Young Writers Society

Hello, Anne here...
I really enjoyed the style of your poem. It was suspenseful and kept my attention throughout the whole thing. It is a shame that you do not write more poetry. It is so interesting to think of how the speaker is lost in life, feeling abandoned by things that they once had extreme faith in. This makes me curious as to who 'he' is and how he has a connection with the speaker.
I liked how you used less common words like thou, shalt, bane, and shrouded. Even though this can sometimes confuse a reader, I feel like you put enough context in place to make the use of them less stressful... Does that make any sense? Probably not.
Even though I understood the words you used, I sort of feel like the poem is disconnected. The beginning of it seems to speak of a lover who the speaker once knew, but it seems like the end is extremely religious. As the author, you have the authority to keep it this way. If you choose to, I suggest fading into the new topic. Maybe you could mention the lover in the latter part of the poem, or you could mention the religious aspect of it during the part about the lover. You also change from first person to second person. This can confuse a reader and make them feel disconnected from your message.
You could work a little bit on the general flow of your poem. Some of your rhymes seem to be forced. If a consistent, restrictive, rhyme scheme does not seem to fit your style, or your poem, enjambment can be used. An enjambment is when you continue a sentence without a pause beyond the end of a line, couplet, or stanza. Like your last stanza for example:

Tell him that you shall fly
then his lie will be made true
as at the point of death, he did cry
I shall never leave you
that he told you long ago.

You may notice that I not only took out the commas, but I changed the wording a bit. It seems as if you enjoy using the word shall. If I were you , I would space it out a bit. A lot of times when you repeat a word that is less commonly used, your reader focuses on that more than your poem in general, especially when it is within the same stanza.
I also noticed a few typos within your work. They are nothing major, but it would make your poem a bit nicer if you fix them. in your fourth stanza, you capitalized the M in Memory. You also shifted tenses as I mentioned earlier. Ok, ok, so that may only be one and a half typos.....But, I thought I would throw it out there.
That is all I have for ya. It is kind of hard to follow up a review like the ones that niteowl leaves, I hope that you got something new out of this, I tried to mention things that were not mentioned previously.

Have a good day ,
- Anne

Hi there PickledChrissy! Niteowl here to review this poem.

Overall, this poem has an interesting progression and flows well. The speaker is lost in life, feeling abandoned by the faith they once believed in. But then age and eventually death get to them, and they find out that the god they believed in is real and they do get to be with him for eternity. Or maybe I'm misinterpreting all this and the "he" is supposed to be like the ghost of the lover, as the "be lain at his side" line sounds like someone being buried in the plot next to their spouse.

That said, it almost feels like they're two separate poems. The first four stanzas paint a vivid picture of a relationship that has ended and yet the speaker is caught up in the memories. The last three stanzas have a more archaic tone to them and are more clearly religious. It's hard to reconcile the god of the last stanza with the picture of the lover who abandoned the speaker in the first stanza. The change from first person to second person also makes it feel like a separate poem.

If these are supposed to be all one poem, I would cut it down a little bit, make the first few stanzas feel less like a romantic relationship (e.g. being ensnared by Cupid's bow doesn't make sense if this poem is talking about God), and try to make a smoother transition into the more religious overtones.

About the language and structure: Overall, I think it works well. The language has a bit of a formal air to it in the first part, but the lines still sound understandable and lovely. I'm especially fond of "Though dirty be your blood and line". I'm not sure about all the "thous" and "thys" in the second part, as I tend to find that language like that is more distracting than anything.

the smile on your lips, and in your eyes the lies,

And now those memories of you return and mock

I, who believed your heart was mine,

Your heart was true, I then thought,

When words of love from your lips would flow,

And in your net I was ensnared and willingly caught,

Keep beating bravely through the pain.

At his side, and death to you wings shall lend.