Young Writers Society

Good Morning/Afternoon/Evening/Night(whichever one it is in your part of the world),

Hi! I'm here to leave a quick review!!

Anyway let's get right to it,

Alright so here I am on behalf of the checklist challenge, operating a little out of my comfort zone in the realm of poetry, so I will be giving mostly my impressions since I am not the best when it comes to the more technical side of things here. But let's see where this takes us here, I'm already very intrigued by what this title could hint at especially given the shape of this poem.

Well this one really has some very strong imagery going for it here. It definitely makes you see quite a visceral series of images here, and this one is rather straightforward too in terms of what its getting at. Its certainly quite a sad moment and I love the emotion you managed to drum up here, tying it quite nicely to that title too. I really did not expect to see a concept like that used so indirectly and so powerfully here and I am loving it.

I think while this is a poem that takes a couple of reads to really digest, the meaning is quite clear right from the get go and without really diving too far in, you get a nice powerful image and the emotions really work so well as a result and I think you manage to convey this message to us quite nicely.

Aaaaand that's it for this one.

As always remember to take what you think was helpful and forget the rest.

Stay Safe
Harry

Hi there, passenger! I'm here to review your lovely shape poem (to fulfill some RevMo Checklist challenges)!

I see someone else described this poem as "confusing but beautiful", and I have to say that sums up my initial reaction pretty well. It's beautiful on the visual level; you've created a beautiful silhouette of a wild dog/wolf on a cliff, that in itself is just great to look at, and you've also filled the poem with gorgeous, poignant imagery. I tend to feel that a shape poem, or any poem with fancy formatting, should still stand well on its own if all the formatting is taken away and just the words are left - and this poem certainly meets that criteria! Phrases like the pending guilt that makes love in your stomach, zippers an aching silence over his dead body, and he shivers in your eyes are just *chef's kiss* !!

But it definitely also seems to have a lot of contradictions about what actually is going on, who is involved, and who we should feel sympathy for. The thing that stands out most to me is how you open the poem with

you watch as he passes.

he watches as you pass.

can you stop being so perfect god Sav why do you have to constantly slay my existence?

Sav, this is beautiful. If I'm able to achieve the level of thought I'd need, I will come back to review this. If not, I want to say this was breathtaking to read. <3

Confusing but beautiful.

I really thought this was cool. The first reason being that you made a picture of the words. Amazing and hard to do.

his bark; shrinking his groveling throat. you can't hear him, but what hurts more is that nobody will ever hear him

winter snow; jewels in the pockets of the buildings that blink frightfully in a dank maze. it is always cold here.

Shape poems can be really tricky to master since you've got to balance the visual appeal of the poem with your choice of words so first off, well done for making this look so pretty! Now to take a look at the words themselves...

Specifics

1. I think you need a space after body: on the third line - it certainly won't harm the image in any way.

2. In line 5, highbeams should be two words - high beams.

3. Line six confuses me because into doesn't fit into the line so I'm not sure when I'm meant to read that word. I think it would be clever if you made it possible to read it either as a follow on to quiver, or as the start to a new section with that and the next line of the tail and then following into the line after that. For example 'almost' would fit - 'legs almost quiver' and 'almost back'. It may not be quite the right length admittedly but with some more thinking I'm sure you'd get there.

4. Line 13 has that big gap in the middle and I'm not sure that 'love in your stomach' is the right phrase since it doesn't fit with the guilt or the terror of this event. I feel like 'holes in your stomach' would work better and it would make that gap in the middle of the line reflect the words - a hole in the stomach.

5. deadbody is out to the side and not really part of the image and I don't like it because I feel it draws a lot of attention to what is too simple a phrase. The rest of your language is descriptive and chilling and I kind of like that for the most part you don't come out and say 'they hit an animal with their car', instead you describe the impact of what happened. The line deadbody feels contrary to that.

6. I'm not sure I understand the line 'his father is a boy' - is this a wild dog or does that suggest this was a pet dog? Or is the his not referring to the dog at all? I got a little lost there.

Overall

The imagery in the second part is beautiful, though I'm not entirely sure where the boy comes into this, whether he was in the car when the dad hit the dog, or he owns the dog, or something else. I'm also not sure if the reflection is supposed to be the dog howling or its shadow turned to the side or again, something else? But I enjoyed the poem despite not being able to follow it completely and I think you've got some great lines, like 'my ribcage is not dishwasher-safe' and the fast pace and kind of flood of consciousness flow of the poem is very effective.

All the best with this!

~Heather