My Dear

Oh, hey, here's a short poem for me to review! It's time to break the pattern.

I'm going to talk about the font. First, it's too big. Unnecessarily big. Second, it doesn't fit with the atmosphere you want to get across. And these two bother me, because they're important. Instead of using YWS's default font, you use a different one, with a different size, which means all of these changes have to have a meaning, a function to it. And I don't feel it. Actually, I think the smaller the font is, the more important/serious it is, because the only time I encounter big-font letters are when they're titles or in children's book. You can learn the concept of font and size by checking out these poems, pomegranate trees and folk songs by Autumns and i left. by primadonna.

Sorry about the long critique for font/size. Now, to the content: it's okay. 'you drowned me in tears' is a common word put under the cliche category, but it's still interesting in itself. Why does You drown Me in tears? The second line brings a clearer picture to the scenario, which is You's longing for the wonderful moments in their relationship. Change 'use' to 'used', by the way. This two lines are okay.

The next four lines though leave questions unanswered. There is no satisfaction in knowing I drowns because 'you were the closest thing to love / i ever had' is not even a reason! If You is the closest thing I have as love, then why I need to distance themselves from You? It makes me think You is a masochist, wanting to be tortured, which I think is not what you're going for. >.> I also recommend cutting 'all too well' because without these three words, the line still stands as strong, and even tighter.

And that is all I have! I'm sorry if the review doesn't across as encouraging, because that's not what I'm trying to do here. All in all, this is a good poem, but it has the potential to be better.

Urgh Penguin ninja'd me ;-;

Hello again!

Now I was joking in that last poem that I was following Hannah, but it does actually seem like I am! I didn't realise this was your poem 'til this very moment. I've decided to not read Hannah's review so that I can be as explicit and honest as possible, without her wise commentary influencing me.

I LOVE a good short poem. That is 100% the honest truth, because short poetry is very hard to get right. I've got to say this poem isn't as good as your Polka Dot Girl poem. It lacks the definitive sense that you knew exactly what you wanted to say and how you were going to say it. Sometimes short poetry has that accidental feel because it is so short, but I think here it is happening because the subject of your poem feels vague. Or, rather, the purpose of your poem feels vague. I understand what you're saying and how you're saying it. The ship has sailed, the relationship is over and the time has passed and yet the narrator knows this person is the closest thing to love etc. It's just a little... underdeveloped here.

I'm going to go line by line because why not.

"you drowned me in tears," is an okay line, nothing too fancy or interesting about it.
"longing for the ship we used to sail." A+ for the play on words.
"i distanced myself beneath the waves" F- for use of language. There are many more interesting things you could be doing here to say the same image. Any action you do here that indicates moving away would indicate "distanced" without you having to say it - because it's ugly and boring here. Thinking about those delightfully watery words like sank, drifted, plunged, jettisoned etc. if you change 'distanced' then you can probably lose "myself" which feels unnecessary. I like waves though, it indicated the tumultuous relationship.
"because i knew all too well my dear," very boring and sounds a bit patronising? Even in the context of love, saying "my dear" slides dangerously close to "girl" and other diminishing epithets. I also don't think you need "because" - the cause and effect relationship is already clear and you can throw out some grammatical niceties when you're writing poetry. "all too well" is also a nothing statement, it doesn't really mean anything. I know you're saying "I knew more than anything/I knew it so closely, so fully, that you couldn't imagine/I knew it like I know my own heart" etc, but we already know that from the vehemence of your poem, they're extraneous terms.
"that you were the closest thing to love" perfectly serviceable, I've no qualms with it.
"i ever had." yeah alright then. Solid ending.

I know I rip into some of your words and such and in a short poem that does turn out to be a lot, but in short poetry every word should have purpose, should be striving to a place beyond where your poem is, toward where it could be. They have to matter. You're obvs good at poetry, which is awesome to see, but you need to think about what you're actually trying to say here and be a bit more honest about it. Not just frank or clear, but actually honest about the emotion attached, because right now this poem has a lot of talk and only a little feeling.

Thanks for sharing! If you have any questions/you change the work/ etc, please hit me up! I love re-reading things.

- PenguinAttack

Hi, Frinderman! Thanks for sharing your poem here.

I have to say, first of all, I'm always looking for some good ocean imagery. Drowning, ship, sail, waves -- these are all right up my alley of the kind of imagery I'm into! I think that you could, if you wanted to, take the time to clean up these lines, though!

For example, did the object of the poem actually drown the speaker? When the speaker says they distanced themselves beneath the waves, it seems like they are able to move whereas drowning implies they are not really able to control what's happening to them.

Another way you can tighten the poem would be to consider whether you need filler words like "all too well" or "my dear" -- do these serve a purpose? Would it be distasteful to write" because i knew that you were the closest thing to love/ i ever had"?

Finally, I really love the second line, but there's a typo! "longing for the ship we used to sail". That's really strong, because it not only gives us the ocean imagery and the emotion of the speaker (longing), but also implies the past relationship between the speaker and the object of the poem -- that one line is doing three jobs! Love it.

Hope these brief thoughts are helpful for you in some way!

Please PM me if you have any questions/comments about the review. Thanks for sharing,

Hannah