Young Writers Society

Hello there! This is ZeldaIsShiek here to review some more amazing literature and tip the scales in favor of the Red Pandas in order for us to defeat the menace of the Blue team! I am really excited to begin this review. Enough waiting! Nous commencons!

This poem really caught my attention early on because I realized it was very religious from the portrayal of God in this poem. Though I would not like the term "atheist" to be placed upon me, I find the existence of a deity unlikely, so you'd think this poem would not click with me. However, I got a Jehovah's Witness vibe early on, and when I saw the name "Jehovah" used in this, I realized that you are a Jehovah's Witness. And to that I say... cool! I'm glad to see you are so interested in poetry! It is a bit of a trigger for me for reasons better left unmentioned, but I definitely respect you as a Witness and my friend, and I can relate to you on a deeper level than most people for this. I used to go to Kingdom Halls and believe in Jehovah, so I understand this poem a lot.

I really love this poem and I especially love your use of imagery and amazing word choice to deliver an age-old message. I hope you keep writing for the rest of your life and you never stop until the resurrection. Though you may believe in something different than I do, I still love this poem and am ecstatic to find out that we have a religion (at least I used to be a publisher) in common. Have a great day! ZeldaIsShiek- OUT!

P.S. I was never baptized as I am 14. I am not an "apostate" (though by the dictionary definition I am) and I will never try to change your religion. I am not disfellowshipped. You can still talk to me.

Hi Radrook, hope you're doing well today - I thought I'd take a look at this poem today

A few sort of nit-picky suggestions that stood out in my first reading of the piece:

In stanza 1 -

This poem's title is "behold", it promises to be about apocalyptic/new millennial events, therefore you have the reader's attention. It doesn't add much to put in the exclamation marks at the beginning (especially the double exclamation, as this is redundant). I'd take those out. I like the rhyming you've got from the beginning though.

In stanza 2 -

While not completely necessary, I'd recommend a capital letter on "his" for it refers to God. And maybe even capitalizing "death" because this would clarify that you are referring to the personification of death rather than God when you say someone is in chains.

In a few stanzas you begin with the phrase "no longer" and for me it gets a bit too repetitive because it doesn't seem to add that much with the repetition of the phrase, you might want to change it up a bit as readers start to pass quickly items that they think they've previously read.


There were a few typos here and there:

In these two lines:
"and arms went up in fright

as day screamed into night" I think "and" should be capitalized as it follows a complete sentence.

And in the very last stanza you run into the issue of not consistently capitalizing "His" -- I understand the reasoning for capital or not-capitalized, but would recommend you remain consistent. There's also a "zero" after the word "map".


Plot
Now on the actual plot of the piece! I think you did a really good job keeping the language accessible to non-religious folks and religious folks alike. While I am well-versed in Revelations, not everyone is, so I think you had a good level of balance with the Biblical references not being too obscure or difficult to understand.

Another issue that often comes up in Revelations/Apocalyptic literature is people don't quite know how to balance the horror with the promise. I liked that you began with some positive reflections before launching into the more doom and gloom side -- then ended on a really positive note, with God victorious over all of eternity. Actually I think my favorite stanza in the piece was the second to last one, the sentence about "infinity beckoning" us is a great take on the piece and serves as a little bit of a call to action too.

The story flowed well throughout, and I think you maybe leaned a bit on the "positive" side of apocalyptic literature, there could have been a bit more of the doom/gloom imagery -- but you had a bit of that as well.

I will note there were a few stanzas that felt repetitious where it seemed like the same information was being repeated in different ways. I mostly ran into this in the middle of the piece, while the opening and closing stanzas I felt like held their own.

There were rhymes here and there that I thought were a bit forced -- mostly I noticed they came in the final lines of a stanza.

I'll drop a few below:
"Let’s praise our righteous God who did this thing." (<- "thing" is vague and casual language)

The stanza that beginning with "Look! There within the pit" you rhyme "pain" with "writ" and it feels like a stretch.

The line lengths and flow overall though was pretty good, didn't notice any big issues standing out as I read.

I hope you find this review helpful, please let me know if you have any questions about it.

alliyah

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