Young Writers Society

Heya, Fort! Casanova here to do a review as promised for you!

Hmm, first thing to say is I don't see a lot of prose, and honestly I'm bad at it, but I'lll give this a shot.

First Impression

The first thing I noticed about this was the amount of detail you're putting into it, and it seems a bit overly detailed. You're putting so much into it it's choking me, so to speak. Like, the first line. You're obviously describing a hot day, but it seems you could have left it at the humidity pat and the hanging over heaving chests and sweaty brows. That's just my personal opinion on that. Anyway, onward to the review.

The next thing I'd like to bring up would be the flow. Is it supposed to be a slow, steady beat that leaves you breathless after you read it aloud? that's how it seemed to me, but I could be mistaken on that part as well. Anyway, onward.

The next thing I'd like to bring up is this line,"It’s asleep like the day is a dream easily forgotten, how the breath comes so slow, there’s no wind at all, and as this great sphere revolves around slowly, like a lullaby pirouette, I can hear her turning in her sleep, the sky a great blue blanket to keep in the memories." Honestly, I love this line. It's great, except for the flow of it which seems to go on and on.

Anyway, overall I think you have a really good poem, but I do think you could add some to it. It seems not finished. Anyway, that's all I have to say on this one and I hope it helped! Keep on doing what you're doing and keep on keeping on!

Sincerely, Matthew Casanova Aaron

Good morning, Fortis! I'm finally here to review!


This is a very nice poem with great imagery. You make a great opening with your first sentence, showing and not telling how it is nature which is silent and content and the people who are restless and exhausted, and you craft this in a way that makes your frank statement "the earth is asleep" still seem fit in its place. You might try playing around with the tenses a little bit in the beginning, because even though I think they all agree within the present-tense, you might want to make it "trees lying (laying?)" instead of "trees lay," as it seems to mesh a bit more clearly to the reader with your other verbs "lounging" and "swirling."

I like your "humidity steam not even swirling" line, as it gives a very good picture to me of the lazy, hazy afternoon you're setting up. However, when I'm picturing this sort of atmosphere, I always think of the sunlight, cutting through the mist and casting the moisture and dust in the air into view, and I guess I felt like this image was sort of missing. You do, in your personification of the earth, mention "golden sunlight," but I still feel as though I, the reader, could use some more detail on the ambience and lighting of your story outside of a simile.

The second sentence might be my favorite, and actually for the exact reason that I'm left a little confused. It's beautiful, I absolutely love the imagery you've included, the vagueness works very well, and I wouldn't change a word of it! I'm left with the feeling that you're comparing the earth to the earth itself, that the its eyes really are the trellis' climbing roses and that cool dirt truly is the world’s skin.

The third sentence is also crafted extremely well, though it’s a bit lengthy, so I’m going to focus on it in halves. The first half— from “It’s” to “no wind at all”—is extremely imaginative, something I’ve never read before. The way you elaborated upon the daytime as the earth’s period to sleep matches all three rules of the perfect personifying claim triad: it is interesting, unique, and actually makes sense. It’s rare nowadays that you see these distinct little points and themes as newly invented, but I think that you’ve nailed it. The little lines about the slowness of its breath as it dreams are perfect, and I wouldn’t change a word of those, either.

However, I think that the second half of the last sentence feels like it just might need a little something more to satisfy itself as a memorable conclusion to a memorable story. For a bit more punch, maybe you could add a little more repetition of the opening themes, giving the earth some more personification like earlier instead of referencing it simply as “this great sphere.” Also, maybe you could do a little something more with the sky and its relation to the earth? I might be missing the point, but I’m left a bit confused on how the blanket would keep in memories if the earth itself is asleep. If this line is referring to the narrator’s/yours/reader’s memories, then maybe you could add a little bit of clarification in the last line? I think that this bit of reprise could hit your point straight home. As a last little note, I thought “lullaby pirouette” is a beautiful and wonderful line, and if you weren’t doing the thematic hour names for your pieces, I think that would even be a great title. Maybe you could recycle it for a future work?

All in all, I loved this piece. It truly is something very unique and special, especially for a poem only three sentences long. You kept the tone both vague and to the point, and the ways that you personify and craft similes are skills that many writers spend their entire careers struggling for. I can really only point to the couple of suggestions I’ve listed above as anything you could change, though you by no means have to or feel like you must. The story is great as it is, the imagery is spectacular and the mystery and mood are bound to keep the reader wanting more, no matter how you might revise it.

I hope to have your 10 P.M. piece reviewed by tomorrow. Hope this helped, and hope you have a great day!

This is Kaos here for a review!

I love seeing attempts at prose poetry since no one ever seems to be good at it from the get-go and it takes on a different style than just regular poetry which is something that interests me. I had thought this was 'am' at first and was quite confused by the imagery of it, but anyway, into the poem. The way that this poem is written is something that I didn't like near the beginning of the poem? The lines tend to drag on and it hurts the poem structurally. At the same time I didn't hate how it was written, but I did want more clarity. It's only one stanza here, which is something that's fine with me, but it does start to feel a little messy and all over the place.

Something that I enjoyed about this is that it felt like an experience more than anything else and it's something that I wanted to hone in on more. The poem works in being an experience, but I did want to touch on the perspectives in the poem. We as the readers don't really know who the speaker is, who "you" is, or who "she" is in the poem. I'd like some more clarity in that aspect since there's a "you" and a "her" so it gets a little confusing.

I was thinking that this is a family and that would make a lot more sense if this is in the perspective of a parent in a family, "you" being the significant other and "her" being the child. I wasn't sure on that part though, that's just how I interpreted it. In any case, I would have liked to seen more context clues towards who these people are and what situation they're in. I'm not saying that you have to make it absolutely clear or what the poem is about absolutely clear because I think this poem accomplishes a lot in subtlety and not always saying what it's about.

That was one of the strengths as it left room for interpretation by the reader, though I would like more of a push of clarity even though the lullaby part was one of the context clues here. The imagery is something that I enjoyed throughout the poem though the wording doesn't work as well with it? In the first line, "it just hangs..." sounds awkward as well as some other things in the poem that disrupt the flow. I think if you moved some things around in terms of wording, that would solve the issue.

Often I find that just moving things around fixes that problem. Something that I wanted to touch on was the tone and atmosphere of the poem which is something that I think you captured beautifully but at the same time I wanted more emphasis on those calm feelings and I wanted more emotion in the piece. It's soft and sweet and everything of that sort, though I do think it would be good to reinforce that with lines that hold stronger emotional weight behind them without having to be heavy lines. They can be light and gentle like the poem. The title is something that only adds more to the poem assuming that that's when the poem takes place and this is kind of describing that time of the day and everything of that sort.

Hope I helped and have a great day! <3 Go ahead and strike at me if you have any questions because it's early in the morning and I tend to be worse at reviewing at this time.

This is ZeldaIsShiek here for another review in the poetry section! Today I will be reviewing what I assume to be a separate instance of the story in '10 PM.' Let's get started.

First off, I'd like to state that I really don't like this poem as much as your other. I mean it's good, it's just not as long and not what I was looking to review. I do like your word choice, but the metaphors are not as clear to me.

I did like it, just not as well.
-Harrison

I'm so sorry. I would totally review this, but this is way too beautiful and I don't even understand what half of this is talking about but it's so good, so yeah. I love this so much.