Young Writers Society

Hey, Grey!

This poem is truly amazing! Your writing style is quite awesome.

I found these lines incredible:

The streets that I touch

With this broom of mine

I paint a masterpiece

Upon the canvas

Under your feet

My work is art

In its purest form

In doing my duty

The way I do it

I get the pleasure

Of all the world

This is one a unique poem I have come across so far here. I just don't know what to say.
You nailed the following lines:

For this happiness

That you service me

I thank you very much

If you pass this spot

Thanks for sahring your work. Enjoyed the read! Looking forward for more of your works.

-
sree

Hey GreyMatters,

Here I am as requested! Thanks for giving me this opportunity to review your poem by requesting a review in my thread Aley's Poetry Reviews.

As you didn't give me any instructions about what type of review you'd like, I'm just going to go over some basics that I'm seeing go on with this poem in the classic YWS Review Sandwich style.

Top Bun: What I liked.
I really love that you're dealing with such an intimate situation of someone sweeping a street. That really makes this poem feel concrete and gives it a nice grounded sense of where we are and what we are seeing. I can tell that this person is someone who takes great pride in every little and big thing that they do. They're the type of person I love to talk to because they like to live 'in the now' as so many westerners try to do. Just the fact that I can read into this poem like that means that I'm getting some good analysis out of this poem, and I would get better analysis if I delved into it as a question of the human condition [being alive].

Fillings: What can improve, why, and how
That being said, I think that there are some things you can do to improve this. First off, your capitalization without any punctuations in this poem is really holding it back. It breaks up your flow of language too much. Try doing lower case or a mix. Let me show you in a small section of your poem:

If you pass this spot
that I swept so well
when you walk over here
leaving back earth
and render my art
a total loss

As you may see just from removing those capitals, it changes the tone of the poem. It reads smoother for me in this style than in the other. There are some good sources on YWS about capitalization in poetry such as Capitalization in Poetry and one about punctuation which is Punctuation in Poetry

But I think one of your largest problems in this poem is actually how you chose to break it up, your line breaks.

Some of your lines aren't heavy enough, they don't have enough value to them. When you look at what the last line is saying and the next line after it, some of them don't add much to the poem. Each line that you have should be able to hold it's own weight in terms of additions to the poem. They should be able to be said alone and mean something new to the poem. Some of your lines don't do that. For instance, 'my work is art' is a very strong line, but 'of all the world' is not. The second, meaning 'of all the world' only adds that this isn't just pleasure, it's the pleasure maxed out which you could say simpler as "I get the greatest pleasure" or "it is my elation" so these two lines don't add more than other lines could add with removing the common phrase.

That brings us to the last thing I want to talk about. In poetry, it's best to avoid common phrases like "of all the world" or "in doing my duty" because these things are not something unique to you. Instead, try putting in a metaphor or some idea that displays something uniquely YOU in your poem. Something that wouldn't be said by everyone, just you. If you don't, you risk the poem lacking originality and it becomes something someone reads and is unimpressed as "I could have done that" so they dismiss it as good art. The problem is that it's not that it's bad art, it's that it isn't expressed as eloquently as it could have been. It still has value, it still has analysis which can happen and it can still be thought provoking, but it's dull. In art, people want some spice, they want some pizazz sometimes. Poetry is one of those times.

Bottom Bun: Summary
All in all, I really enjoy the subject matter of this poem. It shows me that you have a great method of picking out what you want to write about for a poem already. You don't need help narrowing your subject or with picking how to write about it in terms of showing not telling. Instead, your problems lie more in the poetic choices that you have to make. You can use more poetic language like metaphors and similes, different line breaks, and explore capitalization to make your poems better! The important pieces are already there, you just have to keep reading and writing.

I hope this helps!