embers

Hi Shady!

Lim here with a short review. From what I remember last time, I think this is tackling the subject of Kylia’s self-worth issues and removal from her home as a child. The poem describes the speaker’s movement from a grim landscape back to their home.

Language and Imagery

The main group of images is a juxtaposition between cold and warm. I also noticed imagery of death, such as “graveyard” or “dying soul”. I think it’s interesting that “death” is contrasted with “home” rather than ‘life’, as I think it usually tends to be.

It was a bit hard for me to connect the imagery in the first stanzas to the “grimy prison” in the fifth stanza. I imagined the poem was mostly about this graveyard in winter, whereas a “grimy prison” would be a closed space, maybe even underground. Did you mean to compare the winter graveyard to a prison, like a metaphor? Or was there supposed to be a transition of settings between stanzas 4-5?

On stanza 2, I wonder if you intentionally put two similes there next to each other? I tend to be scared by similes, I think, because when I read it takes some extra effort for my brain to make the comparison, for example between “numb fingers” and “numb dying soul”, whereas if the lines had used other kinds of imagery, those kind of flow more naturally because they appeal directly to the senses. Do you think you might have a way to describe that feeling of metaphorical bitter chill without using comparisons?

I had to Google the word ‘gelid’ there – that’s a cool word In general, I like the way you connected the different temperature-related images together. There’s quite a bit of variety there, from the image of locks to that of the wind “raging” and then metal armor to represent the cold. It definitely carries a strong medieval European fantasy vibe to me.
(As a side note out of curiosity on joie de vivre, is French a language spoken in the setting of your roleplay for this?)

Structure

I think the way the line breaks are done makes this a very ‘visual’ poem. They make a nice shape, cascading down the image like snowmelt, maybe. When read aloud, I find it difficult to catch on to any rhythmic devices. There might be a bit of a pause in the first stanza between “buried deep within” and “locked beneath” with that semicolon. I think that could be a good place to try using commas or alliteration (I’m thinking ‘buried beneath’, for example) to emphasise the speaker’s emotions.

I like the placement of the em dash in stanza 5. I think it brings out the emotion of that line pretty well. I also like how you’ve formatted the whole piece and matched the image to the words. I think that makes it a more ‘whole’ piece, and mixing mediums like that is something I personally find hard to do, so kudos on that!

Overall

The mood of the poem is kind of a conflicted one, or at least one of oppositions, just like the imagery. It seems to go between reminiscence that becomes painful when considering the speaker’s present situation, but then also hopeful from the middle of the poem onwards. In that way, I think it makes sense that the hot-cold imagery goes back and forth. It’s an interesting piece on its own and a likely to be nice character study as well for people who’ve read your roleplay!

Hope some of this helps and feel free to ask for more feedback,
-Lim

Aww..This is a sweet poem.I’m guessing that it’s about Kylia escaping her master and finally finding love in a new family.I think that the family might have taken her in.It will be awhile for her to get used to the affection,but she’s feeling better already! Looks like Kylia finally found her happy ending.I wonder if there will be more Kylia poems or this is the last one.I hope you have a lovely day/night!

@vampricone6783 here's Kylia poem #3 if you're interested but no pressure!