “wandering in the night”. That’s a great simile.
Again, the transition between the second and third stanza seems a little rocky. I like the theme of waiting, though I’m wondering why the speaker feels like they shouldn’t be waiting for a sign. What’s wrong with waiting for a sign?
I love how in the last stanza you connect it back to the first stanza. It feels like the poem is coming full circle, and it all makes sense. There’s something incredibly poignant in that, in being afraid to move, because everything is just all wrong and you don’t know what to do about it. Personally, that is so relatable. As a writer, I understand completely. With this poem, you did a great job with exploring and explaining so many of the fears writers have. It’s really wonderful. I look forward to reading more of your writing