Young Writers Society

Hi there Gooseluck (to be honest I still haven't gotten to that username so if i ever mention your name again in this review it's going to be Cassie, haha). This is Kays here delving in for a review because it's finally Friday night and I probably should've done a review this morning despite my tiredness.

I remember bits and pieces of this poem? I don't remember the original piece and I don't remember in whole so for the most part I'll be reviewing off of what's here. I noticed that this piece doesn't use ending punctuation such as periods which seems to be a trend in your poetry lately (your preferred style of punctuation rules at the moment to keep commas and semicolons and all that jazz but to cut out the periods?) which is interesting.

Seeing as I also said the word 'piece(s' three times in this one paragraph, I want to reinforce Lumi's suggestion to swap one or two of the word 'piece(s)' out to a synonym for better flow. Instead of the last line ending with 'shattered pieces' at the end of the first stanza I highly suggest changing to 'shattered surface' which holds a lot more of a flow and is stronger but to be honest, changing that in general will help the stanza become what the stanza needs to be. After that, the first stanza is done and well-executed. Nice job on that.

That part doesn't need too much enhancing and in contrast, the interlude line about icy hot daggers shooting down the throat of the speaker does. The problem is that two adjectives are used and while that's fine, perhaps one word that meant both or a metaphor that matched up with ice being so hot that said ice burns may work better than that. Anyway, I'm pretty sure that the line is supposed to be 'shoot down my throat' at the end. The second stanza works but can be worded better for a stronger impact because the transitioning between the first and second line is a little awkward.

Finally the third stanza is pretty hard hitting. While the sixth and seventh lines can be worded better there (is there a pattern here that there's a few lines here and there that are off that are holding the poem back from being absolute). Other than that, I'm not quite sure about the meaning of the last stanza? The speaker of the poem lives under the moon because the person is hiding from the sun? Am I missing a part of this piece? I feel as if I am with the end and that's another aspect that can be fixed up--making this more cohesive even though this is pretty consistent throughout we're not quite there. I don't fully understand the themes but that be only on my end, haha.

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

*cracks knuckles*

I have this distant awareness of reading the first draft some time ago, but that may be me deluding myself. Anyways, as poems go, this is evocative. The descriptions of icy snowflakes on broken glass is distinctive, thanks to the solid contrast between the bright components and their nasty connotations. It is odd to me that you go from referencing a piece to several pieces, on top of the frequent use of the word piece in this poem (as Lumi points out, and I will explain no further for the sake of avoiding redundancy). However, by the second, single-line stanza, you pull out some distinctive imagery. The pause between "down" and "my" forces me to draw out the former, accomplishing an appropriate effect. It's at this point that I want to mention that you keep jumping between the past and the present tense, often to open new stanzas. It may be intentional, but I find it degrades the narrative sense of the poem, and adds more confusing than anything else. Returning back to the poem, I'll also agree with Lumi that bite to ache to haze is best, though I absolutely love the haze on the corneas and how it resembles that of the mirror. It manages to be both horrific and beautiful, as appears to be common in this poem.

The rest of the poem is pretty fantastic. After the descriptions of the narrator's pain and the setting, you develop a cohesive and tragic story that explains the previous stanzas well. The narrator has lost their former graces (the peaches) and left to wither and rot, left looking into a mirror and seeing their ruined body. "(where once)", in the quiet whisper it invokes, conveys that tone effectively, as does the stylistic pause after "story". Both seem to show the narrator breaking up, struggling to convey their message and their miserable life. However, they come through to illustrate their suffering under the cold and distant moon, ending the poem on a brilliant note. And that's about all I have to say - the formatting, for the most part, works, and I'm bad at judging the effectiveness of the most stylistic effects, so I'd rather not discuss them. All in all, thanks for this great poem!

Notes first, then some talk.

You abuse the word 'piece/s' throughout the work, and that should be rectified by a simple vocabulary upgrade and switch. Just be careful for flow.

Stanza four, my personal ideal would be in the form of parenthetical narration of:

(where once / beautiful and young peaches were foretold)

I really don't understand what you mean to say in the poem. It's really descriptive and your word chose is good. The line breaks seem to have no meaning and create a confusion in the poem. It seems to jump from one idea to the next. These random jumps remove any feeling in the poem. Making it flow better would create stronger feelings in the poem.