Young Writers Society

Hi there, Mockingjay! Crimson here for a review.

I'll preface this with a disclaimer of sorts - I can be very detailed, and that may sometimes come off as being nitpicky. If it seems that way, then I'm sorry and you're welcome. After all, the more I point out, the more opportunities you have to refine and improve you work.

That said... Let's dive on in and see what we've got .

A rippling stream, a soft and mossy bed,
A ring of trees, a thicket of vines,
A full moon shining bright as day,
Shedding it’s silvery light in this secret hollow.

I love this first part. It does a wonderful job of setting the scene. The line length works very well, but you might want to consider if splitting the final three words at the end onto their own line would serve better. Also, I feel like this should be a distinct stanza, with a break between the end of this and the rest of the poem.

I know some poets seem to abhor rhyming, and whether you choose to use it is up to you in the end. I personally love rhymes used properly, because they can really tie in concepts without making long wordy portions necessary. I'd say you could potentially reword a few of the lines here to introduce a rhyming scheme if you wished. As an example, you can slightly reword the line about the moon's silver light to read 'the moon's silver ray' to rhyme with the 'bright as day' line. This would also be predicated on you splitting off the 'in this secret hollow' onto its own line, however.

What comes here? Whispering voices start to sing,
adding to the charm.
The moonbeams start to dance, the voices come forward,
Faeries! Silent, mysterious and beautiful faeries!
Linking hands they surround the hollow, waiting.

I think these lines are a little too long to match with the previous section. If you like it this way, then awesome! However, you could split some of these lines in half to improve the form and add some clarity for readers.

Once again, I feel that this is a good place to add an empty line or paragraph to end the stanza and introduce the next part.

Waiting for what? Ah!
Here she comes, the most beautiful of all,
The faerie queen enters, with a glowing gold crown on her head,
Flowers in her hair and shimmering wings.

Again, some of these lines might be better served split into two lines. Up to you and your vision for this piece, though.

'Enters' is perhaps a lacklustre term considering the context, I think. You can use a more impactful description, like 'descends' or 'emerges', or something else entirely. 'enters' sounds like a stage direction more than a verb in this poem's ethereal context. It brings it too much back to the realm of the mundane, I feel.

Oh mystic hollow, the secret that you hold,
Must be kept, lest, for want to see these midnight revels,
dangerous creatures come.
Then shall this charm be broke, and what a sadness it would be,
To have the faeries come no more.

Once more, lines might work better split. Y'know.

This reads almost like an incantation, actually. The contrast of the modern English before with the mixing of some early modern English phrasing works fairly well. Thumbs up!

Overall:
So overall this poem carries a haunting feel, this vague sense of the ethereal that is well carried throughout. This could perhaps be added to with some more in-depth or pointed descriptions. Much of this relies on the reader's own imagination to fill in the gaps, and while that can work amazingly, it also has limitations. If you want to go beyond those, you can start by using descriptions that call upon more real sensations.'cold as ice', 'sharper than a rose thicket', 'cold steel', 'heavy as lead', 'smooth as mercury', 'deadlier than a viper' etc. You probably get the idea, so I'll stop. The point is, you can heavily influence how your readers interpret your descriptions by adding something they can compare the description to, an existing reference that they are likely to have some experience with.

You seem to be a little hesitant on the overall form of your poem, and I feel like you had some missed opportunities to tie things together with carefully placed rhymes, but it was very much what it seems like you wanted it to be.

I enjoyed reading this, and I hope to see more from you!

Cheers,
Crimson.