Young Writers Society

Heyyyy
So you asked for a review on this way back in September, and I sorta completely forgot about it till now sooo here I am.

Okay, so I think the main problem I have with this poem is its cliche-ness. Most of the images that you relied on in this poem are cliche. I've read them so many times. Shattering, angels/demons, various injuries or pain, putting dramatic things in italics, Nightmares, scars... All these things are pretty cliche to me on their own, but I can overlook them if they're on their own. But all of them thrown together in the same poem? Add onto that a sort of sense of vague-ity about what's really going on (like, I get that someone came back and we didn't like them then and we don't like them now, but I as a reader don't really understand /why/ we don't like them or why or how they're causing us this very vague pain described as needles, but is this person really stabbing needles into your heart?).

I also get from all this cliche-ness a sort of feeling like you're just trying to be poetic, and so you're writing in a way that you think is poetic, all dramatic and feelings, but I think poetry is really about capturing concrete images that in turn capture emotions. You have some concrete images, but in general, they were cliche, and your other images were all muddled, and not very concrete at all, but more abstract, "it's all in my mind" sort of images.

Also clunkiness. I agree with past reviewers about the poles lines being clunky, and some of the other lines, when read aloud, just don't really sound nice or flow well.

I hope this helped!
Let me know if you have any questions, and Keep writing!
~fortis

Hi Lightsong!

I'm Elinor, and I'm here to give you a quick review. I think that this is a really interesting poem, and that it has the potential to be really great. You're a good writer and I think your descriptions so far are strong. But I agree with Meandbooks in that I don't think this is quite there yet.

I think where you lost me the most is that this does not feel very poetic. Your descriptions are full and rich but, as I said, at the expense of a poetic flow. Take, for example, this line:

let you be at at the North Pole where you belonged,
and I would recover at the South Pole where I belonged.

Hey there, I'm here to review this piece you've written.

I love the first Stanza, someway it kinda grasped my attention so good going keep this up.
Maybe in the second stanza could have more description of this Angelic and Demonic laughter.
Third Stanza,

I could only think of and feel pain
when they hit me at the part
that was never healed.
My wounded heart had
no hope left.

Hey there! I'm here for a quick review on this interesting piece.

So, I call this piece interesting, because I can see you've got the makings of a great poem here. But I don't think it's quite there yet, and I'll just give you a few pointers.

There are parts of this that I love, where the imagery is great - the "fragile as a melting candle" for instance, is a really nice image. However, a lot of this was a bit too much telling. There are lots of rather passive verbs, like "I was surprised" or "I realized then that your eyes." Instead, have that happen during the poem. Say something like "but in the shadows your eyes still sparkled/ with the mischief that had birthed my past hells."

During the second half of the fifth stanza, when the narrator succumbs, have that be immediate as well, so we can feel the pain. Random example: "but flesh can be mortally wounded/and your needles passed my pain threshold." Basically, take out things like "eventually" and other words that distance the event from the reader. You want it up close and personal, so the reader can feel what the narrator feels.

You had changed from bad to good
and yet you didn't learn from your
horrible past mistakes - why?