Young Writers Society

Hey there, basia! Sparkles here to review your awesome poem. First, let's talk about style and phrasing.

So... rhyme. Often, rhyme comes with the connotation of being childish and playful, and maybe you want that in some cases. But that's not what I want to talk about. In this poem, I feel like it disrupts the flow of the poem and doesn't help us, as readers, to picture (and feel engaged with) your story. Lots of poets use rhyme--Robert Frost, for one. But, before you default to that, you can think about what effect it will have for your readers. For many of us, I think, it threw the whole piece off and was a burden to your light writing. It stopped us from being able to fully imagine the things you wanted us to fully imagine. Speaking of that, let's talk about content.

So, from what I'm reading, you want us to first picture this garden and all its serenity. Then you want to pull us out of it suddenly, back into the real world. I think you could improve on the former, especially because you seem to often /tell/, not /show/. I don't think this was entirely your fault. Much of this is a side effect of the harsh rhyming of the piece. The rhyme scheme forces you to go to places and use words that don't engage very well with your reader, for example: "The bees buzz by, / And the butterflies fly," Although these are both generic images, I would have enjoyed seeing your execution of these. I think you could really paint a picture for us. However, I never got to enjoy this picture because you summed it up in seven words. There's nothing wrong with simple language, but this is simple to the point where it's tired. Rethink your choice to use rhyme.

Okay, your transition. I think the moment you were supposed to be brought back to reality was here: "The birds sing song, / The doorbell goes DING-DONG,". But this was really not very harsh (or at least abrupt) at all. This extra noise was simply a /noise/--because that's all you've provided to us so far. See what I mean? The bees buzz, the birds sing, for one. All you've given your readers is action and noise, so this action and noise shouldn't startle them.

Anyhow. This was a nice start, and I think the poem has a lot of potential. I hope you find this review helpful.

Don't forget to be awesome.
IronSpark

This poem is so nice.. loved it !!

Hey, this is Willow (as evidenced by my name tag here), also known as the llama-overlord, but that's not as important right now. I haven't reviewed in a while so sorry if I'm rusty. Here I go.

First off, I liked the second half of the poem much better than the first half. It felt less like a list and more like someone was speaking to me. The garden is a good idea, but try to make the words feel more like a description rather than describing words (does that make any sense? Sorry.) i especially didn't get the ding-dong line, it felt more like a forced rhyme than part of teh garden, and really distracted from the imagry of a calm garden, same with the "it's a place to calm for a test" (by the way is that "too calm for a test" like to calm to think about struggle or is it "to calm for a test" like a place to get calm before you take a test? Cause at first I thought you were taking a test (like a written bubble sheet test) in a garden).

Second the transition from garden to harsh reality seemed abrupt and confusing. I'm starting to think it's like you're sitting a garden relaxing and seeing those sights and then the doorbell rings and you remember that this isn't what real life is like, but a had to read it a few times to get that. And even with that, the line in between "But nature relaxed you", one seemed like the transition instead of the doorbell and two felt out of place when I realized what the transition was supposed to be. What you might want to do is work in that you were relaxed in the first half and then have a more abrupt line about the doorbell to emphasize how quickly you remember real life. Your over all moment of shifting to the concerns you have is very long (3 out of 21 lines (1/7th) especially since your going from relaxed to worried about life. It might make since to try to make stanzas (personally I love stanzas a lot so feel free to ignore me) Maybe a stanza for the garden part (go as long as it takes to make the relaxation of the garden take you over) then if you want an abrupt transition, one or two short lines in a stanza to break it off from the relaxed, then another big stanza of worry (which for the sake of visual attractivness should be roughly equal in length to the first (I'm sorry if this sounds more complicated than it is, I,m writing way more than I need to).

Lastly the last stanza. Like I said I preferred it to the first stanza just because it's rhythm was a lot more appropriate to the theme. (By that I mean the abrupt listing worked better here because the mood should be panicked with all these worries). But with the current rhythm some of the lines felt out of place. Like "all teh doctor was doing, was kiss up to you" I get that you wanted this to rhyme with the line before it, but this feels forced. It's really disrupting to have a short line rhyme with a long line (plus the line right after the doctor line doesn't even rhyme with anything, which is worse) it messes up the beat entirely. It might even be a good idea to ditch the rhyming entirely. Likewise with the beat of this poem the Constant switching from long lines to short lines and back is messing up the meter. It reads a lot nicer if you replace the commas in the long lines with a start of a new line. The idea is to slow the length of the line down to pretty similar rates. Or speed it up, making the short lines longer would do the same. Or perhaps making The lines increase in length until the reader is reading as fast as a panicked person.

Oh and I just realized there is a last part in there, the reflection back on the garden. Probably needs it's own stanza to (if you want to). It blends into much with the real world anxieties.

