Young Writers Society

Hey, yo, Snowmonkey9/PearlC10/RubyRed/Sheyren/Alliyah! Willard here, I guess it's a Friday afternoon, and I have a review for you (guys????)

Not everything I say is going to be happy or positive. Cool? Cool.

Let's talk about the concept of this poem and why I find it rather ironic. A lot of people compare poetry to rap. I mean, they both rhyme, they both follow a rhythm and a flow, and both of them have the intent of sharing a message. This poem made me think of another trait they have in common; features. How rappers will invite another musician to hop on their song and share some "sick bars" that is, at least, thematically similar to the song. You can't have a song about your mother's cancer and have another rapper come on and rap about the time he spent 16k on blow. That just doesn't work. However, you also don't want that rapper to sound exactly like you. That would make the song boring as all hell.

Let me quote the bio for this piece:

What are the qualification for a word to be a word A word must be acknowledged recognized and heard

I find this super ironic because, if you follow this method, then every stanza in this poem is meaningless. They hold no weight whatsoever. Why? Because the individual stanzas don't recognize each other. There is virtually no flow. Each stanza is designed to mimic each other, but adds nothing onto their counterpart. This doesn't feel like a cohesive poem at all, it feels like you simply told authors "Hey, write four lines tightly following this structure, and I'll add it in a compilation!". Record labels do that, they usually gather a plethora of songs from musicians on their labels, but they don't consider it an album. They consider it a compilation.

This doesn't feel like a poem. At all. Sadly. Features on rap songs work because while they don't follow the same flow, thematically, they make it work. The poem isn't going to get that far if you make every author say the same thing the same exact way as the previous poet. I think, to make a group poem work, you do need different styles, and you can piece them all together to make something that is at least cohesive. That might be rather difficult, on paper it sounds like an extremely hard idea to execute, but if done well, then it could offer something fresh. I'm sorry, but if you repeatedly follow this approach, then it's just not going to work.

I'd break down thematic concepts in each stanza, yet I'm sure that if I do one, then I wouldn't have to do any other. So I'll critique flow. Yeah. Let's jump in, shall we?

What's a word when it goes unheard?
Is it truly even a word?

Might want to switch around the words "even" and "truly" to fix the flow up a tad bit.

When the one listening cannot hear
Even though you shout in there ear 

If the person cannot hear, then they technically wouldn't be listening. I'm going to cite one of the best movies of all time, White Men Can't Jump, and say that "listening" is truly deeper than "hearing". You can hear something, but you aren't listening to its message.

You use the wrong "there". It should be "their". You could maybe add "it" before "in" in the second line.

What's a word when said in passing?
Make the meaning everlasting
So when its said that very day 
It doesn't fade and wither away

Not being a jerk, but I do love how the only use of punctuation throughout this whole group poem are question marks, besides two commas that don't even end lines. If you want to fix flow in the stanza, then use more punctuation than just question marks. Punctuation in poetry is either "all or none", there's no real in between or else it'd just be freaking awkward. Awkward flows don't make good flows.

Also, Ruby, you use the wrong its. It's means it is. Its means possession.

What's a word when whispered?
When there's no chance of answer

The question mark should come after the second line. "What's a word when whispered when there's no chance of answer?" works much better than "what's a word when whispered? when there's no chance of answer".

And what if when the word has been spoken
It leaves a heart tired, ragged, or broken

ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhi'mnotsurewhatthisissupposedtomeanatall!

What's a word, part of a tale?
When the writer decides to bale
No one hears their worthy thoughts
And the story in their head rots

So, before I dove into this review, I checked out the Club page for this and the first post says "you must follow rhymes set by other people to keep it consistent!"

nah.

Thematic consistency is always a must, rhyme scheme isn't. Although it'd be awkward if one person rhymes and another person doesn't. I think, personally, free verse would work much better for this kind of poem.

What's a word at all?
When it echoes off the wall

Question mark should be after the second line.

A word's hardly a word
When it goes unheard

.....and what is a stanza when it goes unheard?

I am sorry if this was too harsh, and I mean nothing personal by it. This is already a difficult type of poem to try and I do applaud the effort. But, I think the genre as a whole just doesn't work. It needs some actual weird experimentation to make an impressive product. And I know you can do it. I know every writer involved could do it. This is never guaranteed success, though. It could be done. Probably. Who knows?

I hope you have a great day.

Groovy, even.