Young Writers Society

Here for the review I promised. <3 Let's dive right in with what we were talking about earlier.

I wouldn't call the planetary metaphor cheesy, just underdeveloped, as it just gets one brief mention in the first stanza and the next time it appears you've transitioned to the liquid part. You could maybe rephrase the Pluto to my Mercury line because it could give the mistaken impression that this is a love poem (but I kind of like it anyway.)

In the first stanza, I think you could play around with your line breaks a little,

The clutch of darkness and cold starlight confines you ever closer

Eyes in the deep follow my writhing form

Hi there, I saw BlueAfrica's post about your poem and thought I ought to check it out myself!

And this poem did not disappoint. It's a poem that forces the reader to be in the moment with the speaker and come away knowing that same feeling of being overwhelmed.

Punctuation & Capitalization
So punctuation and capitalization on the grand scheme of things, do not usually make or break a poem (in my opinion) but they do make a direct impact on the flow and tone of a piece. They also can influence whether a reader sees the poem as a polished piece or a first draft.

I think that this poem had a few issues as far as consistency with both punctuation and capitalization. (It seemed to be somewhat random).

For instance there didn't seem to be any rhyme or reason for the periods in the poem. In the third stanza there is a complete lack of them (although lots of capital letters) and then there's suddenly a period after "and I feel you grab for me again". The second stanza in contrast seems to be putting periods where there are sentences and fragments. And the first stanza has completely opposite capitalization choices to stanza 3, but has a period after the line "as you drown". I also thought it was unusual that there wasn't a period at the end of the piece because it does seem pretty final - mimicking the line even from stanza 1 about drowning.

I don't have any strong opinion of whether you should go with more punctuation/capitalization or less, but I do think you should choose some reason/pattern and stick with it for the sake of consistency. This will make your poem look more polished and help readers not get distracted by differences here and there with capitalization/punctuation choices. Here's actually a YWS article on capitalization that I recommend if you're curious about different methods for capitalization: Capitalization in Poetry .

Imagery & Metaphor
This poem is really strong with its imagery and metaphors that guide the narrative.
You also do a lovely job going from the real moment (the text message) and transitioning straight into the metaphor. [As an aside, I think the wording of this line could be stronger: "on Pluto to my Mercury" -- but I do like the concept of it]. In the last stanza you go full out into this drowning metaphor and I think it might be interesting if you tried to work in a little planetary reference (like stars or gravity or something) or even a last reference to the text conversation to bring the poem full circle. But the last stanza is really strong, that imagery that you portray just really clearly illustrates the emotion of the speaker.

Another small wording comment, I don't think the word "myself" is necessary in the line "I can barely stay afloat myself in this expanse of mercury" because that line does get a bit bulky. The two really long lines in stanza 1 didn't bother me though since I thought it sort of fit with the back and forth choppy conversation/relationship that was being described in the piece.

Theme
As I said before, you do a great job letting the metaphors guide the narrative. There's a little discrepancy between which type of mercury is being referred to, but I took that as a neat word play rather than a continuity error. I love poems with strong narrative pull as it really goes a long way in helping the reader come away with something and understanding the theme.

I took this poem's meaning to be that the speaker's relationship with this other person (friend?, family member?, lover?) can kind of be summed up by this short text conversation. The speaker doesn't quite know how to "save" the other person and consequently they're both metaphorically drowning, in fact the relationship is part of what is causing the speaker to lose control in their life, despite the other person not being able to see the pain they're inflicting.

I think that a lot of people will be able to relate to this at both the level of the metaphor (feeling like they're drowning) and the concrete moment of the text message where the speaker doesn't know what to say. The lines, "You need to know something / These words never cover the ache" is just so poignant.

Overall this is a really incredible poem and I look forward to reading more of your work in the future. Thank you for sharing your piece! Please let me know if you have any questions about my review.

~alliyah

Wow.

Okay, that's out of the way now. It was my initial reaction right at the end, because I wasn't expecting this to be the subject - I was thinking, especially from the start of the poem, and even going into the second and third stanzas, that it would be about the narrator's feelings of helplessness at not being able to help their friend. But the last stanza suggests that the narrator needs a rock themselves but doesn't have one, because they're always the rock. It was just so powerful.

I also loved the line "backspace" - who hasn't been there? Someone you care about is going through something terrible, and all you can think to say is "I'm sorry, it'll be okay," but you know that's just so painfully inadequate.

I liked the extended Mercury/Pluto metaphor - toxicity, freezing temperatures, hail - although all the liquid water metaphors don't quite match because neither planet has that. I'm not sure if you were really trying to keep the planetary metaphor going through the whole poem or not, but I could see some tie-ins between the first and third stanzas. I think this would be even stronger if you could clean up some of the third stanza so the figurative language all keeps together and matches.

This review courtesy of

Hello DragonWriter22! Alice here for a review!

This is really really good! I legitimately love this poem! I love how it talks about the feelings of the person who is supposed to be the caretaker, the rock, the one people come to when their lives are crumbling apart. I loved how the narrator tries to respond, to be there for their friend, but they know that the words they have aren't good enough. The fact that you talked about how the narrator is struggling to keep themselves afloat and it feels like everyone else is trying to either drag them down deeper or save themselves at the expense of the narrator is simply fantastic!

A small nitpick, it seems like most of your lines begin with uppercase letters, but a few of them do not. That may just be a stylistic thing you decided to go for and I didn't catch the pattern for it.

Over all, this was an amazing poem and one I will definitely be coming back to read again and again!
-Alice