Young Writers Society

Hey there! I thought I'd stop by and give you a review.

So something I find very interesting about this poem, is that it's about something that I'm really not at all familiar with. I mean, I know what a tailor is, but I've never heard of a night tailor?- and I'm not sure why they'd sew at night rather than during the day, unless it's just honestly to keep up with all the work they have to do (which sounds kind of sucky, in reality! O>O ). So I definitely appreciate the sort of story that was told here- I think a lot of times people think poetry has to be super personal, or use it that way (which is awesome, I do that too), but I think people don't often think of simply using poetry as a different means of story telling!

The noise from his old machine

I wasn't going to mention this at first, because it's not always a huge deal. But I noticed that this was the third time that "old" was used in this poem. One reason that I wanted to bring this up is because when there's one word repeated in a relatively short amount of time, it reads weirdly to the reader. It's like we're reminded of the other instances where that word was used, and it feels over-used usually. The other reason I wanted to bring it up, is because especially in poetry, every word should count. And you generally want to try to use the strangest words- words that invoke feeling, words that get your point across! So instead of old, perhaps one of the words could have been "ancient" or "decrepit" or "antique" etc. c: In poetry, you want to try to use words that are interesting and different to a certain degree.

'Who makes the quaking sound

That keeps the infants awake?'

This sort of repeat of the beginning of the poem, I didn't really feel did much for it. I just felt like it didn't really do anything extra for the piece, and yeah. But that could just be me! I also felt like the ending line didn't really do what I think you were hoping it would do- it didn't really have much of an impact. I think perhaps it might be because the subject matter isn't particularly dramatic? I'm not sure!

The feel of the poem in general was cool, and I liked the sort of mysterious element to why the night tailor was doing what he was doing, for lack of a better way of putting it. But I also kind of felt like the poem was trying to make what he/she was doing more... dramatic than it is? After all, it seems like a pretty mundane thing in the end. Perhaps if there were some like... stories or rumours going around that he was doing something shady- like magic or something-- enchanting the clothes or something? Maybe then it would kinda fit better? But that's just my thoughts on the general feel of the poem. C:

In any case, I hope this is somewhat helpful to you! Keep up the awesome writing! C:

-Holysocks