Young Writers Society

Hey @Thediffident! Happy Review Day and Welcome to YWS! I thought I'd drop by your poem to leave a review since poetry is my very favorite.

Story
This poem had a lovely narrative that was easy to picture the adorable little bird waiting for the older sweet man who would come every day even when it was cold - there's an expression of love in the steadfastness of the two connected by their waiting. I felt like there was more to the story than was being said, and while I wanted it to continue and grow I also felt like the poem on its own was a succinct and complete thought.

Word Economy
In poetry especially poets are often conscious of what's called "Word Economy" it's kind of like when you have 10 dollars and you use those limited funds to stretch and try to buy a glorious meal, when you're writing a poem you have limited words and you want to stretch them and make them do as much work as they can so that your reader has a full and lasting impression. This poem uses very few words to tell its story, but I think some of the words could be used with even better "word economy" to make the story stretch and leave a more lasting impression - here's some examples of areas where there might be room for growth...

Imagery
Something that makes a poem really stay in your mind and connect is how an author uses imagery -> connecting with the senses (feel, sight, smell, taste, etc) in this poem we have the image of "little sparrow" and "wrinkly / old man" and "sweet smile" and "cold day" - I think each of those images could be expanded just slightly to give a little more personality.

"little" ... most sparrows are small, so this doesn't tell the reader much, what about saying the sparrow was "dusky brown" or "quivering" or "little and patient" - you see how that paints a little more of a picture?

"wrinkly / old" ... if they are wrinkly, that already implies that they are likely old, so maybe a different word could be used? "weathered with age" or "wrinkled and slower these days"

Doing just a little bit of a closer look at the images and how to expand and maximize them I think will really make your poem pop more.

Metaphor / Simile
Lastly I'd love to see this poem use a little bit of metaphor or simile. In poetry this is a technique that makes a poem speak at multiple levels and really expands the message. Maybe the sparrow could be compared to a statue, or a tree, maybe the man to the seasons? There's many options out there, but I think that's another opportunity to give the poem more depth and make your words do as much work as they can.

Conventions
Overall I like that you were fairly consistent with your capitalization - keeping one capital letter at the beginning and then omitting them the rest of the way. I think you may want a comma after "old" and you might choose to put a period at the end if you want it to have sort of an "end of sentence" feeling, but you don't necessarily need to either since poetry you can play with the rules of grammar and punctuation a little. Overall I didn't find any spelling or grammar mistakes to distract me from reading.

Overall this was a light and thoughtful little poem, and I'm glad I had a chance to read it. Keep on writing, I hope to read more of your poems in the future!

~ alliyah

cute poem , I love the simplicity , I think you should continue this poem and write more, its sweet but it feels incomplete like a stanza from a poem, write more maybe about how they first met , how long they have know each other , who is this man etc. ....

and I see you are trying to make a rhyming scheme from bench and best, old and cold, if you can't find rhyme for the word search it on internet or look for synonyms for the words that you want to write and pick the one which suits the rhyme scheme.

I love it, it's a cute read, I see this poem has potential and so do you, write more, I hope to read more from you.

Hey Thediffident, here for a quick review!

For a 7 line poem, you've done a very amazing job. I found it quite impressive how just in this short poem alone you've managed to build these two characters with what appears to be a very close relationship, or a very strong bond.

"who came everday

even in the cold"

(This is probably where I found that idea of the sparrow and old man sharing a strong bond)

Overall, great job on this piece, it had a nice flow and rhythm and brought upon some imagery to the readers as well. I would love to see a little extended version of this, but that is entirely up to you, the writer.

Keep up the great work!

Hi there, I'll be giving a short review/comment!

I don't really review poems but this short and sweet one caught my eye. Such a beautiful, lovely poem! The sparrow and the man clearly have a strong relationship/ friendship, and that's
just adorable! But also...it's quite sad. I felt happy and sad at the same time. Good words you used. I had to read it a few times to fully understand...but anyways, lovely poem!



Keep it up! Have a good day/night/afternoon!


-Mika

such a nice poem. it's very simple but now i'm sad i never want this old man to die.. he has to stay alive for the sparrow. no but fr love a short poem that can make you feel a range of emotions. i find the use of "at best" interesting. I'm not sure why it's making me question the usage of it so much. I'll definitely come back if anything reaches to a conclusion in my brain.

very good, keep on writing

- chicken

Howdy hey! I’m here to give a review.

I really like simple poems, and I thought this one was really cute!.. Well, at least I did for the first time I read it. When I read it the first time, I said “aww, so cute!” And then i read it over again and said “…oh.” I’m honestly not sure if I’m interpreting this wrong or not, but I kind of saw it as the sparrow waiting a long time for the man to come back, not realizing he died. And that makes me kind of sad 😢.

Overall, really great, simple poem!

—GengarIsBestBoy