Young Writers Society

Hi Lib, Jade here to leave you a quick review on your work, "I'm me."

The beginning alone is a cute start to this poem, it shows us the way that our character is treated. People normally pinch babies' cheeks, not teenagers. It is kind of demeaning!


I like how you follow up with the age after, it kind of puts the character into perspective. Like, wow, she/he should not be treated like this.

Lastly, I find the ending to be a bit weak. You brought all these different devices together to create a picture, the ending feels a bit lackluster and underwhelming. Adding a bit more to it, keeping the past imagery, and giving us more of a punch towards the end would have been a bit nicer.

Either way, I did like this poem!

Jade

Hi Liberty! I like how this poem is short and effective. I would have liked it to flow a little more but overall you made your point clear!

Hey, there! I'm glad to see this poem. I like it. First off, I totally get the feeling of being annoyed when older people treat you in that way. Just...ugh! Also, sometimes people treat growing up like it's either some wonderful thing or a terrible demise, and it can be confusing. It doesn't seem often that people emphasize just reveling in the wonder of the present. It's awful to be compared to what you were as a child, and also awful to be held to what people think you should become as an adult. I like the perspective of this.

Your formatting is relaxed and informal but clear, so good job there. Other than that, I see no errors. Keep up the good work!

Hey Liberty!Anne here for a review.

The emotions you've poured in your short poem, make it deeply relatable. The plead to identify your uniqueness appeals to me.
I'd like to highlight some lines and my opinions on them.

if i’m sixteen years old,
i’m sixteen years old
and that’s that.

i’m just me
and i want to be me.

Hey there, @Liberty! I'm here to review your work.

I saw that this poem was based on a line that came from your novel; I can definitely see the inspiration. Even though I might not be one of your characters, however, I found this poem deeply relatable. Talking about age with relatives is a strange thing - I know mine alternate between commenting on how much I've grown and forgetting how old I am.

Your poem did a great job capturing that first scenario. I love the image the first four lines bring to mind - it's a cliche one, but it's used a lot for a reason. I especially like it because you turned it on its own head. Rather than focus on the growth of the speaker, you put the emphasis on their irritation of having that growth addressed. It's also interesting because that trope is usually meant to show a character's discomfort with interacting with relatives they haven't seen in awhile - not their discomfort over having their age discussed.

I feel like your poem could theoretically be longer, but short poems are always good! Out of all of the lines in it, I think my favorites are:

i’m not old,
i’m not young.
i’m just me

Hi Liberty. Shade here to review your poem today!

I can relate to this poem a lot, so it was really nice to see the feelings that I have translated into words. I also liked the fact that it was so short. Don't get me wrong, I love longer poems. In fact, my favorite poem is The Highwayman, and that one's pretty long. It's just sometimes it's nice to read a short little poem.

When you said
"if i’m sixteen years old,
i’m sixteen years old"
It wasn't immediately clear what you were trying to say so I'd consider making that a little clearer, but other than that I didn't see any problems.

Keep writing!
-Shade

Hi Liberty! Haraya here with a review.

First of all, the message of your work is clear. It's about ageism. The speaker doesn't like characterizing themselves based on their age. It's an interesting message that many will relate to.

The lines were interesting to me because they were full of character. However, I'm sorry if this is how I see it but your work sounds dry. I might say it's almost like prose. One way to see this is remove the line breaks and write them in sentences. If the message is almost exactly the same without them, your work tends to sound more prosaic than poetic. I believe that while poetry may carry an experience of a writer, it must also be an experience to the reader, which is normally done through figurative language. I suggest use imagery, similes, metaphors, or maybe even hyperbole to make your poem more powerful.

I'm sorry if I sounded a little too harsh. I hope my review has been constructive nonetheless. Best of luck to you in your future works!

Review for you!
This is relatable. I saw this in the green room, so i thought why not. I am not gonna lie, poetry is not really my forte. I apologise if my review is not very helpful. The poem is great that is for sure, i don't really see anywhere to improve. i do think you could change this: "i didn’t like that adults" to "i don’t like that adults" as the poem seems to be in past tense. other than that its great. keep up the good work!
thanks