Young Writers Society

Hi there Tylexie. This is Nikayla here dropping in for a review as requested!

When the storm hits
when lightning strikes
when thunder booms in the sky,
Are you afraid?
You sit in the rain
huddled in fear
yet you know the lightning won't strike you.

I'm confused by the contradictions of punctuation not only in this first stanza but in the whole poem. What I'm confused by is the fact that at times, lines are capitalized and at other times, lines aren't. This is of course a stylistic choice and the author's choice to make, but that isn't the problem here. The problem here is consistency. The first three lines of this first stanza seem to indicate that the poem is going to be following regular grammar rules. The fourth line is the contradiction seeing as the word 'are' is capitalized. Similar incidents also happen throughout the rest of the piece, though I'll leave that critique along to delve into the content.

That being said, I wanted to say that the concept is fine and dandy first of all. There's a lot of potential here for different imagery and certain aspects of fearing a storm that can be touched on. In short, there's a lot that can be done here. The disappointment is that the diction and repetition holds the potential of the piece back. I'm going to suggest taking off 'in the sky' in the third line of the first stanza because the two lines that come before this don't use that or add that phrase on. Generally, they can be marked off as unnecessary words if you're using the first three lines to build up to the fourth.

The problem that I have with this poem is that this is too focused on emotional words to actually instill or imbue an emotion into the audience. 'Fear' is used four times in this poem and that's not including the synonyms. Afraid, horror, and cower are all other examples of the same word being used. The problem that I have with words that are used to display emotions is that usually when they're used, the author tends to go no further than that. Don't tell the reader how to feel by dictating their emotions with these words, show us what these emotions are like. Make the reader feel them. Explain them and describe them to the reader.

I also wanted to ask about the speaker--who are they? Are they important to the poem, or is 'you' what we should be focusing on? Just a question because we seem to be focused on 'you' although this is coming from the perspective of whoever 'I' is in relation to 'you'. That brings up another question--who is 'you'? The audience? A specific person? That needed a bit more clarity as well.

I want to go back to the bit about emotions--use figurative language, imagery, and sensory detail to help get this across. Is 'you' hiding underneath the bed like a dog (because some dogs are afraid of storms)? Or is 'you' more afraid of the storm similar in a way to that they want to shut out the world? Add those details in and work from there in making this a stronger poem. This isn't necessarily bad, there just isn't anything that I haven't seen before or a strong enough execution for me to ignore the fact. Play around and experiment with this to make the piece stronger, because there's a lot of potential with the subject matter that you're touching on here.

If you have any questions, don't be afraid to ask! I hope I helped and have a great day.

Hey there Tylexie,
Myjaspercat here to leave you a review

Line-by-Line/Nit-Picks

When the storm hits
when lightning strikes
when thunder booms in the sky,
Are you afraid? Lowercase 'and' in this line.
You sit in the rain
huddled in fear
yet you know the lightning won't strike you. This is more of a personal opinion, but I would add the 'yet' to the previous line. I think the enjambment would work really well here.

It is a fear your mind [has] dredged up,
the shadows within your own head I want to say add a comma here, however it kind of reads like these first two lines are their own idea and the other three are another. That said, I think a period at the end of this line would suit it well.
For you know the storm will not hurt you
that the rolling thunder can't harm you
And yet you cower. 'and' should be lowercased here.

Those eyes wide in fear,
I tell you
Widen them in wonder. widen should be lowercased. Also, I think it's just a little repetitive to have 'wide' in the first line and then 'widen' in this line. Maybe you could look for a different word.
The thunder instilling horror,
Marvel at its strength. marvel should be lowercased.
The lightning that causes fires I think just saying 'fire' would be fine.
lets healthier forests grow. Hmm, this is an interesting contradiction. I like it.
The raindrops *insert comma* soaking to the bone *insert comma*
give life all around you.

And so I ask you,
Why do you fear the storm? why should be lowercased.

Overall
I have to agree with the previous reviewer, I felt like this piece had such a deeper meaning then what's just shown on the surface so I applaud you for that. I normally don't cry or what not when I review other's work however I felt myself getting a little teary here so good job. Before I get on to the nitty-gritty, I want to point out lines I felt really worked here:

It is a fear your mind dredged up,
the shadows within your own head

While these lines are slightly cliché -mainly due to the whole shadows in your head thing- I still felt that they were used perfectly in your piece. I also like the connection between fear and shadows, I think that worked perfectly.

The lightning that causes fires
lets healthier forests grow.

Like I said in my line by line, I really liked the contradiction in these lines. I mean, normally you don't think about fire creating something healthy so it was interesting to read that. I think you executed these lines really well, good job.

Now on to the nit-picky, nitty-gritty:

First of all, I didn't quite like the repetition of 'you' throughout the poem. I understand that 'you' is the topic of this piece, however I felt like I read a little to many 'you(s)'. It's not bad and doesn't really take away much from your piece as it's more of a me problem but I would suggest maybe playing around with wording and flow to see if you can cut out a couple 'you(s)'.

Second, I liked how the first two stanzas kind of told a story and they both had a similar rhythm/ flow for me, however the third stanza felt a little choppier. Again this is another me problem but I would suggest just working on the flow/rhythm a bit, maybe connecting a couple sentences or two into one.

Final Thoughts
Other then that, I don't really have much else to say. If you have any questions please feel free to ask. Good luck and continue writing.