Young Writers Society

Hi Pompiepoo~ It's been a while!

I'm obviously going to be rusty at reviewing, since I can't even remember the last time I left a review. But I'll tell you what I think, anyway.

First of all, I think the whole concept was really interesting. I like that you used "freedom," a word with a relatively positive connotation, among images that I would perceive as negative. "potholes springing up along your trachea" isn't usually seen as something good, but it's what freedom was. It gives me an idea that the past might have been free, but the narrator didn't see until now that freedom was littered with pain and uncertainty. Or maybe I'm just projecting. But it is what it is.

The device of breathing and organs associated with breathing pulls a nice thread through the beads of the piece. The pace is even, much like breathing, and what the narrator breathes usually ties nicely to the subject discussed at the time. I really like the brick part. For me, bricks are associated with stability and strength, but as you wrote in your piece, stability and strength aren't always the most fulfilling.

Note: I literally just looked up who Anarkali was, like an idiot. Well, I hope you know that the poem is just as good if you don't know who that is. But now I understand more the context that you're going for. You did a very nice job with the whole legend, too.

Now on to some particulars.

Before I looked up who Anarkali was, I wondered who the "you" was in the poem. Now that I know, I still think you should define it a little more clearly. I believe that you were going for Salim or Jahangir with the "you," who was an illicit lover. But when I did not know the context of the legend that you include, I did not know that this person was an illicit lover. Of course, the narrator and "you" were close, but I did not get a romantic context from the relationship. To be honest, I'm not entirely sure if the romantic is necessary here, but if you were going for that, I'm just letting you know that it's not communicated in the piece as well as it could have been.

While I appreciate your imagery and language in the first stand-alone line and first stanza, I don't think that they are needed in the poem. I think starting in with the "do you remember how we were once whole?" is a more effective choice to start the poem. the first bit feels tacked on, like a prologue that isn't quite connected with the rest of the piece.

I enjoy the visual aspect of this piece, though I'm not too sure about the periods in between stanzas. I think it would look cleaner if they weren't there, though if you're having trouble with formatting, please disregard this. Regardless of the errant periods, I like that you used indentation to show the progression of time/feeling.

I agree with Nikayla about your vocabulary. I think that you used some very specific and excellent words, however I wondered about your motivation for using some of them. Bathos, for instance. Though it's a very wonderful and specific word, I wonder how wonderful and specific the majority of your audience would find it. I'm not suggesting that you change this poem too much with vocabulary, but I would probably consider more in the future depending on what tone you're trying to go for. If that makes sense.

Overall, I really enjoyed what you did with this piece. I think that your poetry continues to improve, if that's even possible, and I like your inclusion of an old legend into a modern poem. It gives the feeling that history repeats itself in different ways. I hope that you find this review useful to you! Happy poeting!

I find that this piece has a strong message that although overused, is properly displayed throughout. I loved the personification that was used throughout as well. I believe that good language use makes or breaks poetry. I very much enjoyed the line about r's rolling off your tongue as if trying to catch them. That line really made me question every time I had tried to stop words from being said and I feel like that truly resonates with readers. This poem is thought provoking at its core and I appreciated that. Not a lot of poetry really makes people think nowadays. Good work.

This is Nikayla here for a review.

I wasn't really fond of the title all that much and the poem didn't appeal to me as much as your other poems, and I think thsi is purely the subject matter for me. It follows the whole "2016 was the worst year evar!!!" theme which I'm starting to get a little tired of personally because it's been popping up so much. I would like to see it as more of a new year's resolutions poem in general as the title that you have here is something that won't really age well, especially if you had this in some sort of anthology or something of that sort. The actual content isn't actually all that bad and I'm mostly just complaining at this point, so let's delve into the content of the poem.

The first thing that I wanted to point out is your vocabulary in this poem. It's something that's strong but at the same time I wonder why it's even there at points if I have to go look up the word. Words like "anthracite" is what I'm talking about at the moment. I support the usage of a strong vocabulary to help better set up the tone, but that doesn't mean you can use it to replace strong and active imagery. What I mean by active is that your imagery is doing something, rather than just describing something. It makes the poem more lively.

I felt that the poem was fragmented into different pieces like you had different ideas while throwing this together and it becomes a bit of a mess. The first three stanzas follow something similar and they're probably the ones that I like more out of the poem. It flows well together, going from fishing for words and then the speaker talks of when there was once a time where everything has a definition. Something even better to consider is having a metaphor that ties the whole poem together. In my eyes, that's the best way you can execute this poem, expanding on that metaphor and letting it lead into different things.

This helps the poem feel more connected rather than going from the start of the poem where the speaker is fishing for words and the end, walls building around their throat. There are ways to connect the poem, even. For example and like I've used before, the start and end of the poem. The speaker is first fishing for words as well as more images and lines that involve language in the first couple of stanzas, and at the end they could be feeling like they can't even speak because of them being suffocated.

I'm not saying that you have to cut out the skintight image because it's one of the strongest in the poem, but I do think you should reconsider in your next draft(s) about that kind of thing. While the "dreams&goals.org" line is something that works well in the poem because it is talking about it being a new year and that's part of the subject matter here, I didn't like a lot else from stanzas four and five because the poem loses itself in that point.

I prefer stanza five because it does have more of a focus but stanza four is something that I didn't really find to be necessary in the poem at all and you can probably cut it out if you want? It didn't add much to the poem other than the anarkali aspect, which I'm jumping into now. It's something that I've ignored a bit about this poem from the start and I do think if you want to keep that approach, then I think you can talk about feeling silenced as well.

If I'm correct, anarkali is something along the lines of being a slave but as you can see, that's not what I originally interpreted it to be and I think more hints at that would do better if you're still trying to convey that message with the poem. I've taken this from multiple perspectives and the poem fits in that way, but it also feels like it's trying to do a lot of other things too. I suggest you hone in on your true focus for the poem, and I assume that's what it is, cutting and trimming all of the other things that may stray the reader's attention. Not at all saying that I hated this poem, because I certainly didn't, but I do think it needs some general editing.

I hope I helped and have a great day!

Damn.