fragments of us left in january

This was a good, if depressing, piece. It wasn't confusing, but it still utilized figurative language, which is always good.
I did notice that the second stanza is five lines long, while stanzas one and two are only four lines long. This is a minor problem, and maybe it was even intentional? But it just looked a little odd to me. Sorry.
4/5. Would recommend.

Hey there, thought I'd stop by and leave a review @marmalade !

Formatting & Grammar

I don't have too many feelings towards the lack of capitalization. I think that it is instrumental in the very last line and the in line 5 when you use "i" or "i'm" - as it's showing the reduction of self. But it's a bit odd and out of place for me in the word "january".

I wish that the 2nd stanza had one less line to fit along with the other two, but overall line/syllable length seemed in good check. I didn't see any spelling issues - I think that there should possibly be a period after "life" and a comma after "like". But no big grammar distractions in the piece that I could find.

Word Choice & Figurative Language

The phrasing in the very first line is a bit odd "january wind breathes chill" just because "chill" in this instance is an adjective, so it gives the reader a bit of a pause. But I think it works, and I like that you follow it with not just bones, but the speaker's mental/emotional state as well.

The fourth line of the 1st stanza feels a bit redundant, because loosing warmth is about the same as letting out steam. If you revisit this piece, I'd maybe consider making this line a bit more unique than the 3rd one, just so that each line adds something.

I like the metaphor in the second stanza about the mind not being able to remain in reality fro more than one night, but I'm a little confused about how a mind takes itself out of reality especially if you actually mean literal rather than figurative night. Is the speaker pretending (so out of reality) or just denying reality? Because for me, denying reality feels different than taking the mind out of reality if that makes sense. Maybe if you changed the phrase "remain in" to "agree with" or "accept" it could fix that issue.

I have to absolutely agree with amelie as far as the last line, for me the problem isn't the message or the structure necessarily, but I just don't think that it follows logically at all. Like if you mapped out that last stanza as a sentence: "My hands are sore [from winter and scribbling away my existence on paper (like dead leaves withering into nothingness)] and nothingness is what I felt" So if you take out the metaphor and the explanation for why the speaker's hands are sore you're left with "my hands are sore - and nothingness is what I feel". I think that the repetition of the word nothingness in the last line is a bit distracting from the flow of the overall poem, and then just doesn't get much impact power because it's hard to follow the logic of that last sentence.

Also in the last stanza it's a bit confusing if the paper is like the dead leaves, or if the act of scribbling on the paper, is like the act of the dead leaves withering. It's probably okay that it can have a dual meaning (normally that's something I enjoy in poems at least), but I just thought I'd point that out.

Your word choice isn't too new or out of the ordinary, a lot of nice winter imagery (although I almost wanted you to infuse a bit more of it). I think some of the strongest words were in the last stanza especially the dead leaves and scribbling, but I also enjoyed the description "lungs seem to let out steam" - very clean description!

Overall Content

So overall I thought this was a nice succinct poem. I'm having a little bit of a difficult time understanding the overall meaning. The title makes me think this poem is about a relationship or memories/fragments that a person can't lose. When I read the poem, I'm getting the literal meaning as being: Stanza I - Speaker is super cold! Stanza 2: It's really hard to face reality/There's a lot messed up, Stanza 3: Speaker's hand hurts and the speaker feels numb. [Now in that overly simplified version, I readily see the connection from stanza 1 to stanza 3, but stanza 2 is a bit less connected.]

If I try to examine the poem for it's figurative meaning, I think I would guess the cold is a metaphor for a person or memories, and this person is stuck with these memories/coldness and they are painful (stanza 1), the speaker also feels like their life is falling apart and some of it is due to these memories/coldness that make it hard to live in the reality of the brokenness of their life (stanza 2), and they try to cope with these memories by writing them down but it just makes them seem absent, doesn't concretely fix the problem (stanza 3). That's how I interpreted it at least.

There's definitely some layers of meaning to this poem, but I think there are still a few confusing areas in the order of some of the language and phrasing that are inhibiting some of the meaning from coming through. Good luck in all of your future writing!

~alliyah

okay, so i did already read this, but i was fairly distracted and wasn't able to concentrate much on giving any advice to you, so perhaps this will be able to help.
with the first stanza, i felt that "january wind" gave a very easy setting, which made it harder for me engage with the setting as time went on. but with the following line, i got a more yoga class feel, sort of dramatic and drawn out. (and that isn't to say i think this is about a yoga class,) i just feel the slowness that bounces off of this was a little unneasisary? because i feel you can take advantage of some good imagery with the mention on january/winter, bones, heart and mind, a sort of anatomy you can use with that figure. and i'll back kaos up with her mention of the last two lines being somewhat awkward, along with the other things she said about them.
the second stanza was an improvement, but im getting a sort of checklist vibe from it; it seems a bit rushed. and the metaphor of life-shattered pieces can be pretty strong, but it left a very shallow impact on me and i wasn't able to pull much out of it on an emotional level.

i love love love the third stanza, up until the last line. you already get a very weakened feeling from the person throughout the entire poem, and trying to get a sort of mic-drop ending from old news isn't exactly turning out right. thinking on it though, i think you could ditch "and nothingness is what i feel". and this is tricky, because that's the point you needed to get across. however, i'm already getting that strongly throughout the poem and honestly i think the same impact you were aiming for is stronger without it.
in general, is say try and strengthen the first two stanzas and try for some stronger imagery. hopefully i helped and was able to make sense! (i'm bad at both) so if you had questions please please ask me.
-amelie.

I enjoyed reading this. It does capture the feels of starting a new year and still trying to gather up what remains of your life. Can I just say, when writing poetry you need to start every line with a capital letter. Other than this I think the poem was amazing and well written. I thoroughly enjoyed reading this and hope to read more from you in the future.

This is Kaos here for a review!

I'm going to be leaving some notes with this, so let's jump right into that. In the first stanza, it didn't really feel like the strongest start with just "january wind" but it does make it situational in that the poem is being written in that time and at first glance I didn't particularly like the repetition in line 2 of the stanza, but it works well. The last two lines are the ones that bother me with the awkward wording that didn't really make all that much sense to me/the wording could've been improved. I knew what you were trying to get across with the lungs letting out steam but in the fourth line I think the "not much" is what gets me for the flow.

In stanza two, I think the main problem with it is that it's almost too direct with the message? It doesn't leave a lot of food for thought and it rambles a bit in that it talks about a lot in general but doesn't really go into detail about anything. The "my life" and "my mind" being close together in lines didn't really work well with me and I would have liked to see more imagery incorporated into the stanza. The whole reality thing and only being in reality for one night at a time is something that I wanted expanded on a bit? On the other hand I wanted to see another way to show that the speaker is trying to cope and move on.

I think that my last stanza is my favorite because it gets the most across in a beautiful way and it ends on a sad note but it works well with the rest of the poem. The first line felt a little awkward working together with the second line with the "and". I think it would work better if you just took the "and" out and put a comma after "winter", but it's really your choice. The poem gives a lot of release of emotion and I don't know how much I liked the last line compared to something else, but it works for the poem.

I hope I helped and have a great day!