The Storyline

Sachi darling!

So uh. Your punctuation. I love you, I do. But what is your punctuation doing? Like, you have things capitalized, and I’m not sure why, and there’s no consistency with it that I’m seeing. Granted, I can be missing things, but I’m not seeing any reason for it. Same thing with some of your end punctuation – I’m not always sure what purpose some of it serves, other than to jar me out of what I’m reading. It feels like you’re torn between imposing an entirely prose-like set of rules, and trying for a poetic sense, but not fully committing to either, so you end up with a jumble instead. Read this aloud, and see what happens when you read with the punctuation you have, rather than what you’re thinking when you write, and remember line breaks do not have to equal a pause!

Ok, second stanza, first three lines. I think I know what you mean, but reading them they don’t make sense. Otherwise, I think you’re mixing metaphors a bit too much – like, there’s ways you can do it and get away with it, but you’re not generally connecting them so you end up with a jumble of things that don’t end up together. Plus, you have something great like “pour boiling stars,” but then the line/lines following kind of unravels into the abstract, and it’s too much of undefined space and not enough that’s grounded (and how’s that for a pun and a half? XD Oh, dear).

Otherwise! I think there’s other bits that are thrown off by the above, so I won’t get into that here (plus, I’m a rhythmic snobby brat, and I’ll spare you ).

Just, warn me the next time you come up with something I am going to want to steal, ok? Honestly. Pour boiling stars. Why couldn’t I come up with that?

Hey Sachi!

I am also really bad at poetry so I don't even know where to start! With the positive things I guess. I loved the opening two lines and I really like the repetition later on of them, I thought that was really cool and they're really nice lines. I also really liked a lot of your images- "boiling stars" is absolutely gorgeous (although I'm a sucker for stars), and "vomit in our veins" is really creepy, you know, in a creepy fabulous way.

I think the main issue I had with this was in these lines:

"Our minds have evolved into comets--

or things shaped like comets and their talons

scrape across our skin like needles and"

I think this is mixing metaphors or something that you're probably not going to do in poetry. Maybe that was your intention- after all it's a poem about words and thoughts and I guess this has that sort of mental fluidity to it but to me it just came off as sort of... messy? Like, comets don't have talons, and even if they do, we'll assume they're sharp and you don't have to compare the talons to needles. I just didn't really like that so much.

Other than that... um, I wasn't really sure what it was about? Being trapped in your own mind/thoughts/being guarded all that jazz I guess, but who was the 'you' that the speaker was referring to? I really liked the address and I liked the use of we/our but in the end I felt a little bewildered. Mind you that's probably just because I don't read enough poetry.

But mostly, super-cool! Great job!

-Stella x

Let me start by saying I thought this was a beautiful piece. The language was very strong and the figurative language was beautiful. Some of my favorite lines were,

"You know as well as I do that we like to build walls with our words

So that we can hide the things that make our souls churn.

We guard them with our lives and pour boiling stars onto trespassers

because they know not what they disturb. Or whom."

I also really loved the last stanza. I thought it was a great conclusion to the poem. In poetry I believe the ending is paramount, so for having a good conclusion, I commend you. The formatting with the stanzas is very well done. The only complaint I have, as a previous reviewer said, would be the inconsistencies in the punctuation. Just something to keep in mind!

Hi I'm K here to review your poem, I hope this is helpful to you!

First, this line- "pour boiling stars onto trespassers" is so beautiful. I love it. Out of the whole poem, this line stuck out to me as being more phenomenal than the rest. Although, your word choice does seem pretty stellar. Especially with lines like, "vomit in our veins." xP

I also love how you broke your poem up. The stanzas seem to be done perfectly, so that's another strong point!

A small thing I noticed was your punctuation. In some lines, there could be just a comma added and it would improve the poem overall by quite a bit. When you read this poem by punctuation it just sounds a tiny bit off to me, so that's something you can think about the next time you write a poem! For this one though, it's really nothing that big.

Other than that small thing, i can't really think of anything else to comment on! This really is a beautiful poem, and I hope you keep writing!