Young Writers Society

Oooh, Fall Out Boy! *claps hands*

'cutting through the darkness with raw passion
rip it up'

Redundant. Redundancy is okay with some poems...but not when you're talking about raw passion and junk. Don't work.

Also redundant is the use of the word 'thunderous' in stanza two...yeah, I get the point but it grows old after a while.

Okeydokey. I'm out.

i can tell that didn't turn out the way you wanted, but i think it's interesting, and i loved the pun. i can understand why you chose it, if you get me.

Ah. What is with you two and naming poems after songs/bands?
Then again, I really shouldn't be talking...

At any rate, your second explanation for the title (and thunderstorms "fall" from the sky) was clever, Jack.
Kudos.

I figured it had something to do with FOB.

Thanks Shriek. The title? Oh, I was listening to Fall Out Boy at the time, and my poems are almost always about a girl, and thunderstorms "fall" from the sky, so it was a pun that only I could understand.

Hm. There isn't much to be said that Brad hasn't already touched upon.

I liked most of the descriptive words you used, although you were a tad redundant at times, as Brad pointed out.
I really, for some reason, liked these lines: "flash bang into my life / beautifulwilddangerous".
Yeah, the flash-bang is too abstract to personify (orwhatever), and the beautifulwilddangerous reminded me more of a horse than a storm. They still stood out in my mind, for some reason.

And yes. The "onetwothree..." was clever (counting the seconds between lightening and thunder, right?), but it disrupted the flow of the poem. I did like the last line though--it reminded me of "Ozymandias" by Shelley a little bit.

Hmm. This review seems pointless because it's reiterating everything that Brad's already said, but I'm going to go ahead and click submit anyway. OH. I must be slow or something, but would you please explain the title to me?

Cheers. Right, a) focus on small things, b) check for redundacy, c) artistic transition.

I'll have to work on them more. Thanks a lot!

Jack--

First, the poem itself: too ambitious in scope.

Take the advice I'm giving myself these days--going to fail to execute it, but it's worth aiming for--don't try for something too big until you master painting vivid, small pictures.

Watch out for redundancy and lines that mean nothing. "Thunderous" in the second stanza, for instance, is used far too much, and makes the end of the poem very clunky. The first line of the poem needs to be reworked as well: a human like thunder 'n' lightning is simply too abstract to mean anything.

Again, be on the lookout for unneeded adjectives and explanations. In the third stanza, for example, "onetwothreefourfivesix" is really unnecessary, because I can count and know how to count seconds, it ultimately breaks the flow, which detracts from the power of the ending.

Finally, changing tenses was not done artfully, if it was meant to be done at all. "Me" to "they" to a total separation at the end with "couple". There needs to be more of a transitive between these three tense-changes in order that it come across both intentionally and artistically.

Regards,
brad