Young Writers Society

Good Morning/Afternoon/Evening/Night(whichever one it is in your part of the world),

Hi! I'm here to leave a quick review!!

Anyway let's get right to it,

Hello...I don't normally review poetry but Checklist Challenge, so here I am. Sorry If I can't really go into anything too technical since I'm not that familiar with poetry but I'll try to give my impressions here.

So right away, there's definitely something that makes this stand out so much from normal poetry with the way this is all just texts here. I think it certainly instantly gets your attention, that title there certainly helps although to me it sounds a tiny bit too long. I like the vibe the title provides but its just seems like its a bit too much of a mouthful.

Moving onto the piece itself. I love how this seems to work on about three different levels depending on how many times you read it. The first time there's just that relatability of when you've been up till four am and you're spamming texts that make absolutely no sense except to you at that hour. So there is that mild sense of almost humor sneaking in there, but then the moment you read through it with a bit more attention and try to visualize where this person is coming from, there's immediately a deep dive into a much darker place.

You get the sense of a person who is looking at life and themselves and not really liking what they see. You get almost something of a want for approval, followed by something that seems like disappointment at not getting a reply but also just this person reflecting on how they think their life has led to a point they don't really like it.

And then we come to that last bit, which is perhaps almost the punchline to the more humorous moment of this, and you wonder if this person was reduced into that drunk state by whatever hurt they were speaking of earlier, and you suddenly get another hit of just how down this person must be.

All in all, this really seems to hide a powerful message there between what at first glance seems to be pretty innocent and random. I think its a beautiful piece.

Aaaaand that's it for this one.

As always remember to take what you think was helpful and forget the rest.

Stay Safe
Harry

Hi, LadyBug. Happy Review Month!

I really like how this poem is structured. The way that it's formatted as texts is super cool! I also like how each line is broken up like the narrator isn't really thinking; everything is just spilling out of their mind. The acronyms also felt pretty realistic.

I would like to see some more imagery, like @liyah suggested because it would make the poem feel a little more gut wrenching.

Overall, I enjoyed reading this. The tone is melancholic, and the time the texts happen add to it. The second and third lines hit the hardest. They're my favorite lines.

Best,
Valkyria

Hey LadyBug!
I actually love these poems you've been putting out - they're unique and honest and quite a bit heart-catching. The other version of this that you posted had the image load for me, so I wonder if it's just some devices that were facing an issue; either way I can see this one fine as well.

Some Thoughts:

form
Overall I like the form - little details I especially like were the sort of non-linguistic ones - like the words almost being cut off at the end so the reader has a sense of continued conversation.

The screen name and battery light almost being out too add to the tone / emotion of the poem too.

consistency
I'm a big proponent of minimal punctuation / capitalization especially when it conveys a mood or theme better. I do think however that using apostrophes are not a piece of punctuation I'd skip unless you're going to eliminate them altogether or show a progression of getting "more drunk / discombobulated" but since you use them in your final "text" I think they ought to just be used throughout. Two you missed "i wonder if thats" <- should be "that's" and then "its 4:11 am" <- should be "it's". Hopefully that makes sense! Just my opinion too - so if you think the scattered grammar conveys the lost mood a bit more I get you; I'd just amplify it more like taking out the apostrophes towards the end too.

message
The overall mood of the poem that I get really goes with the second line of being lonely and desperate - I get the sense that the narrator is desperately trying to reach out to someone and unfortunately they are even alone within themselves (conveyed by the not remembering they sent these messages and the second guessing) - which is an especially tricky place to be. I feel like this just expresses maybe a feeling / conversation that I lot of people have looped through in such a succinct heart breaking way that a lot of people will resonate with it.

One aspect of the theme that isn't explored a ton but I did want to highlight because it certainly caught my eye were the lines, "i'm not mature like all the older men promise" - that line made me straight up pause and really caught me. There's something very honest and vulnerable about that concept that isn't explored all too much - but I think is getting at that idea of older men who try to smooth talk younger women by saying that the girls are "really mature for their age" and in a bitterly ironic way take advantage of their youth / inexperience - and then the victim of that manipulation is left self-blaming when it doesn't work out. Reading into it a bit there; but can relate to having been in that situation / having friends in that situation too. And that line you give sort of encapsulates so much of the angst about that so succinctly it ends up being poetic; I'd love to see you explore that theme more. But as a whole I think the emotions and ideas you're expressing will resonate with a lot of people.

suggestions
For such a short piece I think the themes were a little bit going in different directions we've got sort of themes of unresolved love, loneliness, lostness, self-doubt, being overwhelmed, even at the center of the poem verging on wondering about living - and I can see how those all can connect, but you don't connect them too much in the poem itself, it kind of loops from thought to thought. Ways to connect them would maybe to use some sort of thematic repetition or reduce how many directions the poem is going so it feels a bit more focused. I think that will make the poem feel more impactful too.

There are a few lines that feel "poetic" to me - like the repetition of the time as almost a "refrain" or "anaphora" tool; which focuses the poem and makes it feel like it's both moving forward and looping in circles, and the repetition of the word "wondering" as well as the line I pointed out earlier "I'm not as mature as the older men promise me" which functions a bit like an allusion or something that says just a little but points to a bigger whole. I think using a few more traditional poetic elements like little sprinkles of imagery or figurative devices would bring this poem to the next level!

Hope some of that helps! Thanks for posting, looking forward to reading more of your work. Let me know if you had any questions about my review.


~ alliyah

(PS: Happy Review Month!)