A Writer's Afterlife

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This poem was the first of yours I've seen with actual consistent rhyming. At first, I thought it felt slightly more childish. But somehow I still had tears streaming down my face in the end.

Dare I say that I'm your biggest fan?

-DK

This poem was the first of yours I've seen with actual consistent rhyming. At first, I thought it felt slightly more childish. But somehow I still had tears streaming down my face in the end.

Dare I say that I'm your biggest fan?

-DK

Hello! Berri here for a review!! ﾟ.+:｡(≧∇≦)ﾉﾟ.+:｡

First, let me say something. This reminds me of Dear Evan Hansen. In a good way, of course, but the song "You Will be Found" with all the people in the background saying things like "I knew someone who really needed to hear this today," "Thank you," "Favorite," it resonated with me and I picked up some traces of that similar style here.

Second, I can relate to this. I want to be known for my words, and I really want to be known for who I am. The last four stanzas are what stood out to me the most, despite the amazing words above. They are what I feel, like as if I do have a destiny somewhere, but I need to reach out and grab it before I can find it, if that makes any sense at all. ＼（＾▽＾）／

But seriously, oh my gosh. this whole poem is amazing. The idea that someone can be touched by your words and storytelling is just so surreal for me. I haven't really done anything in my life, so it can be hard to believe that people are really connected and united, in the end.

Never stop writing and farewell!

Finally managed to get the formatting right! thanks to @alliyah for showing me the article on how to do it.
I also fixed a couple of typos, and, since you guys seem to prefer it, added punctuation.
Thanks so much to everyone for your patience!

This was just... I have no words! Oh my god! I don't have any words! Um...I can't find anything for you to fix! Oh my god!

Well, I love how different people stepped forward and each said the same thing except they were all for different reasons. "Your words" "Your words" "Your words" "Your words". I loved that because it seemed as if they were speaking as one, but still had their own voice. And I love how the speaker woke up and found that it was all just a dream and found that since people admired her work, she would write! That was just inspiring, since that's he only word I can think of that would describe this! Oh my god! If all of your future poems will be like this one in a way, I won't be able to wait to read more of your poems! Any poems you ave published in the future, just PM me, I'll know you wrote a new poem or story, anything of the like! Keep up the fantastical work!

Hey LJF! I'm stopping by to leave a short review. (Thanks for the tag by the way!)


Formatting & Consistency
There were a few places here and there that I thought could have been cleared up with a stanza break or a comma, although I'm reading below that you were having issues with the formatting stuff. This is super difficult to figure out on YWS, so I don't blame you for that! H

Here's an article on formatting that might help you out: How to Format Poetry

I would also recommend going through and reading each sentence within the poem, see if every sentence (not line) makes sense, and where additional punctuation marks may add clarity.

Your capitalization and general punctuation was clean and consistent though - so no critiques there, great job editing this piece to make it look polished. I'm wondering why you decided to center the poem [not as common as the left hand align] I think the rhyming you did would have stood out a bit more if aligned left, but the lines looked clean either way, so centered was probably just fine for this piece too.

Phrasing
I like that you took a sort of Revelations (epic, formal) language for this piece (as I began reading this I wondered if it would end in religious themes, although it took a turn in the end)- importantly, the language fits with what's happening, and I thought made it more intense especially with your use of short lines. Typically, I'm not a huge fan of using one or two word lines because it gets choppy and loses some poetic appreciation (hard to see assonance, or full phrasing mastery) - the rhyming you utilized does a lot to overcome some of the choppiness though.

A couple lines gave me pause for the phrasing/flow - and I'll mention them here (fully noting that this is nitpicky and may be a matter of personal observation or preference)

This line "To be worth of entry?”" -- Generally the phrase goes "To be worthy of" and because you end in a "ee" sound (entry) it makes the loss of the "worthy" ending stand out even more. I'd try to change to "To be worthy of entry" or "Making worth my entry".

The following line has no flow issues "I must be true" but I wonder if you meant "It" rather than "I" -- for some reason I don't understand how it makes sense in the context of the piece.

For a general phrasing comment that will help with flow - watch out repetition of sentence structure. ie. "I sat", "I ate" or "I did this" "I did that" - when this happens again and again it gets repetitive, readers get bored because it appears like nothing new is happening (even if the verb or noun is changing), and the flow begins to get choppy or awkward. In the first half of the poem there were quite a few lines starting in "I [verb] [word/phrase]" and this got repetitive for me - try mixing it up if possible.

