Yin Yang

Hi Vegas! Just stopping by for a review on this lovely Review Day.

So, this poem is fairly simplistic. Comparing loves to roses is one of the oldest metaphors in the book! But you do attempt to take this poem to an interesting place with the yin-yang comparison.

Let's get into some content suggestions (feel free to take or leave anything I'm suggesting, the final call is always with the author, and because I didn't write the poem I very likely might be missing some important element)

1) My immediate thought when you started with the color imagery is this poem is the perfect example of a piece that would benefit from actually using color in the text! And since you're posting as an image you could totally do that and like make the second stanza red or something! And then stanza three a combination --just an out of there thought.

2)So you've got the yin-yang ideas right that they're like opposite forces -- but I don't see that opposite nature expressed in your descriptions in stanza 1 & 2. I can see kind of how the colors work, and then the "stained" description. but innocence and "heart of love" don't really seem like the total opposites of "shattered" and "stitched with love" - maybe talking about strength and weakness, confidence and fear, past and future etc would make more sense - but right now I'm not seeing your rose metaphors making the leap to the yin-yang comparison. Actually even rose and thorn would be a cool contrast that makes more sense. ...

3)Some of the phrasing is a bit hollow, what does "heart of love" even mean? You don't expand or give any context clues, so that phrase has zero meaning for me as a reader. The "complete each other" has a similar problem. I'd also like to know more about why the speaker thinks they've been "shattered" as this seems to be an important detail of their past that could help the speaker connect to them, but we don't get to understand it in the poem.

4)For a love poem, we don't really have any discription of interaction between the two people. Which is a bit odd, and doesn't lend itself to being very emotionally connecting for a reader. You say that the speaker's heart was "stitched" but you don't even claim that the stitching was done by the person they love -- I think there almost needs to be another stanza where the speaker and the person they like interact in some way or else it's a bit hard to understand their relationship.

Overall, you took an old idea and put a twist on it. I'd love a bit more specificity and background, but overall the poem had good flow and the concept was clear.

best,
~alliyah

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Hi, ZeldaIsShiek here to review some more amazing poetry! I personally love the philosophy of Yin and Yang, so naturally, I had to review this poem. Let's begin!

I really like how you contrasted the two characters of this poem and being Yin and Yang. The poet is Yin, and the audience is Yang. It feels like a love poem, and it feels like the poet is saying that both of them are different in so many ways, but being different makes them compatible. That is what makes this poem so beautiful to me. The comparison and contrast in this poem truly brings out the beauty of the natural world and what is Yin and Yang. Keep writing, and never stop pouring out your soul into amazing works like this one!

Some of the lines I really liked are "For I am Yin, and you are my Yang" and "We are polar opposites, but we complete one another" because they also show this contrast that makes them compatible. This style of writing is not very popular but is another poetry. I really like how you wrote this, and hope to read more like it very soon! See you next time! ZeldaIsSHiek- Out!

Hello, E.E here for a possibly quick review and maybe some utter nonsense! So, Let's get started.
The title fits the poem really well, adding more to it. I did not notice any grammar mistakes or spelling so that is great!
Now, this is where I see if I can dissect your poem!
My guess is that it's about a man/woman talking to a friend or lover and telling them that they are pure, nothing wrong has followed them through there life and plagued them day and night. While the person telling them this has thing like that. Thoughts and words, actions that haunt them all the time. But they are saying that them being different is what makes their relationship what it is, completion. Because there demons can play well together, they are ones light and the others darkness. Dark and Light can live without one another.
Anyways, I loved your poem and keep up the good work! and Happy Friday the 13th!

Hulllooooo, VegasLights! I saw this and was itching to review.

So! The usual yin-yang thing is with darkness and light, which you did in a way. I liked that you used white and red as your colors instead of white and black, which is pretty neat, and a metaphor which I think you can extend further.

I feel as though this could be longer, but if you want it to stay this length (which is lovely and short), maybe try to pack as much of a punch as you can. “Pure” is a good word, and in the first stanza you have some imagery that follows, but the images seem a little weak to me. You could extend each bit more- for example, the white rose. When I think of roses, white is not the first color to come to mind. So, perhaps you might say, “as rare as a white rose”, or even, “white winter rose” (I like alliteration sometimes, but you don’t have to). Then your next two lines are a bit flat- the reader isn’t being shown the love. I think that poetry, like novels or short stories, should have a showing aspect rather than a telling one. Why is this person innocent with a heart of love? Maybe use an action to show it, “you care for every stranger you meet” or something more expressive of the supposed love. Although it’s not white, you might want to try some “clear” imagery, like this person has nothing to hide or nothing to fear, like looking through glass. Snow is also common white imagery, or clouds. Try some different things!

As for the second stanza, that’s when you get into red. The only things the narrator says about himself/herself is “I am immodest” and “I am stained red”. The other two lines are directly countering the above stanza- I think this doesn’t need to happen. It might be better if the second stanza was similar to the first, describing the impurity of the narrator, rather than just saying that the narrator is not like the other person. I think this would be stronger, and the readers can see the contrast themselves without having to be told what the narrator is not- focus on what the narrator is. You could also put more imagery in here!

Back to the flower thing, I had another thought. It might be cool is you compared the first person to a white lily, and then the narrator to a red rose! Or two flowers of those colors. You don’t have to do that, but having a flower symbol with the proper color in both stanzas might be neat.

The last stanza does a nice job of uniting the poem, although you might want to make a comment about color there too. Maybe how the colors mix nicely, or just that they offset each other perfectly, just something to tie it all in. (As you can tell, I’m really fond of color things XD)

Nice job! I love the idea, and hope you can make it really strong and more emotional and full of imagery. I hope my rambling was helpful, I couldn’t really get my thoughts straight but hopefully some of what I meant got across. Good luck!

-Q