Young Writers Society

Heya, Kyllorac! Casanova here to do a review for you! I'll be taking this stanza by stanza, so I hope you don't mind. Anyway, to the review!

The first stanza-

i grew up burning trash
in a pit built of old farmhouses
and walls that had caved in
worn away by winter snows

we used to haul the plastic bags out
and drench them in kerosene
that was too old to use in the indoor stove

i still can hear the hiss of the match
struck on a stray chunk of slate
and smell the wavering vapors casting shadows on the grass

feel the whoosh of the flames as they catch the plastic
and consume frost's poetry—

not everything we burned was trash
to me

Frosts poetry--is that a reference to "Old Patch of Snow (the poem)" or is the narrator burning Frost poetry books?

Great work, though. As a more story oriented person I deinitely liked the narrative structure of this.

This is Kaos here to review!

You could have picked a different title you cheat D:<

I wanted more elaboration, specifically with the theme of the poem and the last two lines because they were more of a punch-line more than anything else and I have a lot to say about it. It's the only really hint to a theme in this poem that we get and the rest of it is mostly imagery and description, and I wanted more than just a punch-line. Instead of revolving the rest of the poem around it, kind of try to sprinkle that through for.

Now, the imagery is definitely a strength in this poem, but it's more the problem of, what does the imagery stand for other than establishing the set-up and things going on in the poem? How does that contribute and why is that a detail that you decided to leave in? That's more of a ramble from me; I really enjoyed the tone that you set-up and created with this poem because it's unique in that it doesn't feel used before and it's sort of fresh.

Another thing I wanted to comment on was the second to last stanza which is something that got on my nerves because it felt out of place. I didn't really get how it fit with the rest of the poem with frost's poetry and all. Sensory details would be appreciated with the smell of the smoke and creating more of an atmosphere with that like you're already doing here. The poem feels more like a snapshot, which I think to be a good thing. I suggest putting more emphasis on that this is all in one place and you're kind of condensing it to that so it has this sort of isolated tone attached to it.

There wasn't really much emotion put into the poem but I didn't really where that would really fit into it, though the last two lines do carry a lot of emotional weight to them and I think if you incorporated those more perhaps like I said there would be a place for them. I also think that that would add to the poem in itself.

I hope I helped (I feel like I didn't because I'm no good at this so early in the morning Dx)!