Young Writers Society

Heya, Lar! Casanova here to do a review for you! Anyway, I'll be taking this verse by verse, soI hope that's okay. To the review!

[Your face isn't there in my mind any more
Your eyes don't appear in my dreams
The sound of your voice is drowned out by the storm]

The day I last saw you, I was headed for the north
To try and lose myself far away
I didn't look behind
I couldn't look behind or else I'd stay

The sunset loomed so large and dark against all that I knew
I never thought I'd run away like this
That night was darker still
A battle of my heart against my will

Looks like I'm going to try.

The stuff in parentheses seems to overpower the set of lyrics and it seems to be that those parts are sung quieter than the others, or at least that's how I took it. We see that this is called "Blue Ocean Eyes" and it makes me wonder how that relates to the song. We do get a glimpse of this with hints throughout the poem which is something that I liked, but the title was rather vague? It didn't really catch your eye or pop out at you from the beginning and that's part of what I think the title of a song should do, but this does pop up at the end of the song. Overall though, I don't actually mind it that much more-so that "Blue Ocean Eyes" is a bit of a weird image to pick.

I liked how it kind of faded in and faded out with it going from quiet to louder to quiet again and I think that's one of the techniques that you used well for this. Something else I wanted to touch on was the theme which was rather apparent.

I wanted more connection between your usage of the ocean to display these emotions and the feeling of being homesick because I didn't think that they quite blended all the way. The tune is something nice that I enjoyed singing along to as a slower song, or at least that's how I imagined it to be and it came out better in my mind that way but you probably had something else in mind.

One of the things that was fresh from this is that there wasn't really a chorus that was overpowering the whole song which meant we got new verses with each one and I think that's something that fit well with the piece. It doesn't really need a chorus and it comes out more powerful without one. One thing that confused me a little is that in some places you rhymed with "still" and "will" or "child" and "reconcile" since I didn't know if you intentionally only made those parts rhyme or something else.

I think something that clogged up the flow in parts were the usage of "but" at the beginning of a line because I find the lines to be stronger if you just take them out though I do understand if you're doing that to kind of drag it out long enough to match the tune rather than falling short. The message that's being told through these lyrics and the lines that you use that end up being so clever are what work best in the piece. I have to say that there were lines stronger than others and then there were some that fell flat.

Verse 3 and Verse 5 were probably my favorite in terms of lyrics do to them giving off strong emotion with the sunset and the fog. The last thing that I wanted to touch on was the feeling of being homesick. That's the one thing that I think you could have tapped more into as I didn't really feel that much of it coming off of the piece but I didn't really think that was the intention either.

It's about how the singer isn't homesick and about moving on. Not living for other people and it's a valuable message to have that I think can hit hard. I loved the parts that did good in this and the parts that fell flat or weren't as emotionally powerful such as,

But I can't bear to admit
My weakness or I'll never get away

Hello there! I must say, I rather like the piece you have here. As a poem, it has a rather interesting flow, although, towards the beginning it seems like you are taking a while to settle on one format to use before going with free verse. Sorry if it was accidental, but you do have quite a few rhyming stanzas that contribute to the slight confusion. "Far away" and " I'd stay" in the second stanza, and "still" and "will" in the third, for example. Another thing I saw was the repetition of the phrase "the sound of your voice is drowned out by the storm". This may just be personal preference, but maybe not quote yourself so directly? It would be more in-place if you regularly repeated pieces of this, but as it stands, it just sounds a little off to have this long sentence repeated. If you don't want to cut it out and replace it all together, maybe just rephrase it? One thing I really liked was the constant reference to the sea, which really added another layer of description to the piece. For me, your poem kind of reminded me of the strength and inevitability of the ocean. The narrator is trying, it seems, to forget someone of importance to them, and is trying to shove away all the emotions and turmoil caused by casting off to set sail for freedom. Yet their arguments that they are "over it" seem almost childish in nature, only further reaffirmed by them saying that they are no little kid and can handle themselves (something every child ever has probably said). The fact that they continue to try to forget, even though it seems they are denying to themselves that they can't actually forget those blue eyes, just seems to me like someone trying to stop the tides. Inevitable, and ultimately, useless. Better to live with it and learn from whatever experience they had with the person they are trying to forget, then try over and over fruitlessly to forget. I also like the anominous aspect you have, which kind of adds to the mystery of what happened. It was fun to try and piece together who these people are from the fragments you left for us.
Over all, I really was found of this piece. You have a few things to iron out, but they are mostly minor, and your excellent use of descriptions adjectives more than made up for it. Please keep up the good work! ^_^