From a world where every wrong step
would trigger an earthquake, we escape.
Into the shadow. Into the world where sight
is meaningless, where whispers are songs
shaking our hearts, where we treat touches
like stolen kisses.
In that world we dance. Our every step
rebels, signifying the release of our beasts
from their cages. But we are careful.
The scars behind our backs are whispers
behind our necks, warning us each time
we almost cross the boundaries set
by the world where light provides sight
(because we can never be free when,
born into the world, our feet are in shackles).
When the moon falls to give way to the sun,
This euphoria expires, and we flee to our prisons.
On the street, we do not look at each other;
we do not pass each other;
we do not call each other’s name.
In public, we are strangers, subjected to judgment
of people wearing wigs and holding hammers.
We are never ourselves under the daylight,
just skeletons having breaths.
As the clock ticks, we wait for our next dance,
the only thing giving us reason to live.
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139,382 Literary Works • 672,542 Reviews
Hi!
Ok so starting off this piece, you had an amazing first two lines. I loved them! They really drew the reader in and kept attention, which is hard to do. I liked the piece as a whole. I thought the ideas of a hidden and forbidden relationship, whether it be love or friendship.
The flow was also very strong. It was easy to read and follow along with. There weren't very many places where I stumbled to follow a line. The only structural thing I would work on is the capitalization. I know its purely stylistic and your choice, but there was one line in the 3rd stanza that confused me a bit.
"When the moon falls to give way to the sun,
This euphoria expires, and we flee to our prisons."
When you have the line after the comma, you capitalized, while you used lowercase letters in the other lines like this. That's really the only issue I had with the piece and its not even that big of a deal!
Overall, I think this piece is really strong. I love the word choice and the imagery. Keep up the good work!!
-E
This is Nikayla here dropping in for another review at the end of Review Day!
So the flow here in this piece is stronger than usual, which I enjoy. I don't see this as being dragged on for too long or being cut too short, and I'm surprised I didn't see this earlier on. This is a winner, is the first real comment I want to make, Light. The imagery and symbolism here is smart, though I do suggest that you play around with the emotional impact that you want to leave here as well as the punctuation that you use (which I have to admit is off at points in the piece though I believe those spots could be fixed with general refining and editing if you decide to do).
The imagery in this piece is fluent, and I believe that in this piece you've mastered the balance between imagery and brevity. It's not too much imagery, and it's also not cut too little. Sometimes in your poetry I find verbosity which is a re-occurring flaw of yours, but I didn't find that here. This is quite the pleasant read, and I believe this is to date, my favorite poem that you've written.
Experiment and edit. If you have any questions, don't be afraid to ask! I hope I helped and have a great day.
Really nice imagery throughout Lightsong. I also like the consistency of this piece, you don't throw every metaphor in the book at the reader. You chose a few concepts/themes (love and light and dark and hiding and dancing) and you kept it throughout the whole piece, which I really appreciate!
Let me know if you have any questions about my review!
The first two lines are perfection:
"From a world where every wrong step
would trigger an earthquake, we escape."
for some reason the next line gave me a little pause because I think the phrase is normally "we go into the shadows" with "shadows" plural. But it's really still grammatically correct to just say we go into the shadow, it just makes me wonder what the specific unit that is casting darkness is in this piece. (Shadows plural might be referring to shadows or darkness in general, but keeping it singular makes me as the reader want to search out this one specific source of conflict.)
I really liked the way you built up stanza 3 as well. You can just see these "lovers" running, away in the moonlight (super romantic set-up) and then you explain they're "prisoners" (metaphorically speaking I'm assuming), they can't look at each other, and they don't even call to each other. And you just turn all of the reader's expectations about this couple around and make them question the preceding stanzas.
I think the only real piece of criticism I have is that I don't think the source of the conflict "judgment of people wearing wigs and holding hammers" is specific enough. I want to know exactly why these two are so afraid to be seen together or to love each other. Is it just the judgement of others? And if they love each other why does that judgement matter?
While certainly not all of those questions need to be answered within the poem, I think a little more insight into the source of the conflict would bring the reader into the piece more and give them more sympathy for the characters.
There's a few pieces of capitalization that I questioned here and there, but nothing super distracting. For instance "this" is capitalized after "When the moon falls to give way to the sun," which ended in a comma. I think the other instances where you capitalized partial sentences following periods made sense though, because it added drama and was done more than once so made it seem more purposeful.
Overall, it was an enjoyable piece to read!
Best,
~alliyah
What's this? A poetry review from outvaders? Whoaaaaaa!
Hey, Light, it's ya boi outvaders here. Let's start with the hook.
I feel like I have to criticize the word "review" here. It has that kind of connotation to it that's like, you have to look for flaws. You have to nitpick as hard as you can for any seams in the work. And when you find one, you just rip it apart like that in front of the author's face. I've started off YWS with a perception of the word like that, and it's stayed that way for a long time. To be honest, I'm sick of it. It's exhausting. So this time, I'm not going to "review," or whatever the hell that means in this site. To be more specific, I'm going to take this piece as it is and simply analyze it. I will just gently dissect it, then fanboy over the inner beauty it holds.
I'll just en-spoiler this bad boy so that I don't spoil other readers' reading experiences :^)
Spoiler
Let's start with the dramatic situation. The persona and their partner escape from their turbulent world and enter a new a whole new world. There, they dance. However, they are cautious whenever they do so, because they are reminded by the scars on their back. Upon sunrise, their dance ends. Whenever they cross each other on the street, they pretend as if they do not know each other. As time moves forward, they await the time when they can dance once again. It's good to take note that they do this regularly, as implied by the use of present tense here.
