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Young Writers Society


12+

Moonstruck

by Juan2411


Ironically, you were not the sea, even though you resembled her. 

For you welcomed their sorrow and anguish, 

All bottled up in thin paper flasks, 

And dumped unto you to carry afar

With no care for the burden on you.

.

You were not the sun either, though you could be like him.

Warm and yellow and radiant. 

Overwhelming.

Burning and melting and nuclear.

You shared your heat with my cold, dying core.

You left me

With deserts and memories. 

.

You were not the clouds, but you liked to spend time with them,

Matching your mood with the wind.

Light and breezy on Monday, 

Dark and rainy on Tuesday.

Beautifully shaped, though you never agreed.

The same, but changed, every week.

.

No, you were really the moon.

A gentle white glow.

The only light in my sky of night.

The one always there at my every midnight.

My silly semicircle. 

My lunatic. 

Comforting. Mystical. Crescent.

You left me

Moonstruck. 

.

Drowning, scorched, and soon vaporized.

But moonstruck. 


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351 Reviews


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Mon Sep 21, 2020 10:24 pm
mellifera wrote a review...



Hey Juan2411!


I hope you don't mind if I drop by for a review today! Disclaimer: I'm not a poetry writer or a reviewer most of the time, so feel free to take my advice with a grain of salt!


Ironically, you were not the sea, even though you resembled her.


I'm not sure you really need "Ironically"? I really like this line, but I'm not as much of a fan of "ironically".

With no care for the burden on you.


I don't think this line fits in as well with the others. I enjoyed the others very much with "For you welcomed their sorrow and anguish" and "all bottled up in thin paper flasks" in particular (though I think the "thin paper flasks" doesn't make as much sense? I think you're alluding messages in bottles here, which I love, but you're saying the bottles are then paper, so you'd have to switch the wording around to "thin paper bottled in flasks" since, you know. Paper and water).

I might suggest instead changing it to mentioning a destination or a lack thereof. Something about aimlessly wandering (like a bottle in the ocean or a meandering heart) perhaps? It's up to you, of course, but I felt this line wasn't as strong as the others that preceded it.

You were not the sun either, though you could be like him.

Warm and yellow and radiant.

Overwhelming.

Burning and melting and nuclear.

You shared your heat with my cold, dying core.

You left me

With deserts and memories.


Since you mention deserts, I would love to see a line about the heat being too intense? It sounds very comforting when the warmth sharing is mentioned, but then there's no transition for "you left me / with deserts and memories". Maybe something like "but when I got too close I burned" or "but you took it away when you left", and maybe add "barren" to the deserts to further emphasise the loneliness?

You were not the clouds, but you liked to spend time with them,

Matching your mood with the wind.

Light and breezy on Monday,

Dark and rainy on Tuesday.

Beautifully shaped, though you never agreed.

The same, but changed, every week.


"Beautifully shaped, though you never agreed" doesn't really seem to agree well with the rest of the stanza. Clouds don't agree, so even though the "beautifully shaped" isn't as much of an issue (though I might reword it? I'm not too bothered by it, but it's not as eloquent as some of the other phrasing), the second part doesn't blend well with your cloud/wind/storm analogy. It's very lovely, don't get me wrong, but I think that line could be altered in a way that it slots in better with the rest of the lines and transitions better into the unpredictable attitude of the person in question.

No, you were really the moon.

A gentle white glow.

The only light in my sky of night.

The one always there at my every midnight.

My silly semicircle.

My lunatic.

Comforting. Mystical. Crescent.

You left me

Moonstruck.


"The only light in my sky of night" would make more grammatical sense if it was "The only light in my sky at night", because what does "sky of night" really mean? I know it might have been to sound mystical, but it just make me reread the line a few times and eye it?

I also think "moonstruck" should be attached to "you left me", so that it's "You left me moonstruck", because it flows better. I don't feel it was particularly impactful on its own, in fact, it kind of felt the opposite? Plus, this part has gotten a lot softer (not that the rest of it wasn't) and sweeter, and I think you want less oomph and more gentle phrasing/language/structure (I guess you could say like the moon affects the tides? no? I'll show myself out)

And speaking of gentle, I personally think there would have been an even gentler feel to the poem if you hadn't capitalised? that is completely a style choice and you choose how you want your poem to look! that is just my personal opinion, as the poem, though speaking of a negative experience, is soft and almost nostalgic. It's remembering someone with fondness even though they hurt you but still feels a little like closure (and some of the best closure is gentle, in my opinion), and it's written in a lovely way.


Anyway! That's all I have for you today. If you have any comments or questions about anything I said, please feel free to let me know!

