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This is so so so so late and I'm actually the worst.

To be frank, I'm not sure how I feel about this poem. I mean there's some really lovely pieces of imagery in here but the aesthetic feels somehow a lot flatter than some of your previous work. I think what unsettles me so much about it is the idea of the hummingbird in all these different concepts. Really, the only point that the hummingbird is not being anthropomorphized completely is within the first stanza and the last line. The rest feels like some secretive nickname that's singular to the author, but meaningless to the reader.

Not of course saying thats a bad thing. Not everything in poetry has to be vague or registered as personal to be meaningful.

By far, the second stanza kills it. Your use of a sand mandala was pretty but also effective for it's delicate, shattering quality. I also, oddly enough, resounded with the hollow drum. Generally, imagery like that would usually fall flat with me but for some reason, possibly the sample collecting that shortly followed, it set up a really interesting facet to consider.

All in all the vibe I get from this piece doesn't quite resound with the vibes I generally get from your work. There's a longing, absolutely, and that sort of self-deprecating undercurrent that resounds so much in your work generally. But it feels just a wee bit shallow, like a Lord Byron poem. There is nothing wrong with that, by any means. It's just not quite what I expect when I read your work.

Much love,
-B

Hey Lumi, here for your challenge.

First off I have to say that I like the shape of this poem because it reminds me of the motion of a hummingbird's wings, which I think was probably what you were going for.

I don't like "earthed under a sky-break" because that doesn't make sense to me. Earthed under? Might you mean buried? Why are you getting so fancy about it? No need. So if I translate that line buried under a sky-break of limitless blue snow what that says to me is really buried beneath the snow that falls when the clouds part in a snow storm, but I don't think that's what it was supposed to mean if that makes sense. Like I think the connotation you were going for was more like, buried under a bunch of fresh snow, but that's not how it comes across when I accumulate everything, that's just my impression of what you might have been trying to aim towards, which is different. Sky-break is another part of that which is awkward for me. I mean, yes, I'm picking at something that's probably your baby because omg that's a cute/cool/different way to say it, but that's my opinion of that line.

You don't really do this too many other places, but I think you do need to remember to actually sit back and look at what the poem means in a whole because the first part of it doesn't always make sense as a complete sentence.

For instance, your use of brackets [it should be like this].

"This mind of mine cascades in rhythms and [I wonder wet on the bank]" what does that mean? Wet on the bank. A bank is a place in which one deposits money and a place which is on the upper crest of a hill. Why isn't there a comma saying "I wonder," as I am "wet on the bank," and then going on "if your hollow drum was ever meant for the pounding heart" now I'm not very familiar with hummingbirds, but hollow drum is a pretty way to say chest, and chest is a place for hearts so... what is hollow drum?

"or to the collect the samples of another" Another what? Wait, so how did this start again? This needs to get put back together. So someone's thinking about the beat of a hummingbird's wings, and wonders if their chest was meant for their heart, or if it was to collect specimens o0 Uh, I think the former. How does that second one even relate?

The set of lines is similarly odd. "a biologist in a foreign land/to know the frigid flow of my blood" how is that a partial sentence deserving a semicolon? The verb "to know" is odd. Why not Knows or knew or something? Who is this biologist supposed to be? Who is this "me" character because it all seems rather out there at this point.

The next stanza is pretty straight forward, they're going to die in the snow with the hummingbird and have an autopsy done to hold the hummingbird in THEIR chest. Yay.

So um, all in all, I think the first stanza needs some work. You got a little carried away with some of your word choices in my opinion and really stopped focusing on meaning over sound in parts such as those I listed above. I love the shape though.

Heya, Lumi! Casanova here to review!

The first thing I noticed was this poem was really good, and above my pay grade. But I'll take a shot nonetheless.

Here's the first thing that struck me as off-

[a thousand thousand
hailstorms to make the battered heart beat.]

if your hollow drum was ever meant for the pounding heart

Sorry about the delay with this review, and thanks for the request!

