Young Writers Society

Ah nice repetition in this piece, and a good solid image to pull from.

A couple comments.

I love this line, "thunder sing and lightning sigh" like AHhhh that's such a good pairing!

In this line, "don't dream of dissent" -> I think you mean "descent" (to go down) rather than "dissent" (to disagree) but maybe I'm wrong? I just couldn't quite make sense of why it would be "dissent" in this case. In the line, "i dream of discord and dissent" it makes a bit more sense, and I guess maybe you were going for kind of a pun? Let me know! Because I'm pretty curious!


Also you've got this great image in the opening stanza of "solace and steel" and I would love if you had included that steel imagery somewhere else in the poem too, because the pairing is neat, but feels a little random without expanding on it.

Overall the poem feels a little wispy - like there are just little imagery tangents that aren't quite lacing together into a story yet, but the poem does successfully express a mood of this descending into this place of darkness and maybe tranquility, maybe even death - if going down is a metaphor for the grave.

Interesting stuff! I really enjoy your poetry perspective Scar, and need to read more of your poems.

alliyah

Hey Scarli! I saw this lurking in the Green Room, so here I am.

It's been more than a year since I learned about sestinas in my Creative Writing class, but I have a sneaking suspicion this is somewhat inspired by them. I had to google the pattern for sestinas to remember how exactly it works; the key detail is the varying repetition. The same end words are used in every stanza, but the order varies depending on what part. Your poem doesn't follow that pattern perfectly; some words are used at the end but don't show up anywhere else. The "i dream of" phrases at the beginning of each stanza also give that feeling, even though it's not something that's necessarily done in sestinas.

Sestinas aside, I really like the imagery in this! It was a little hard to follow in some parts, but I think that's just because I'm not good at reading long pieces with repetitive language - I had the same problem when being taught about sestinas (sorry for continuing to bring them up) in that Creative Writing class. While I did have to reread a stanza or two, I really like the overall mood of your poetry. It's very dark and ominous - it fits your writing style very well!

This is an awesome poem, and I hope it ends up in the literary spotlight sometime soon!

Hi there Scar! Nite here again.

Well thanks to that title, I'm going to have a weird mashup of The Gin Blossoms "Follow You Down" and Death Cab for Cutie's "I Will Follow You into the Dark" stuck in my head, so thanks.

Okay now to the actual review.

In the first verse, "solace" sounds kind of weird to me, but I like how it sets up this contrast between what people would normally find comforting (not steel, thunder, and lightning) and what the speaker finds solace in.

Second/fourth verse-I'm guessing this is supposed to be a chorus/refrain? I'm not sure if it holds up to that repetition. I think it's the repeated "deep and the dark" that's bugging me. Maybe there's some synonyms you can use for the first line.

Third verse-Hmm, so now we're repeating the thunder/lightning pattern as well, and now it's reading like the speaker is talking to the thunder and lightning, which is interesting.

Fifth verse-This is pretty, but feels a little repetitive since it's copying bits from other verses. It also sticks out because the speaker is now dreaming about concrete things (stars and planets) instead of abstract concepts. It might feel more consistent if you changed the last lines to "don't dream of stars without me".

Overall, I think this flows well, and though it's a little repetitive, it kind of works. Keep writing!