Otherwise, I hope you have a wonderful time! Happy RevMo!

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Sun Sep 13, 2020 3:39 pm
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LittleLee wrote a review...



Hi, Juan, I'm Lee! Welcome to YWS!

This is a poem to be relished, a poem that can be something read before sleeping to set one's mind at peace. Simply put, it's a beautiful poem. The sounds in this poem ("The only light in my sky of night" is my favourite example, along with "My silly semicircle. ") create a very nice effect.

The very first stanza isn't nearly as good as the following ones. It's a decent beginning, but towards the end your lines are absolutely fantastic, and the opening doesn't do them justice. I don't know what exactly to point out that can be changed, though; I feel like it's a solidly built stanza, but just not one I liked as much as the others. Try using alliterations and assonances more in the very beginning to have a fiery start.

For you welcomed their sorrow and anguish

Who's the "they" here?

All bottled up in thin paper flasks

This is an odd yet nice line; the image one normally has is of paper rolls being put in a bottle, but the particular manner in which you've written this - saying "bottled up" to make the image of a glass bottle that appears before that of paper - really clashes with what is contemporary. Of course, the idea that messages in bottles are often distress calls or the like also adds to the hidden depths of your poem.

Warm and yellow and radiant.

Overwhelming.

Burning and melting and nuclear.

I absolutely love this. The same image, presented in different ways; in one, the warmth is pleasant and comforting, in the other violent and destructive. You, sir, are a brilliant poet.

Matching your mood with the wind.

Light and breezy on Monday,

Dark and rainy on Tuesday.

I don't know, this struck me as odd. The wind being dark and rainy? Ehh. I'd suggest sticking with comparisons to the weekly weather or something.

Beautifully shaped, though you never agreed.

I agree with @Liminality ; this line was a bit confusing.

Comforting. Mystical. Crescent.

"Crescent" can mean growing, increasing, or developing. But... it's an odd word to use here.

Drowning, scorched, and soon vaporized.

But moonstruck.

An amazing end to an amazing poem.


That's all I have to say for now. I do hope you stick around and keep writing; I'd love to see more of your work!

- Lee

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Sun Sep 13, 2020 8:11 am
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Liminality wrote a review...



This poetic blend of nature and love has some solid images. To me, the flow of stanzas creates a sort of rhetorical argument, much like in traditional sonnets, despite using a free verse structure. I like the instances of wordplay, as well as the personifications of different natural phenomena.

1. The second stanza is my favourite because of how the word choice and form reflect the speaker's emotions. I love the lists of 'and's because they suggest the sense of being "overwhelmed", as if the speaker can't quite describe what they are feeling. "Warm and yellow and radiant" really conveys this tone of awe and admiration. The way the stanza ends is also amazing: "You left me// With deserts and memories" sums up why the lover isn't actually like the sun - only because they left, in the end. I love where you put the line break here and the image of a desert is haunting and apt. It helps connect the ideas of heat and the sun to the sense of abandonment and desolation in "memories" now that the "sun" is gone.

2. "bottled up in thin paper flasks" -- > this is my favourite image in the whole poem. It's such a sad picture, this message in a bottle. That the 'bottle' is made out of paper also adds a new layer of complexity to how the speaker feels about the former lover. It is a sense of pity and admiration both, I think, for being able to "welcome" the ill-disguised sorrows of others with the vastness of a sea. I would have loved to see this image expanded on, actually, maybe with another line or so developing it.

3. I was a bit confused reading this line: "Beautifully shaped, though you never agreed." It's a bit ambiguous. What did the lover disagree with exactly? That the clouds are beautifully shaped? It's not quite clear to me in the text.

4. I think "Ironically" isn't really necessary at the beginning of this piece; otherwise, it has a strong first line. Somehow I feel "You were not the sea, even though you resembled her." would be more powerful because of the greater brevity.

5. Another reason I like the second stanza most is because it seems to flow the most smoothly from one line to the next. The full stops there (with accompanying capitalisation at the beginning of each line) make the most sense, given than each line is supposed to be a complete thought, with just the language linking one thing to the next (i.e. positive adjective "radiant" to "overwhelming", which is expanded upon with more extreme destructive adjectives like "nuclear", which relates to "core" and so on). Punctuation and capitalisation are such important tools in showing the reader how the train of thought runs in a poem.

Overall, I think this poem has potential to be more rhythmic, though I do enjoy the imagery as it is. You have a talent for painting interesting and original pictures with words, which I'd love to see more of. Hopefully you'll find some of these comments helpful in your poetic endeavours.

Cheers!
Liminality





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