Young Writers Society

Hello there. KingQueenKnave here, an honest reviewer. With that honesty comes appreciation and a willingness to read others' works, and I do appreciate this work. There are many things to admire about this work, though I do not think it is immune from nitpicks.

Your stanzas are structured very similarly throughout, which exerts a cyclic tone to the work, which I can infer is about abuse of some description. If not physical, then mental abuse. The man in this scenario "did not meet her expectation", which implies some sort of agreement beforehand. Also, by presenting this abuse with metaphors of fire at the very end, you have used apt symbolism.

However, there are a couple of problems which arise from your poem. For a start, I found it incredibly predictable that, once again, the male was the abuser. It would have been unique and also sadly true if you had reversed the roles, for female on male abuse is much more common. Secondly, I feel that the narrator's retribution was highly disproportionate. Whilst I have no sympathy for the abuser, perhaps killing them- as is implied- is not the right answer to counter the abuse.

More generally, it felt like a typical romantic relationship gone sour and aside from some clever wordplay, it reads like most other poems expressing the same sentiments. Never mind.

Hullo. Here to review as requested!

I'm typing this out on a phone, so please ignore any odd typos and general phone-keyboard-related errors.

My main critique is probably going to be the inconsistency of images and ideas in the poem. I like the title, although I feel like the article (the) is weighing it down; you could snip it off, and it'd read much better.

'Emerald hair' is an odd description, mostly because my initial trail of thought was that emerald meant the stone, not the colour, and hair made from emerald is something that I doubt normal scissors can cut. Perhaps the usage of the word implies the fact that the narrator's victim's hair is precious to her, which is a nice play on words, but one that I feel doesn't really meld seamlessly into the piece (seeing as it evokes images of the stone, as I mentioned before. Also, setting emeralds on fire with apparent ease is something I view with great incredulity, even with the poetic licence you have to write the extraordinary!).

I feel like 'setting it on fire' only exists for dramatic emphasis; it doesn't strike as much of a chord with me as it should. It's also a line that I've seen so often that it's acquired a place in the cliché hall of fame. Flame imagery is beautiful, but try putting a spin on it--be creative.

So you tend to stick to ocean + fire metaphors throughout the poem, which is a neat internal juxtaposition, but the two metaphors fail to link hands. They don't flow into one another, so the contrast is grotesque, rather than a subtle indication of how her situation (fire) contradicts her true nature (the ocean). The poem meanders, seeks to return to its original point by means of repetition (as is the case in stanza two, with 'the (perpetrator) should have done this and that'.

I think, at its core, this poem talks about the earth; the two-way relationship of the planet + its inhabitants is really visible by the last stanza, and it's pretty obvious with the diction you've employed ('toxic', 'waste', and 'oil' being examples). It's a strong idea, but it just doesn't collate with the narrowed down image of a man and a woman that you've presented here--the earth possesses no human traits, nothing to strengthen the personification. What has been done, in effect, is that a message has been conveyed--it's simplistic, it's easy to understand, but the execution needs work. The poem is A) prosaic, with a sentence structure that would be stilted even in prose (look at the last stanza; it's a series of 'she (verb) to (him/object)'. It does not do nice things for the flow. Read this out loud to yourself and try to smooth this out.

Initially, the 'loss of her treasure/creatures' stuck out as very blatant to me--it's coarse, because I could not settle into the images it portrayed until I realised 'she' was the earth.

'wastes' + 'deaths'--the plurals aren't working for me. 'seeing death in her eyes' flows smoother; also, if humanity is 'feeling' the 'deaths', should this not imply empathy? And a readiness to change instead of continued blindness? Just something to mull over.

I feel like the poem focusses on appearances a lot, on man taking everything at face value--this ties into us taking the earth for granted? I'd like to move past hair and eyes, get into the real gritty business of lungs and teeth and claws. Explore this topic. Keep working on it. Try writing it from different angles. You've got the focus down, but don't let that focus hinder your execution and your ability to be subtle while getting a solid message across.

Keep writing! I hope this review helped.

~Pomp

Hey dear! Beautiful piece of penning. I love the po3try. So nicely you have carved your thoughts in words. Its a short story in this poem . The pain, the mourning, the feelings.. everything is so perfectly written. And the lasting words
"I'm dying because of you
and now you'll die because of me."
So much sensitivity AND it touched me.
Keep up the good work. Stay blessed !

Hello!
I really enjoy your poem! The message that is conveyed is absolutely beautiful, and I could not agree more with what you are trying to say through the words. The tone you set is perfect for this kind of poem, and I love the word choice you chose.

There are just a few grammar errors throughout the poem that I noticed;
"lost" should be loss in the first stanza.
In the second stanza, toxic is an adjective so it should have a noun following it.
In the third stanza, line six, "flowed" should be flow,
and finally, in the last stanza, there should be a comma between you of the fifth line, and 'and' of the last line.

Again, I really love your poem and what you are saying through it. I would really like to read more of your work!! I hope everything I have said here makes sense, but if it doesn't, just let me know! I would love to clear anything up that you don't understand. You are a truly gifted writer, and I can't wait to see what you will have in the future.

Thank you for giving me something beautiful to read!

-Amber