Sorry if this got long, I really do write too much. This is a great first draft and I loved juxtoposition of the garden's tranquility and real life's pains, it just needs some structural work so it reads as well as the idea feels.

Good luck,
Willow

Hello! racket here to review!
Well, this is cool! It's a little difficult to grasp the meaning of, but I think I get it. The garden is the peace from the messed up world, right? I hope the suggestions I give you will help that become more clear, if that was your goal. But before I get all nit-picky, I want you to know that this is really well done!
Okay, so first thing I would add would be stanzas. Stanzas, stanzas, stanzas are key!! So you have the beginning few lines that describe the garden and all its noises and things, so that should probably be its own stanza, right? The line 'But nature relaxed you,' should be the beginning of the second stanza and 'But in that vision of the garden...' the beginning of a third. Honestly, I think there should be more than that, but your poem really spreads with few good break points to start stanzas. So, I would work on refining your points and turning them into separate stanzas, yeah?
Another thing I noticed was that your rhyme scheme, though well done in most parts (rhyming is hard!), is a little irregular. A few lines don't have corresponding lines to rhyme with, such as 'Because in our days today,' and 'A place were one day you will get to,' (were should be 'where', by the way), so it disrupts the flow of the poem, yes? I would suggest either taking out the rhyming altogether, as it is quite difficult to pull off a whole poem of each line rhyming to its neighbor, or thinking really, really hard on some new rhymes to end lines with. I wouldn't suggest adding any lines though, as this poem is a little wordy.
Whhiiiich leads right into my next point, which is that some of these lines don't make sense so much. You get the right feeling from them, but they don't actually make so much sense, or are at least confusing or unnecessary. 'All the doctor was doing, was kiss up to you,' 'The kids taking drugs, just because they were under the grind,' So yeah, look through the poem and try to fix those things, make two lines out of the few that have two commas in them, okay?
One more thing; try not to use 'and' and 'but'. There are so many creative ways you could replace them! They're awesome opportunities, those spaces, and sticking an 'and' or 'but' there is kind of a waste, even not accounting for how ungraceful they feel in context with the rest of the poem.
Soooooooo I think that's it! If you have any questions, just ask! Don't get the wrong impression here; this poem is great! There's just always a little bit of tweaking that can be done. Keep writing!
~racket
(Btw, welcome to YWS!)

I like this

Hi, fellow newbie! Welcome to YWS! This is my third review, so I may criticize things that are supposed to be right.

First of, I really like the poem. The way you used the figures of speech (personification in "But nature relaxed you", onomatopoeia in "the doorbell goes DING-DONG", alliteration in "bees buzz by" etc.) is good, and it got me hooked all the way to the end.

From what I understand, the garden is a metaphor of heaven, a place of peace and rest, and that's where we all go to in the end. One thing bothers me:

"And when the squirrels burry nuts with greed,"

It's supposed to be "bury". And the way you put "greed" in this line bothered me: If garden is a metaphor of heaven, what is "greed" doing in a place like heaven? I know you had to put this because it rhymes, but there are other ways.

Overall, I liked the poem. It was a good poem, but you can make it better! The fact you just wrote this for a short time shows that you're a talented writer. I hope to see your other works!

~Van

I do like the poem, however there are a few minor errors,
such as

"and when the squirrels burry the nuts with greed"

It is actually bury.

Also,

"All the doctor was doing, was kiss up to you"

Maybe you mean "kissing up"?

Overall I like the rhythm of it, the poem sounds good to the ear. I encourage you to keep writing!

Hello, hello! May I just say . . . WELCOME TO YWS!!! *Throws confetti* I hope you love it here as much as I do and that you keep writing, writing, writing, because I ABSOLUTELY LOVE THIS!!

I love this because I can sense a lot of feeling, and in my opinion, feeling is key in writing and especially in poetry. I can sense the surroundings of peace, can almost feel my breathe catch in a sudden start as I hear the doorbell, but then nature calms me again. I only found a few, miniscule weeds that need - well, weeding - and in the end might make the garden experience more pleasant for others.

It's the place to calm for a test,

And when the squirrels burry nuts with greed

And the butterflies fly

All the doctor was doing, was kiss up to you

A place were one day you will get to

Well, I must say that I was not expecting that ending! So, it was a bit of surprise and I like where you were going with that. Reading the first few lines, I was definitely getting that peaceful vibe, but then it was like being hit with the reality of things. Like life isn't as perfect as it seems. I'm guessing the garden is some kind of heaven? Or, some sort of mental sanctuary to escape to? Either way, I really do like how you wrote it.

The only thing I'd fix with this is rewording line 13 a bit. I know that with rhyming, you have some limits, but I'd suggest maybe "All the doctors do, is kiss up to you" or "All the doctor is doing, is kiss up to you". Or, maybe take out at least one of the 'was' in that line. I think it will flow a bit better.

Other then all that, I think this was pretty well done. Great job on this~