Young Writers Society

hello Lizzy! Nicole here with a short review.


first impressions: first of all, I really like the way it looks. I've seen others in this sort of style that is hard to read, but this was easy to understand. I really love the title, ''poetry is everything never said'' that is what really drew me in. the whole thing is just so perfectly said, I love it.


things to improve: nothing to say here, as I said before it's easy to read. and the grammar and spelling is perfect(although I am not the person to ask about that)


overview: I thought this was really good! it was a lot of fun to read too!

hope this review was helpful!

keep writing!

-nicole

So messy. Love it.

Hi there Lizzy! I absolutely adore poems that play around with formatting, so I couldn't resist leaving a review for you on this one :)

This poem is SO visually pleasing to look at! The combination of fonts, text size, and word positioning work so well together. I thought you did a good job of using these formatting choices to match the meaning of words - for example, I enjoyed how "Imperfect" was put in a handwritten font, and "Flawed" was made to look like it's falling apart. By far my favourite visual aspect, though, was where the phrases "Poetry is everything" and "Poetry is everywhere" merge together into a big black cloud. It creates an interesting change in visual texture, and also creates an intense climax to the poem!

One stylistic choice I would suggest playing around with is capitalization! Right now I believe you're capitalizing the first letter of every "line" (although that's a kind of inaccurate term in a poem like this), so for example near the beginning we've got "Poetry is / Everything / Never / Said." At the end though, in comparison, we've got "If only you know where to Look", which could be argued is actually 6 or 7 different "lines".

So as you can see, it's a bit ambiguous as to what a "line" in this poem is, which is totally fine! In fact it's part of what makes it so interesting and fun to read! However it does make it a bit odd, I find, to use that style of capitalization. I'd personally suggest either using sentence case, or no capitalized letters at all. You can check out a super great and in-depth explanation of capitalization in poetry here, but long story short ~

sentence case: Today I went to the park.
uncapitalized sentences: today I went to the park.
no capitalization at all: today i went to the park.

These different styles can have different effects on your reader, for example, all lowercase feels less formal and more personal, and in the end it's up to your taste and how you want the poem to come across! I'd suggest playing around and seeing which you like best for this poem! c:

Another big aspect of poetry is imagery -> basically, descriptions using the five senses that paint an image in your reader's head. Right now, there's a lot of formatting literally creating an image, but not a lot of words creating mental images, if that makes sense. You definitely don't need to include every sense in a poem, but it doesn't hurt to incorporate a couple - for example, instead of "Poetry is everything never said", you could consider something like "Poetry is all the words that never formed on your lips", which would convey the same idea but also create an image at the same time! Of course, that's just an example off the top of my head, and you could probably come up with an image that's way more awesome :)

re: interpretation, I feel like the general theme of this poem is pretty straightforward; you're saying that there is poetry in everything, it's not some rare or impossible to find thing (which is something I can totally get behind)! At the end, it almost feels like the reader is being told to pay more attention to the little things and they'll find poetry all around them, which is a super poetic concept as well c:

A few questions to finish off the review! There are no right or wrong answers to these, they're just some food for thought!
1) Does the visual climax match the poetic climax? If not, does that matter?
2) How do you want stylistic choices like capitalization and punctuation to impact how the reader views the poem?
3) What images do you want the reader to be picturing in their head as they read?

Overall, this was a super fun poem to read and review, and I'd love to see you experiment more with this style of poetry! I hope this review proves helpful to you, and if you have any questions about stuff I brought up, don't hesitate to ask c:

Keep writing,
--whatcha

Banner courtesy of @Plume <3

Yes, yes, yes! This is very cool! Might review this month if I manage some time to review, but just wanted to stop by for now and say this is really well done.

Also I very much disagree with the other reviewer that said the pile of words was distracting, personally for me that was the most imaginative part. The visuals and words mirrored each other really well in a way that was not really abstract to understand but still pushing the bounds of poetry.

Keep on writing forever,
A

Heya Lizzy! Incoming review!

This poem looks interesting, and draws the eye. Let me review it!

I don't have any glaring issues with the poem itself but I do think it might be creeping on unoriginal territory. The phrases are general about poetry and very straight forward. It's only stating what poetry is while not connecting to any of the other things we know of. I guess what I'm trying to say is to put some similes, metaphors, and imagery to keep the reader engaged. And I think the phrase "Poetry is everything, Poetry is everywhere, If only you know where to look," is borderline cliché. BUT I'd like to say that not everything cliché is unoriginal or bad.

Okay I'm done with all of that, let me praise your work. I always find the use of uploading a picture of your work interesting. I like all the different fonts used. It could be interoperated as all the different types of poetry there is and the different used of language for poetry.

But that's all for today. I hope you found some of it useful. Sorry I couldn't express more of my thoughts, I just wanted more to discuss. Anyway byeeeeee<3

So True.
Now I am noticing this trend on the YWS that people will publish photos of their poems rather than retype them at the publishing center.
And I am completely on board with that. It helps the work stand out more and it allows more creative freedom with visuals.
Because One issue with this website is that it has very few options for font and layout.

OKAY NOW FOR THE ACTUAL POEM YOU WORKED ON.

"Poetry is everything" "Poetry is everywhere" these declaration on their own are nothing new but you don't stop there. You make it clear that Poetry is defined by imperfection because honestly imperfection is an inspiration. If everything is imperfect that makes everything poetry.
"Poetry is everything never said"
indeed. I 100 percent agree with that notion.

"If only you know where to look" A classic call to reexamine life. I admit this is something I do often without being asked, but I cannot claim to never need a reminder.

Overall this is a pretty good poem about the nature of poetry.

But what really sells it is the visuals. The text is awkward and imperfect but still beautiful. It is like abstract art. You communicate the theme not just through word chose but also through structure.
A style that I personally have experimented with in my stories, But never to this extent.

I will confess the pile of "Poetry is everywhere" is a tad distracting to me personally. I understand that this is a stylistic choice that works great within the narrative by having poetry literally be Everywhere. But-. I don't know piles of text just seem weird to me.

Overall however this is a pretty Great poem.
Keep it up