Young Writers Society

Hey Que! You might remember I promised everyone who completed the Checklist Challenge at RevMo 2 reviews, and I'm just getting around to your second one now it looks like. Sorry for the delay, but thank you for your patience!

I never read this poem of your's but it's always interesting to see how people's poetry changes, and I really like the premise - the bodily imagery is strong in parts too. I've read poems that have kind of a similar theme of an anger with the body, or the body attacking them, but you turn some of the familiar phrases in your own way.

A few comments and critiques:

imagery-wise I don't think the very first image is the strongest opener, I do like that the attacks seem to come from outside the body in the first 4 stanzas with air, words, and heat, and air again -- before the attack moves inside - but I think that it'd be helpful to dig a bit deeper into the idea of humidity in the first stanza because it's not immediately apparent how air can be heavy enough to weigh at someone's neck. Even throwing in some science-y terms about humidity and weather might be interesting, but the opener wasn't quite as striking as it could be.

I like in the 2nd stanza the twist on the phrase "empty words" - it plays again with what happened in the 1st stanza, where something is attacking that doesn't seem like it should be. I was immediately curious if it was the speaker's own words or someone else's doing the attacking, but this isn't really revealed until the turn in the final line, when I think it implies that it's the reader's own words. It might be interesting to play with another image that could seem like an external force, but then turns out to be an internal one - like fear, or even some sort of physical one.

The third stanza - evokes kind of a feeling of anxiety to me, and makes me wonder if that's the "war" the poem is referencing. It is certainly true that sometimes physical and mental anxiety responses can feel like the body is just attacking itself in a way that won't help it (ie. feeling faint when you're scared, or overheated). It could also be a reference to some sort of physical ailment/sickness - which I think a lot of people who have chronic illnesses or pain would be able to relate to the idea of a "self-attacking-self".

For me the fourth stanza was interesting, but it didn't tell us enough - I don't feel like I completely get a sense of the speaker's internal struggle here.

In the final stanza, I'm a big fan of this turn -

the never-ending summer days

are monochrome

and I see only one color:

heat.

I like it! <3

There sure is a lot of poetry in the Green Room lately--and I don't mind. That's why I'm here to review! With that, let's jump right in.

So I haven't read much of your poetry before, though I found this to be interesting at the very least! The vocabulary used in this poem is quite strong and I found this to be a general strength of yours here. What I'm not as fond of here is the theme. While not all poems have to be based around a particular theme, this one seems as if you meant it to be, though I'm unsure of what you're attempting to get across here.

I'm unsure of the message you're trying to portray. The other aspect of this poem that I'm quite fond of is the tone or atmosphere that's built from these words that have a connotation to heat or fire, which is shown throughout the poem.

At the same time, I'm unsure what the message is. In the last stanza, we go from talking about heat to the speaker having a war with their self. The last three lines are particularly what confuse me, since they're not very cohesive or relating to the rest of the poem, which is based around summer and heat. Audy has a different take on the poem, though I'm unsure of how these words 'ignite', 'aflame', 'heat' are in connection to a war against oneself. I'd like clarity in that area of the poem.

While I found the fourth stanza to make sense in this context I'm afraid the rest of the poem isn't very cohesive in getting this theme across and I believe with some polishing up this could be fixed. I'm unsure of what you're attempting to make the reader feel. That's the main reason why I wanted to point this out to be on one hand, about the heat of summer, and on the other hand, a poem about the speaker forming a war in their own body. Clarity and cohesiveness is the focus here in future revisions, I believe, because I enjoy the poem! I'm just unsure how I'm supposed to feel leaving the poem.

If you have any questions, don't be afraid to ask! I hope I helped and have a great day.

Falconer,

I love the concept of war with oneself and how the poem is structured as each stanza illustrating a facet of this war and many long-strung battles- first the hanging stone, then the launching craters, then the fever which ultimately leads to this 'dying from within' metaphor of the sickness, ennui or depressive kind of emotions. I liked it!

Technically, there is room for improvement. May I suggest circling every word with "-ing" and nixing them? Or go with present tense or past tense?Slamming, rising, feeling, tracing, crushing, burning, pounding - too much of the same sentence structures make the reading a bit of a slog. Not only that but it sacrifices the immediacy of the piece, which for a war-structure/metaphor, I think hinders the pogency of the message.

I hope this helps!

~ as Always Audy

This is great! Really well done