Young Writers Society

Hi there.

Wow, this is beautiful. I love how you connect the dancer with the river and keep the metaphor throughout. Lovely. Absolutely lovely.

There should be a comma after the second line.

because her music says enough

She dances to notes we can’t hear.

and I catch glimpses of her kaleidoscope soul

And yet content to float endlessly in her current.

I really like the rhythm here though I don't know if you were really focusing on that so if this isn't relative to where you want to go with this, please disregard.

"She is a river flowing steadily
across the creek-bed floor"

I really like this. Some might think adding floor after bed would be repetitive but I think it needs that extra syllable. Rivers flow so the words should as well. With that same thought in mind I would separate the next line into an entirely different stanza or at least separate it somehow.

"rediscovering lands lost."

I don't know how I feel about the word rediscovering (not that that really matters) or putting lands before lost. It seems like writers try to add some intrigue by hanging adjectives in the end when a simpler ordering would work (I'm sure I'm as guilty as any of this).

I would include "She Arabesques beneath regret" in this sentence.

I.e. "Rediscovering lands,
she Arabesques beneath regret,
Tour Jetes above scorned love" (I would put her silence on its own line and add a comma at the end of it)


"Years have hardened her feet to callouses
but rivers move better along worn stones
and the best expression is born of lessons sorely learned."

This . . . is spectacular.

"Her surface is beauty, but pain lurks in the deep
and I catch glimpses of her kaleidoscope soul
within the reflection of Arabesque and Tour Jete
and every new creation of unnamed motion."

I would get rid of Arabesque and Tour Jete here in the second stanza.

Maybe something like "... and I catch glimpses of her kaleidoscope soul
in every new creation and unnamed motion."

So I hope this helps ... or maybe helps with future ideas? But like I said, where I go with this could be completely different from what you had in mind. Regardless of all that I think it's a great piece of writing.

Tinydancer!

It's good to see you again.

Let me just say, I love this. I love the concept of it, and the tone, and I love your diction in this piece and I love how there is a rhythm and a flow to these words, and still there is a narrative and a story to tell! This piece brings me right there in center stage with these two dancers, and I very much sense this whirlpool/ this eddie and how the speaker (and reader) sort of bask in it. I especially love the part about the calluses, my favorite part of the entire piece. :3 There's just so much expressed in this piece and it's truly been a delectable experience. Thank you for writing it!

Now all that's left is a little bit of trimming. So take your scissors out, look at every word, and see if you can't take it out. If the word absolutely refuses to be out of the poem, then you've found yourself a rock, it can stay. But if the word cries and whines and complains, then be A MAN! Cut the sissy out. We don't want sissy words here. For example, both stage light and sun both express light, and while I get that you're going for that blending metaphorical image of the natural creek/river and the stage, all of that is going to happen naturally in our minds. You don't need to tell us the sun is a stage light. We already know, if not then, then by the time we get to the end. Give your readers credit. Likewise, just little things like "catch glimpses" -- say glimpse. In that same line, kaleidoscope kind of ruins the flow for me/sticks out. It's the hard Kuh sound -- it's like you're bumping against rocks, rather than a word like "shining or spectacular or brilliant" even though they're not my favorite words to use, the words themselves emit the light, and they sound light.

It's a difficult line to cross, because in poetry, words have textures and they have colors and they have histories and meanings - and sometimes you put two words together that don't sound right or don't share the right texture and it's like a bad taste in the mouth, so watch out for those.

And then possibly some reshuffling of these lines are in order? This is a piece about dancing, so allow your words to dance on the page as well! Experiment with your line breaks and stanzas! Right now, this is like two big blocks of texts - it's so stiff, and it's stiff to read through as well. Even though your rhythm and tone is crisp and flows well - you want to facilitate that movement, not hinder it!

This poem is about eddies
so make your lines
flow into one
another
let your poem dance,
___let your poem sway
______let your poem move,
_________let this poem be ballet


Notice how the breaking of these lines actually help with the flow? Also, see how I'm playing not only with flow-y lines, but with sharp angles and bends. There's no limit with what you can do. Get creative and have fun with it! (also don't mind the underscores, apparently we can't indent/space up these reviews ;_;)

~ as always, Audy

This poem flows beautifully which, considering the imagery and the subject, was perfect.

I do have one quibble though: your punctuation. While it's grammatically-correct for the most part (which is always nice to see~), it isn't quite consistent throughout this, especially within the first stanza. The offending (or, rather, inconsistently missing) piece of punctuation is the comma. You sometimes have a comma, but then you sometimes don't, and that's a bit confusing. Since the rest of this poem is properly punctuated, I'd recommend using commas all the time versus not using commas at all, for a bit more internal consistency.

Once case of missing commas is within the first three lines, and while it wasn't noticeable at first, by the time I'd finished the first stanza, I was wondering if there were going to be more missing commas.

She is a river flowing steadily
across the creek-bed floor(comma here)
rediscovering lands lost.