Young Writers Society

Hey! ChocolateCello here!

Okay, so I've only gotten a chance to skin the previous two reviews but they seem to have covered content pretty well (Correct me if I'm wrong) So I'm just going to point out some non-content things (What that word- Ugh.)

You have a lot of things that look like "Egyptian lives,Sudanese lives". Comma's go right up against the end of the first word, then there's a space, then the second word. (ex;Egyptian lives, Sudanese lives) Make sure to fix this. Having this mistake consistently through out the work looks childish and unprofessional, pushing away readers.

Another thing, keep an eye on your exclamation count. Exclamation points can be good, yes, but too many makes the writer look overly excited and uncaring about their work. Again, something that can push away readers.

You have a lot of lowercase 'i's too. Yet another thing that looks unprofessional. When I'm looking for something to review I check
-The title. Does it sound interesting?
-The first two lines of the work. Is it written well?
-The general grammar/punctuations. Can this author write properly?

This work easily meets my first two standards but not the last one. As I skimmed before reading the exclamation points, lower case 'i's and improper spacing around the commas almost sent me back to the poetry tab to look for something else to read. I see these mistakes and think 'This author obviously hasn't had a lot of experience, this writing won't be any good.' Now, I was wrong here, this poem was amazing, but the minor mistakes you made throughout it might loose a bit of your audience.

Keep up the good work!
-ChocolateCello

thank you all for your advise. actually, i didn't think i was doing poetry and thats why i joined YWS.

Hey LINO,

So I came to this thinking it was going to be a little silly because of the title, which is a very melodramatic title. However, I really quite like it. The absolute first thing you need to work on is your punctuation though. Your commas are all over the place and I think you're being a bit too liberal with your exclamation marks. You also don't have to capitalise every line, but that one is really up to you in the end. Capitalising or not doesn't change how we read the poem, though the punctuation does.

What might also help is some formatting. I'm not sure if you had stanzas before you posted the work here, but I think this poem would really really benefit form some clearly delineated stanzas. Particularly in your 'chorus' sections, doing so would give your poem much more impact and seem a lot less like a big chunk of writing.

I'm really into the imagery you have going here and the conversational tone you've chosen to use. There's nothing wrong with your content at all and I think you've done well to express it the way you have. I do think that last line is utterly unnecessary. Your poem isn't threatening or even hugely negative, so that as your final line really feels out of place and needless. Your list of things you envy, of the beautiful things in the world giving purpose and the like is well done and effective. We can definitely feel the emotion you're going for and it is working well.

My suggestions would be to format this in stanzas, mind your punctuation and consider dialling back the melodrama a little. You don't need it here, your message and your passion are coming through really well. Nice work.

Thanks for posting.
- Penguin.

Hi. Happy Review Day~

First off, you have a typo in the title. c: 'Critism' ought to be spelled 'criticism'.

Secondly, I'm going to talk about capitalisation. Normally, I don't touch upon capitalisation in poetry seeing as it is an artistic choice, unless I have any suggestions as to how capitalising/not capitalising might help improve the piece. However, I noticed that while everything else in this piece is capitalised at the beginning of the verse, some of your 'i's are not. I would assume the 'i' has been left lowercase to convey the insignificance of the narrator or so on, but this isn't consistent, and it actually stands out quite a bit. Take a look at this article for more on capitalisation in poetry.

Third, I think the message of this poem could be delivered better if the narrator adopted a less enthusiastic and slightly more subtle tone--an atmosphere to echo the poem's matter, you know? Besides this, I feel as though the poem failed to strike a chord with me because it was a bit on the dramatic side--it's hard to take it seriously. I do not understand who the narrator is addressing either. Perhaps this is obtuse of me, but the poem jumps around quite a bit from concept to concept. It seemed to be talking of imprisonment in this world, at first, before moving on the Nile and how looking at it the narrator is filled with envy? Do they wish for a life more similar to the free-flowing fashion of the river? What is the poem trying to say? Cut down on the fat, choose a concept to deliver, and build up on a constant. A constant is what I refer to as imagery that treads along similar paths, like when you're talking about flying, you employ imagery that is somehow connected to flight or clouds or the sky or remaining airborne. Little things like that.

Basically, try narrowing the vision down so it doesn't seem as broad and scattered. Zoom into the picture and deliver.

Hope this helped. PM me if you have any questions~

~Pomp c:

Nice poem. I like how you pictured the world in it.

I'm gonna review this tom on review day, but its a real great poem.