Young Writers Society

Merry Christmas! No I did not forget about this. Life just went "HA HA YOU THOUGHT YOU HAD FREE TIME? THINK AGAIN! HOLIDAYS!!!"

So here I am to finally review this. Let's see if I remember how to do this reviewing poetry thing. *cracks knuckles*

The one thing that stands out to me in a not good way is the repetition of "sinking" in the second stanza. That's just too much repetition of a word in too small a space, and I think the stanza would be much improved if you omitted the third "sinking" entirely, or replaced it with some other word, like "falling" or "dimming".

The other issue that caught my eye was your enjambment. You choose some rather interesting words to end your lines on, and a lot of them result in the emphasis of weaker or connecting words, rather than words with a bit more substance. As a result, the line breaks feel like they're present for purely visual purposes, namely to keep the lines roughly the same length.

Taking the first two lines of the poem, the words emphasized are "like" and "a", which have no real meaning outside of a context. I think a more effective enjambment would be between "snake" and "caught".

You have some good enjambments here and there, like between "wave" and "smothered", but most of them are quite weak and could use tweaking.

Lastly, the imagery is quite bare, which isn't necessarily bad, but between the repetition, lack of oomph behind your enjambments, and simplicity of the language, there isn't really much substance to the poem, especially in the middle bits. There's a lot of throwaway references to images that don't work because they're bare allusions and not actually incorporated into the poem itself, which also leaves the poem feeling quite a bit unfocused overall.

I'm left wondering what the point or purpose of this poem is, and I think if you could refine this piece so that it answers this question, the poem would be the stronger for it.

...and this is me now realizing that it's past midnight so this isn't even a proper Christmas present, but is instead a late Christmas present. >.>

Oh well. Merry (Belated) Christmas!

This is what I have:

A gorgeous, visual, vivid beginning, and a mind-bending last two lines with not a lot in between. I understand that a lot about the sea feels empty to us when we are not in it, so it's easy to go for the cold, dark, empty of the sea, pretending it is air. But I guess I was more drawn to the physicality of the snake, and even the weight of the mist, the fog, something usually thought of as empty that is suddenly holding down a leaf on the water.

I'd say empty has been done. Can you write a poem to encompass the weight, the volume, the sprawl of however many endless gallons there are in its depths? Doesn't that make the distance feel more real than treating it as an air-filled abyss?

Also, I am super intrigued by the last two lines -- what would be the ocean's last wave? What would that mean? Is that line important to you at all? It brings about a finality that seems exactly at odds with the ever-rolling ocean. It is always making more and more waves, so what would bring about the last wave? Are all those thousands and thousands of leagues of depths drained? Did the earth rock the puddle one last time, and the maid went with it? That brings me images of a girl drowning herself in a sink.

I think this needs to be refined to really reach an audience. But it has potential and spark in the beginning and end, so you can work with it.

Again, PM me if you have questions or comments. Good luck and keep writing!

Helllllllllo ScarelttFire!

I liked this poem, the meaning was good. But there didn't seem to by any places where I could actually pause. Intake everything I just read. So like at the end of the lines, just add a comma or period to how you want to break it up.

An example of how you could do this is :

"and sinking, sinking,
down beneath mist, and beauty,
away from the sinking stars,
and rising sun."

Another thing you could add into your poem is more figurative language to help draw the reader in and make them feel connected still.

This isn't needed if you wanted your poem like this, mysterious.

Well, toodles!