I liked this (obviously). It worked for me in a way this extremely free style of poetry often doesn't. Too often I find an overabundance of imagery and meandering, and it's entirely possible that I just don't 'get' that kind of poetry, but I often wind up feeling lost in a maze of images that don't mean anything in particular to me, and all together they add up to create a jungle. But here the images and narrative of the poem are tightly focused, leaving you room to play with the formatting to good effect.

I'm not sure the "sky-break of limitless blue snow" had the effect you wanted on me - it sounds nice to read, but I honestly just pictured it as one of those exceptionally clear but frigid days where the blue sky and white snow make such a brilliant contrast, with the horizon line as the sky-break. I guess because the word sky is placed very close to the word blue, and literal blue snow is such an odd image. I think the clear, cold day works as an image, I'm just not sure that's what you were trying to evoke.

The second half of the third (or is it fourth?) stanza - "If your hollow drum" to "flow of my blood" is grammatically awkward to the point that it tripped me up while reading. Particularly the last two lines, which I think is exacerbated by the punctuation. Ambiguities like the antecedent of "another" and what you're comparing to a biologist to (which I didn't figure out until my fifth reading) don't help. It's a big step down from the gorgeous way the previous few lines roll off the tongue. (Those were my favorite of the poem.)

And honestly I'm not really a fan of the drum/heart image - it's much more visceral and gritty than the rest of the smooth, white-snow-blue-sky images. I don't think it fits, but maybe I just find body-parts imagery overdone in general.

The last stanza sold it for me - we know why the hummingbird didn't - can't - fly away. It completes the story. In general, I love the shift in the narrator through the poem - from wonder at the hummingbird to opening up to it to a simple companionship. At least, that's what I took from it. I read this as a very introspective piece, not evoking strong emotion, but that's part of what drew me to it. Not all poetry needs to be deep anger or passion or unhappiness. Sometimes you just exist, with vague, uncertain emotions. Sometimes you just want to lie in the snow.

I think that's all I have to say. I don't know if this is the critique you were looking for, or even if it makes any sense - I'm an extreme amateur at critiquing this kind of poetry. But I hope it helped, and thanks again for the request. If you have any questions, you know where to find me!

This is Kaos here for a review, as promised.

So this poem tells more of a story that isn't based on experience, at least from what I see here. How I'm interpreting this is from a narrative and imagery standpoint more than anything else because this doesn't seem to be directly //relating// to your life unless the hummingbird is an allegory for something.

I don't think I could really get into this as much as your other poems, being said. My main problem that I had with it is that I couldn't really find anything to interpret from it. I'm wondering who the speaker is in relations to the hummingbird, but we never exactly get to know that.

The imagery in this poem didn't strike emotion in me, but it wasn't bad either. One of the things that struck me as odd was the speaker actually speaking to the hummingbird. I think my problem with the imagery this time is that it wasn't as down-to-earth as your others in the fact that it had limitless blue snow or the thousand hailstorms which was something that I couldn't get into (which may be because I like more realistic and calmer imagery), but I have to say that me not interpreting a lot goes with this I think. The imagery in the poem that I think hit me the strongest was that first stanza and then the middle one. The hollow drum/heart comparison is something that really struck me.

Despite the fact of that this isn't my favorite, the narrative that plays out is quite beautiful when you look at it, even in a summarized form. I want more of the impact that the hummingbird is flying in the snow and it's weighing down on their shoulders and the bird flapping its wings and the concept of migration would even fit in here.

I'm not sure how intentionally you made the fact that hummingbirds don't fly in flocks and they don't really migrate to a whole particular place, rather go where they want to go, but that's something that I thought was subtly put in the poem. The actual research on it was something that made me enjoy the poem more, though this does bring up something else. Make your content more than just facts in forms of metaphors, give us more contact than that base formula.

I hope I helped and have a great day!

Hey Lumi!!! Samk642 popping in to keep my promise to you!!!

So, as an immediate forewarning, I suck at poetry, and have never reviewed poems before. Geronimo!!!

The poem felt as if it had a good rythym to it but the line "a biologist in a foreign land" seemed a little out of place to me, along with that section, but you painted such a pretty picture in my head from that stanza (that's what you call it right? IDK)

All in all, I liked it. Sorry I'm not good at poetry (or reviews in general)

Samk642 galloping off into the sunset!