Shadow Thoughts

Hello there!

This was a dark poem; the dread that comes with isolation and loneliness. Honestly, this is relatable because of the ongoing quarantine and self-distancing. We're all left with bickering thoughts that quarrels with our sanity. The formatting is also very unique. As you write more stanzas, it becomes a shadow of the previous stanza. It just follows your first thought, which is the "blanket of despair embracing my soul."

I have a few critiques regarding the poem:

I'd like to echo Tenyo's words "The sentiment is strong but very vague." My tip for you would be to pick a very general term or an emotion like "dread" and describe it instead of simply saying it. For example, "I feel dread -- the fingers that tap teasingly in my eardrums, incessantly driving me into the madness of a dissonant rhythm."

I know that the absence of punctuation is a stylistic choice, but it's a bit off-putting (maybe it's just me so please disregard this if you want). Punctuations are there to indicate the pauses, sometimes, even the tone of the poem.

That's all I can say for now. I'm looking forward to more of your works

Best regards,
Kattee x

Hi! First of all, I think that you wrote a really beautiful poem. I think you more or less wrote what depression is in a poetical way. I liked that you have a simple vocabulary that still transmits a message to us. On the negative side, there isn't much I can say. I think you could do a better job on the punctuation. It's not something extremely important but you have a majority of your stanzas without any. It will make it better for the reader to understand the flow of your poem if you add it. I recommended this in other reviews too but maybe you could add rhymes? I don't always add rhymes in my poems and sometimes the message is more important than this detail. Just like in yours but I do think it will make your poem more melodic if you add rhymes. The other thing that I would like to suggest you add phew words that are more complicated. I do love the simplicity of the poem but I think it will make it more interesting if you add a more complex vocabulary. These two things are more like suggestions for your next poems nothing major. I hope my review helped you! Also a little bit late but welcome to YWS!

Hey Shadeflame!

Firstly, I'm a huge fan of concrete poetry. The shape of this is pretty simple but it has shape and I love that. It just adds an extra dimension to the text. The metaphor is really strong, and I think you've done well to describe that compassing, suffocating feeling that despair has over a person. It creates the image of these layers slowly creeping over someone until they're isolated from the world, and as awful as that feeling is it's one that a lot of people can probably relate to.

If you were to develop it further I think it would benefit from a bit more variety in the imagery. The sentiment is strong but very vague, and having some more solid images or sensory parts would help to sharpen it up.

Nice work. Thank you for posting =]