This is a poem to YWS and all its members. <3
Feel free to drop any feedback you want to, it does need improvement!
I saw a silver-speck bright
in the dark, dreary night;
The light of a forge, a
dream-spinners' den,
Where the wordsmiths of ages
forge the tales untold.
From dark, dancing shadows
to an ocean of light;
What change, what bliss,
What wild, wondrous chance
to find such a strength
in the dread, dreamless night!
'Tis the city of the stars,
Wrought white with words;
The world-weavers' realm,
And the land of my peace.
________________________
From hot, striking fires
where blooded books are born,
To the House of the Bards,
Where our songs are sung;
From green-cloaked guardsmen,
The knights in the night,
To the shivery swift waters
of fast-flitting tales:
I wander in a daze,
Drinking in the sights,
And pausing in my passing
to pluck the fruits of my choice.
________________________
Here do the artists
dream in sanctums sweet,
Creating the orenda
that sets the world alight.
This is where the sparks will fly,
This is where the blaze begins.
This is the city of fantasies,
This is where new wisdom springs.
________________________
A haven, or high heaven?
It's where we revel in reveries;
A trance, a stupor, a drug
to our release.
All we do is wander
through the heavy-perfumed air,
Breathing in the flavours
of soft, sweet ecstasy.
________________________
We are the flames
in a deathly-dreamless night,
We are the gems,
Tinted and burnished bright;
We are Athena's owls,
And the bearers of light.
Never snuffed, never caged,
Never stopped by darkling rage;
We are the world-weavers,
And the dismal night's dreamers.
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Canary word: Present
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125,028 Literary Works • 672,774 Reviews
Hi LittleLee!
It's ReviewMonth so I suppose I should actually clean up my WRFF thread ay?
I am notoriously slow at getting my WRFF poems reviewed, but alas, I am here!
So first a couple notes on Form & Capitalization
In poetry you're always welcome to capitalize however you think best portrays poetic meaning, though some capitalization trends are going to be better / worse at that. I generally advise though if you're trying out unconventional capitalization to at least be consistent in what you choose to do.
To that end, there were a few places you were inconsistent in your capitalization scheme - I couldn't figure out whether you were trying to capitalize at the beginning of each sentence, or after periods & semi-colons or what quite you were doing. Sometimes you capitalized after commas, sometimes you didn't, and the same with semi-colons as well. You also didn't necessarally place periods and commas where they would fall grammatically, but seem to be putting extra ones in for pauses perhaps.
On form - you did a terrific job keeping your lines all about the same length (this goes a long way in making a poem sound more flowy and also just ends up looking more organized and polished generally) for a rhyming poem flow is especially important, so I think that was well thought out. I felt like you could either use more stanza breaks or less - because right now you've got two very giant ones and then a bunch of mini ones, and they don't necessarally break in places that seem super significant. Taking a second look at some of those little formatting things will make your poem even more polished.
Meaning
The meaning of the poem seemed to be a big metaphor about the writings and writers of YWS! I loved that you sort of elevated the common thing of serenading your friends, into something a little more imaginative with the metaphor element. You also brought the poem from observational to personal by changing to the "we" voice in that last stanza! That was really sweet because it showed how the speaker fits into the community as well. This was really a well-writ ode to the site and I think a whole lot of people can appreciate the sentiments your sharing of how so many people come together (like stars in the sky!) to create something absolutely beautiful!
I also liked the little specifically yws-details like the note about "knights" and also "sanctum" which used to be an SB thing (I don't know if you knew and were purposely referencing that one) other things that might be fun to weave in would be a reference to maybe the "spotlight" and maybe even work in "reviewing" a bit in there? just for some ideas!
Word Choice
Wow! LittleLee, you have quite the eye for word choice! I'm not always a fan of the sort of archaic / formal / olde-language vibe, but I think you did it really well, and managed to weave in enough imagery and interesting words that it didn't feel difficult to get through the language that would be a bit more formal than a lot of us are used to reading. The word-choice you used gave the poem a sort of elevated reading experience too, and I think will make readers take the content seriously just from the words / phrasing. Also for a poem about writers I think you can get away with being a little over-the-top in your language usage!
