Young Writers Society

Hey Ely, here for a Review Day review,

Positives:I love that you've branched out and tried to make art out of the words by formatting them in an interesting way. I would have liked to see it put into a more pleasing and recognizable one, though.

yet we feel

that our lives dictate

what we write

so we choose to take our pain

and use it as a metaphor

just for the sake

of art

as we hold the pen in our hand

our writing ideas are

unlimited

I felt that this poem really expressed the inner psyche of a writer/artist. I agree with what you say here, and although your rhythm suffers due to your clever words, I loved your poem. I would admit that I often do this and that almost everyone on this forum has at one time felt like this. Have you ever listened to Pop Radio on Pandora? 90% of the songs are about break-ups or sadness. This is because the emotions we feel are what we express through our art. Because art is by definition the means of which our emotions may physically exist and be free. And like a bird let out of it's cage, your poem did this to mine. :3

(Good work! Keep it up.)

This is Kaos here for a review!

So you play with the idea of white space here, which is something that I'm particularly fond of but I have mixed feelings on the usage of it. There was a lack of punctuation in this poem and I don't particularly know why you didn't have it in the poem. Choosing not to capitalize the poem is something that I understand, but the punctuation would help work out the kinks in the flow that you kind of have here. It would help you build more onto your lines with imagery or perhaps make a line feel more independent if it does only go on for one line.

That's one of my problems with this poem. It lacks imagery yet you have a broad topic to write about and that annoys me. There's not really a scene going on in this poem but rather an idea that you have and that you're trying to expand on but you can't do this without detail. Instead of telling us all of the poem, show us the poem through maybe a scene that would help establish the atmosphere.

Show us the poem through imagery and figurative language rather than just telling us. Another thing that I wanted to touch on, is, what makes this different from any other poem that's talking about art? There are a lot of poems like this and they all seem to go the same way, so what's your personal spin, or rather, what makes it different? The theme is something that we've seen a lot of before and you can make old themes new by putting spins on the idea or using new images that make the reader think in a perspective that they haven't before.

Speaking of broad, a lot of the words in this poem are and you happen to use a lot of emotion words. Define them rather than just using them. My definition of sorrow is not your definition of sorrow; not quite. My definition of melancholy is not your definition of melancholy, or rather, my perception of what it is and what I think of when I hear the word.

The repetition used with that is also something that I wanted to touch on. If you're going to use repetition, you should know why you're using it. Is it to put emphasis on a single line? When someone says they like something once, you know they like that thing. But if they say it /three/ times, you know they /really/ like that thing. Another thing is dead space. How much space is there in-between times that you use repetition? Are the uses right beside each other? Are they at the beginning and end of the poem? Are you using repetition to put emphasis and then add more detail to the poem?

All of those questions should be ones that run through your head when you use it. I didn't find anything particularly new in this poem, though I do have to say the white space is a plus for me. Make it new and tell the theme by showing us because the rule, "Show don't tell", applies in poetry as well.

I hope I helped and have a great day!