The persona, well, most of the things about them are mentioned in the DS. Other than that, their only reason to live is their partner. Whenever they dance, the persona says they're cautious, implying underlying conflict in their relationship, even as they dance. Even though they can escape into their world, they are never really free, as mentioned the last two lines of the second stanza. Another important detail here is that they are "subjected to judgement of people wearing wigs and holding hammers." Although the genders of the persona and their partner are not disclosed, I'm going to guess and say that they are gay. Homosexual. I'll explain later.
Based on the context of the poem, I'd say that the tone of the persona is sad in general. To be more specific, it sounds as if they're longing for something. Like they're aching and hungry but unsatisfied.
This poem is free-verse. No rhyme scheme, irregular syllable count per line, unequal number of lines per stanza. I'd say this fits the Dionysiac nature of the poem's story.
I'd say the topic of this poem is forbidden romance. The persona and their partner are subject to the judgement of other people; they are even mistreated for that (the scars). So they escape into their own little world when the night falls. And when the day comes, they are seen by everyone, so they hide their true nature until night falls once again. Then once again, they can dance.
But! It's not just any kind of forbidden love in general; it's homosexuality. What gave this away is the last line of the third stanza, where it mentions that they are "subjected to judgement of people wearing wigs and holding hammers." Those two items are synecdoches used to represent court judges. That means the two characters of the poem have sinned against the law. Connect that to the scars on their back, which may represent punishment doled out by the law. Then connect that to your background as a Malaysian. Malaysia actually has laws against sodomy; they whip and imprison anyone caught having oral or anal secks. When you look at the bigger picture with this in mind, it starts to make sense. The persona and their partner are actually homosexuals that have been punished by the law because they were caught in sodomy.
Due to being oppressed by the law, these homosexuals find refuge in the night. The night, in my opinion, represents a place that is secret. You can't see much things in the night. There they "dance," or just spend time with each other in general, which are things they couldn't do in the day. However, they are cautious. The scars on their back remind them of the times where they almost crossed the boundary, or the law. That means they're taking care not to break the law again. But they're still loving each other, of course.
Their "dance" ends at dawn, in which they part ways emotionally. At that point they are empty husks that could only do nothing but wait for the dusk. Then, their dance begins again. I'd like to note the meaning behind the circular timeline here. It shows how the suffering someone involved in a forbidden romance has to go through. It hurts to be an outcast of society because the way you love is unusual and sinful in the eyes of society. In order to continue loving, you have to endure this pain again and again and again and again. There doesn't seem to be an end to this persecution either.
So I think the message of this poem is:
"Due to the persecution of their law, Malaysian homosexuals are forced to express their romantic feelings in secret."
I added that Malaysian bit in because you're M'sian, and why else would you create a poem of lawful persecution against homosexuality in another country? It's pretty illogical.
Anyways, that is the end of my analysis. Hopefully I haven't triggered anyone around lol. I also hope that you enjoyed reading some of my insights on this poem, just like I have enjoyed making this review. If I were to comment on the quality of this poem, I would say it's pretty solid. Metaphorical language and deep meanings galore, baby.
Thanks for reading, and I'll see you again in one of your works!
-autbeyders
Thanks for the review! The scars part wasn't intended to be taken literally, actually, I just think it represents well the others' reaction to them being gay.
AUEHSISJENEUDHEJR I GOT IT RIGHT
But yeah I interpreted it that way cause it's there :^)
I have a question though. Feel free to not answer if you're not comfortable with it:
Do you advocate for LGBT rights?
Of course yes, since I myself is part of LGBT.
that's very nice
no really gay people are very nice guys in my experiences (and very funny and loved too) so I have a good streak with them. no wonder why you're so good to me lol. best of wishes in your LGBT-advocating-adventures-thingy
Bittersweet and heartfelt. And full of duality. Let's explore it.
The meaning(s) and inferential material could come more easily to me given that I've lived this through, but the concepts of hidden romance and forbidden love, be it romantic, sensual, or sexual, are well-entwined here and well-coated. In fact, the issues I found with nuance were in regards to the bitterness to the judgmental world. There's such a switch and heavy lay-on of negatives without respite that it makes it easy to lose the intended subtlety of the contrast, taking from the melancholy of the piece.
But back to the beginning. The descriptive language here is very smooth and sensual and gives the poem a nice mouth-feel when read aloud, also evoking the perfect scene that you're building without being explicit; though it can also just be read as a romantic exchange. Both interpretations are good to read, and enjoyable given the context. I'm curious/half-curious regarding 'scars behind our backs' instead of 'scars on our backs' given that'd be more accurate and a better reading. The same goes with 'skeletons having breaths' where 'praying for' or 'stealing' would be more emotive.
In general, a very nice read and a very smooth narrative. Experiment with the sun stanzas to bring them in a bit.
Hope this helps,
Ty
OMG IT'S LUMI OMG. o:
Thanks for the review! Can you please explain this
because it's too smart for my little brain. u.u'
I just mean that it's a bit heavy-handed with the negative description when a bit of nuance could do wonders.
Hmm, what is nuance tho. :/
It's...subtlety and undertone that gives a hint of another meaning or value to the words in your writing. A comparison would be, in cooking, a small dash of nutmeg giving an apple pie a nuanced flavor as it contrasts the abundant other spices you've added to the recipe.
Ooh, I see now. Thanks! I'm not good with subtlety. ^^'