In My Mind

Wow...just wow. You know, I don't get how people express themselves so well in short pieces...I can't. This piece was beautiful and insightful. I actually find myself relating to the piece as I too use my mind as an escape...that and my poetry. You put everything into easy to understand concepts and made the poem still have a deep meaning.

This was my favorite line: You can escape to your mind, it's a shelter from reality.

Hi LadyAstella, first off welcome to Young Writers Society! I'm thrilled that you've joined our community here, and am excited that you're already posing poetry -which is one of my favorite areas of the site.

So, I'm here to provide a little review - I'll be using the "YWS Critique Sandwich" which is sort of the standard form around here for reviewing although really the main thing is providing honest feedback to the author and working on improvement which can come in any form! Let's get started!

The Top Piece of Bread : Initial Impressions - What do I notice first?

So the very first think I noticed is that this is written in prose formatting - meaning that there aren't any line-breaks at the ends of phrases but the poem forms a paragraph. That makes an immediate impression because often people expect poems to be narrow strips of lines aligned to the left, but this bursts their expectations. For a reader, when I see a prose poem I often expect - ok this will be stream of consciousness writing or narrative poetry. It looks like this one is "stream of consciousness" meaning the action of the poem mostly happens in the narrators head. Nice.

If you ever want to add line breaks into a poem -> this article will help you with the YWS posting system which can be a pain: Formatting Poetry on YWS

The second thing I noticed right away is that your grammar, punctuation, and capitalization choices were consistent. This really made the piece seem polished.

Meat : The Critique - What can be improved?
My main critique for this poem, is actually a compliment - I wanted more!

After reading I still had some questions, what is the narrator trying to escape? What exactly do they do when they escape in their mind? And how does all of that relate to purpose and the meaning of life?

So mainly, I'd love to see you develop some of the connections in this poem! Build up the story and ideas you have here, and really delve into this character and story you're telling.

My second critique is I'd love to see some more poetic devices used.
Prose poetry is notoriously difficult to make "Poetry-Sounding" - meaning it's hard to make a prose poem that's written in paragraph form, have good flow, sound, and poetic language. The best way to fix this issue is to use poetic devices. For instance having a little repetition (repeating the same word or theme) or alliteration (beginning words with the same letter) and using metaphors can really make your poem shine.

You did use the metaphor of a "shelter" for the mind, which is a great start because there's so much you can do with that image, but developing it out a little more, describing the shelter - even in physical aspects will engage the ideas more.

If you're having any trouble coming up with ways to use poetic devices, this article on YWS has a good quick run-down on some of them: Secret Treasures to Poetic Devices

Last Bread : Praise and Meaning

I interpreted the meaning of this poem to be that the speaker is sort of lost emotionally and mentally wondering what they're doing in the world, and at the same time there are all these outside pressures pushing against them. And so in order to preserve themselves form these pressures but also the simple monotony of the day like getting lost in details like lunch - they decide to escape to the safe place of their mind. Then the speaker suggests this as a way that others can save themselves, and that this might actually be life-saving in the end.

An interesting philosophical treatise that introduces new ideas and profound thoughts, but in a way that connects them together. It reminded me actually of some Buddhist Philosophy texts that I've encountered about controlling the mind to control your reality. Interesting thoughts!

I think you most succeeded in the making a clear conflict in the piece (the outside reality) and also engaging critical thinking for both the narrator and the reader. The reader is forced to consider their own reality and the abilities of their mind in reading this piece, which is great - you don't just address people "theoretically" like "one might consider this..." but you seem to address the speaker personally. Like I said earlier I'm really curious as to how you might develop this piece into a longer evaluation of the mind versus the physical reality we experience and how those thoughts relate to purpose.

Overall, this was an excellent example of a prose-poem and I look forward to seeing whatelse you write in the future!

Please let me know if you have any questions about my review, or reviewing, or finding your way around YWS or if you ever just want to chat. I'm one of the moderators around here, so I like helping out and chatting with anyone who'd like to!

Best,

~alliyah

Also if you need the code for the Review Sandwich:

Thanks for sharing this composition about how we might escape a bitter reality by retreating into a fantasy worked created by our minds. I like the introduction of the composition since it draws me in pesonally as a reader and forces me to ponder. In my case the answer was yes, I have asked myself that question. The answer I received was a biblical one found in the book of Ecclesastes chapter twelve.

Ecclesiastes 12:13 NIV
Now all has been heard; here is the conclusion of the matter: Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the duty of all mankind.

Hi there. I'm not sure if you want this piece reviewed, but in any case, I'll do my bit.

I have, what is our purpose?

I believe this to be a bit untrue, as if an alternate reality. It is no shelter but a portal of darkness