I think the moments of the poem I liked best were when you would place two sort of unexpected adjectives together to create a more vivid image than if just one was there -> you do this quite a lot in your poem, and even though that felt a little repetitive at times, I think it created a sort of cadence and beat to the piece too -
^here you even give us a little alliteration to weave the sentence together! I would love to see even more alliteration and maybe even some word-play (yep, I'm thinking puns!) throughout the piece, since I think it highlights the "speaker is a writer, who is writing about writers" theme.
Continuity
An aspect for improvement is that final stanza sort of has some negative images in it and almost feels like you're ending on a sad note?
For instance, "We are the word-weavers and the dismal night's dreamers" can be read as those who dream while the night is dismal, or we are the ones who dismally dream during the night. And I think what you're trying to get at is the users bring light to the dark, but that final sentence doesn't quite sell it to me. I think you could bring up the writing aspect again at the very end even more clearly than "world-weavers".
Overall this is definitely a feel-good poem to read and has a sense of great awe and appreciation from it. It was a good read and a lovely tribute to the site! I hope you keep poeting!
Let me know if you had any questions about my review ~ happy RevMo!
~ alliyah
Thank you so much for the review, alliyah!
About the capitalization, I think you're right; I didn't follow a pattern, just did it whenever it felt right to me.
Everything else was really useful, so thanks again!
Your imagery and style are captivating. Glad to see this in the spotlight—the likes are well-deserved.
Thank you, Kassiani! That's very kind of you to say <3
Cow here! Hello, hello! That was backward but hey, let's keep moving on.
I don't really know what to say? It was very good, the description and such. I could see many things but I think that was an issue. There was so much imagery that it just clouded my mind so sometimes it was hard to properly... envision?
It also seemed rather wordy, so many words and it just clouded everything so it was hard to focus and even find a meaning, which is why I don't really have one for this poem.
I liked the words you used and such though! Not bad, not bad.
- From Cow, with love.
Thanks for the review, Cow!
Hi LittleLee!
This is a beautiful poem, and you sound very experienced. It reminds me very much of poets such as William Blake, the kind that transfer you to the world of the writer, a beautiful experience. Keep writing, you're doing a great job!
Aww, thank you, oceans!
Hey there, Lee! Alpacas popping in for a review.
I'd like to start off by saying that this is a spectacular poem. The way you describe everything gives a very clear image of the beautiful word picture you're painting, not to mention the sheer aesthetic TM of it all. Here are a couple small critiques I have for you;
-The first two lines sound like they're setting up a rhyme scheme, despite your poem not really having any rhyming at all, aside from the aforementioned lines. Not rhyming in poetry is totally fine, and in this case, really adds to the poem, but I was a little confused once I reached the second pair of lines. I'm assuming this wasn't intentional, unless it holds some sort of significance and I'm just missing it.
- (This one's a little bit subjective.) The stanzas are almost all different lengths, and it's a little off-putting. I'd advise making them more similar because it's not only more visually appealing, but easier to read when the audience knows what length to expect when they dive in to the next stanza.
Like I said, both critiques are rather small, especially in light of the rest of this excellent poem. The language you used set the mood wonderfully, and the enjambment made it flow extremely well.
I hope this was helpful
-Icon
Thank you for your review, Inco!
I know the rhyme scheme is very vague; in all honesty, I didn't intend for much of a rhyme anyway.
I also agree about the stanzas, but simultaneously feel like I can't really break them apart? I don't know, it's tough to explain.
I'm glad you liked it otherwise!
No problem! Inco, huh? That's a fun, fresh, and, dare I say it? Funky take on my username. I like it!
I meant Icon I'm so sorry but if you like it, wellOMG! I loooooooooove thiss!
I'm glad you do!
I love this, especially the last stanza <33
Thank you, star!