Young Writers Society

This is a really cool poem; happy to have just re-read it.

Hi mint! Lim here with a short review.

Themes and Interpretation

My interpretation of the poem is that the speaker starts off feeling stuck, with their dreams “sagging” and feeling like they are travelling in circular motion. By the end of the poem, they seem to have found hope for a more interesting life and enthusiastically “tear the air” to try and find it. At first, I wasn’t sure where the “meaning is beautiful” line fit in – but then I wondered if “meaning” here also connects to the sense of ‘meaning in life’, which would connect with the thought that the speaker wants to pursue their dreams or lead a more interesting life.

Structure

Something I liked about this poem was the way the rhythm related to the content.

me and my dreams,
sagging at the seams,
whipped cream, oh
i don't know what i mean.)

is it true that
if i continue for long enough
i'll end up back at the beginning?
(i think that sounds like a pleasing prospect.
i would like to be young again.)

for us
out there
somewhere.

i tear the air.

sagging at the seams,
whipped cream, oh

some forces are unseen.
but i seem to see:

eyo whaddup I am here for some physics. (This is a lie I only like physics when velocity and acceleration are zero. I build buildings. Anyway.)

So the first thing I want to talk about is sound repetition (rhymes, alliteration, assonance, consonance: I put them all under this umbrella). I can tell you're being deliberate, and that you're putting in the effort to kind of experiment with it and see how it plays with rhythm, and that you're trying to see how far you can push it. The first two stanzas, with all of the 'ee' sounds throughout and the 's' sounds in the second stanza, really do a great job exploring this.

The next step, then, is to consider exactly why you're repeating sounds. In poems with particular rhyme schemes and stanza breakdowns, we tend to naturally group our rhymes and lines with a specific theme or sentence or idea, because the poem is already built that way. This same idea can be applied to freeform poetry. Think: does every 'ee' word in the first two stanzas contribute to the point or feeling you want to convey in those stanzas? (And is that feeling confusion? The rambling nature and the question, and specifically the phrases 'i don't know what i mean' and 'some forces are unseen' all give me this vibe... but I can't read your mind haha. Just wondering if that was your intent.)

And again in the final line and stanza, we see repetition of the 'air' sound. In meaning, I get the sense that these lines are building from the idea of escape, of breaking boundaries, so maybe it's worth it to see if you can get that sound to appear earlier in the stanza, when those ideas are introduced with 'you can't escape the circle/but i can traverse planes.' Then, you start to strengthen the connection between sound and ideas.

Whew. Okay.

Next thing is: I do really love to see equations in poetry. Physics and calculus are considered poetic for a reason! There is a lot of grace and meaning to be discovered in them. I think, however, that it is worth it to consider the equation more deeply than you have here. This poem, from how I'm reading it, is about being stuck moving in a circle, and then breaking out of it. It's a great theme! I think you have the foundations of a really powerful idea.

What does the equation actually have to do with that idea, though? You took the time to copy it in a different font, which pulls a lot of attention to the equation. (Even if it were matching text to the rest of the poem... the fact that it is so different from English would give it a lot of weight) So if you're going to include the equation and let it take center, then it's worth it to really dig in and use it more heavily to support your own ideas.

In practice, the acceleration in this equation is caused by a force acting toward the center of the circular motion--gravity, for example. If you expand on that, then it means that some force actually keeps people stuck in the circle. What allows you to escape that force? Is it your understanding of the equation/physics? Is it something else? I think there is a lot of depth you can explore with this equation as the basis for a theme and message, rather than as a prop that is really only briefly touched upon before you use vaguer wording to communicate the escape part of the poem.

Anyway, that's all I got. Hope this helps? Let me know if you want to talk physics more lol. I could use the refresher.

Great work!
-Vento

Omg I love this so much