Young Writers Society

Hey there! Plume here, with a review! And welcome to the site—I hope you've had a good experience so far!

I thought this poem was very interesting! I'm not religious and have never been, but I always love hearing about others' experiences with it. While I personally can't relate, I think you portray that faith and devotion to God very nicely.

One thing I enjoyed was how the line lengths varied. The way you slowly built up each one until the longest one at the end was an interesting choice, but I think it worked for this poem. Despite it almost being like prose with some line breaks, it felt very climactic at the end, and like I said before, it suited the message you were trying to convey.

I also liked how you repeated certain words and phrases at the beginning and then they later resurfaced, like "heard, seen and adored." I also like how two of those words connote senses and are less personal, but "adored" refers to love, and more closely connotes the heart and soul. Because of their proximity to each other, it characterizes love as a feeling, which was very clever and poignant.

I'm curious if maybe some more figurative language could have been used. This felt more like a declaration and less like a poem to me. I did like the extended metaphor throughout of the path as how one lives one's life, but I felt like the individual lines could have been more interesting in terms of your word choice and language. While it's fine as it is, I think if you do decide to revise it, that would definitely be an area to revisit.

Specifics

I realised that nothing gives much peace other than living a life of self-denial,

I realised that their was no greater thing

Wow. I wish I had the courage to write something like this.

I happen to be really struggling with self denial right now and am trying to practice fasting but it's been difficult.

I always have separated my Christian life from my writing for fear of not appealing to anyone or being judged for my beliefs. Thank you for writing this because you have given me a lot of encouragement.

The path to salvation is indeed narrow and far too difficult to travel down alone. I only wish I felt the same fulfillment you did when glorifying his name.
I have always heard that following Christ and denying yourself leads to peace and fulfillment, and though I have felt that way some times, more often than not I find myself falling back into the comfort of old habits.

Perhaps I should write my own piece crying out to God about this stuff. I think that will be relatable.

Anyway, I really enjoyed this short piece. You had a clear start, middle, and end. I liked your description and poetic rhythm. The message was also very good and the ending gave me hope! Well done!