I also don't think it's necessary to have the repetition of "It was you", "It was" and "your words" for me this was an awkward repeat and could have communicated the same if the word was just said once in italics - it'd be clear that it was repeated or said in unison by more than one person. Just a thought.

Overall Narrative & Theme

Generally I felt like I could follow the narrative or the story of the piece. Sometimes poems that are heavy in dialogue become difficult to follow, but apart from missing stanza breaks there wasn't too much issue in this one. Sometimes when critiquing a narrative poem I will point out what I see as lacking in the plot points (is there character, is there conflict, is there motivation, is there resolution) I feel like you actually established each of the general plot points, if there's one part I'd like a bit more specificity in it would be what happens at the very end of the poem and what about the words specifically helped the people that they read their work (was it inspiring, beautiful, counseling, something else?).

By the end of the poem I felt invested in what the narrator's ultimate outcome would be though -so you did a good job crafting the conflict in a way that will make reader's care and want to finish the poem.

The theme or story I read from this piece is that a writer is worried that they won't be remembered or their life will be insignificant, but as they imagine or experience the gates of death/eternal life they are met by many people who said they were touched by the writing the author produced. In the end the author decides their life is/was significant and that their purpose is truly to write. I was curious in the end if the author actually died and was writing in the afterlife, or if this was a vision and gave them renewed motivation to continue to write in life. The last line being "Begin to write" just made me a bit confused - but that doesn't necessarily take away from the overall message which I thought was clear and thoughtfully done.

Last Thoughts
Overall, this poem was really clean not a ton to critique - it told a nice clear story with a non-cliche theme. Your rhyming seemed natural, and the word choice was consistent as well as poetic and intelligent. I would have liked to see a few more poetic devices like assonance, alliteration, and metaphor being used to bring the poem up to another level - but the story you have here is clear and I think does the job the well.

If you have any questions about my review, feel free to ask! Or if I interpreted something differently than you intended, also feel free to draw my attention to it!

Have a great day,

alliyah

I wasn't sure whether or not to share this, but I decided, why not?

Thanks for sharing this very profound poem concerning an issue which concerns all serious writers. How will our words affect those who read them? Will they elevate the desperate into hopefulness? Will they sink them deeper into despair? Will we be accomplices in their plans to commit suicide, murder, infanticide theft or any other sinful things that make this earth a shit hole sometimes?

The poem dramatizes this very well by having the people who had been affected by his writing point accusatory fingers at him in a dream. Then we are told that he is surprised at their accusations since he didn’t imagine any of his writings would have that potential.

Now that is a bit hard to understand since we as writers usually give deep thought to the reason why we are writing. however, perhaps what we intended as a joke did have that effect on someone who took it seriously. Perhaps some readers don’t have the same sense of humor we do. Or perhaps they simply are inclined to do certain things and the slightest insinuation tips them over. Or maybe we were irresponsible and didn’t give what we write the required thought that every writer should. The speaker denies responsibility and the issue of whether he is sincere or not arises. After all, his eternal destiny is in question and when humans are under such duress they will do and say anything to escape.

Suggestions:

I would not capitalize the first letter of every new line.
I would follow the original couplet rhyming scheme all the way through.

Hey there! Hope you don't mind if I leave you a quick review.

Overall, I love this poem on what happens after a writer dies. The writer is only dreaming, but thinks that they have wasted their life away until certain people/souls tell them that their writing touched them, and that the writer did in fact make a difference. In the end, the writer wakes up to realize their dream to write and make a difference with their writing. I absolutely adored the meaning in this and the ending, because I often find myself afraid of pursuing creative writing at all. I was even once told by my 8th grade English teacher that i was foolish to want to pursue creative writing, because I most likely wouldn't be able to make a career out of it. Which, as long as I can touch someone, I don't really mind. So, your poem/story gave me some much needed inspiration. Thank you

My only suggestion is on changing the format to longer lines and broken into stanzas, maybe:

I stand at the gate
My soul in a fearful state
All lies stripped away
Deception has no sway

I shiver, wondering
If I shall be granted entrance
Or if I will be subjected
To eons of penance

I hear a call
Demanding honesty
“What have you done
To be worth of entry?”

Merely a dream

But it gave me clarity

On what I hope will be

My destiny