Young Writers Society

Wow,your poetry is good,i haven't read your interpretation finish,but i somehow pick some sense from your poetry,i don't really understand poetry,but keep it up!

I really liked this, there was an eerie quality about it that is haunting and lovely.

I'm going to offer an interpretation, a few compliments, then a few critiques.

Interpretation
The phrase that immediately came to mind when reading this was the quote from a Henry Wadsworth Longfellow poem about "two ships that pass in the night" - which is about an intense possible connection/opportunity between two people that passes without a full meeting or doesn't bring a relationship to full fruition.

Whether the metaphorical "sailboat" is a person or another event or opportunity - the speaker notices and seems to long for connection with them, but instead of granting a meeting they are kept hopelessly apart; on land and on sea. The metaphor of a ghost - might mean that the subject actually died, or that they just disapeared from another circumstance.

Meanwhile the speaker cannot get the thought of the "sailboat" or person/event out of their mind, it clings to their memory.

The very best image is that last one [quote]Ocean water fills my stomach, but I am never full" - Wow. I absolutely love the idea of them missing the boat so much that they try to drink the ocean. That's such a perfect metaphor - because it communicates that they are filling themselves with memory/longing, in a task that will never be able to bring their loved one back, and fills them with emptiness. Gosh, really smart!

So overall, I interpreted this to be about a missed connection that the speaker can't let go of - the metaphor is pretty clearly communicated and you use consistent imagery throughout the poem so I think it makes the poem really accessible for readers to understand.

Praise

A lot of time prose writers I think get very uncomfortable with over-usage of conjunctions. Here's the thing though, in poetry - they indicate narrative and movement and emphasis and are amazing!! In ancient Hebrew poetry, using lots of conjunctions is actually one way to signal that one is writing poetry and not just prose! I think your over-usage of "and" in the 2nd stanza is instrumental - it felt like the speaker was straining to peer closer and closer into the horizon, I loved the way you used the conjunction at the ends of the lines too, to make the reader move on with enjambment. Nice work!

In this stanza, I felt like the "and" especially capitalized in a new line, really broke up the thought in an odd way though, "I could not swim to it. / And it was gone." maybe "Then it was gone" or "But it was gone" (to echo the stanza before).

Your imagery all paints a great little metaphor/story, and your opening and closing lines are phrased just perfectly. Like you really nailed that opening because it immediately intrigues the reader and draws them in to long to see the sailboat themselves - that little bit of mystery in the "I think" / "almost" / "glimpse" all add to the sailboat feeling elusive and intangible even to the reader which is a great way for the reader to be drawn into empathy with the speaker.

And as I said in the interpretation the closing line is just a dynamite conclusion; so much longing and it's almost unclear whether it's bitterness or love - the ambiguity in this case is actually useful because the narrator seems to cycle around both feelings.

Critique
Formatting-wise I'm a little torn. I like unconventional formatting, or formatting lines in ways that are more to communicate meaning or pacing than to fit inside little boxes, however I felt like some of the line breaks in here felt a bit random. I think if you're going to do the really really long lines as you do in a few stanzas; you might as well just format it as a prose poem or play up the unconventional formatting even more by making the poem format in waves or align left and right or use parenthesis - it feels like right now the poem's formatting has one foot in "convention" and one foot in "trying something different" and that makes it feel uncomitted. Go one direction or the other. Either really play with the formatting, or even up those lines and stanzas.

Similarly, I normally suggest in poetry to never choose a emphasis sylistic choice just once, unless it's being used for the single most important word in the poem. Or else it ends up looking like a random blue word in a review, and stands out like a sore thumb. In the case of this poem you use italics once, but then never again - if you use it twice then readers can look for patterns, if you use it once it draws our attention needlessly to one line that doesn't seem all that important.

There were a few moments that I thought the phrasing was a bit off - "my forehead wrinkled and hot with sweat," (no need for "and" here)

" it’s ghostly journey across" -> should be "its ghostly journey across"
" it’s wallet" -> should be "its wallet"

"it's" is for when you're using the contraction "it is".
"its" is for possessive of "it".

" but it hasn’t left me.
I have simply left it." --> this felt a little contradictory since in a stanza before you say "but it left". I see the logic, but the contradiction of feelings is a bit odd, maybe you could show a bit more how the speaker transitions from thinking that way, or acknowledge the tension a bit more clearly. Like "One day I realized it hasn't left me".

My last critique, is as I said earlier I thought your imagery was right on point and consistent with the sea/sailing stuff; everything fit really tightly together and felt cohesive. The only thing that felt a bit out of place was the key-chain section. I could figure out what was happening there, and I think it distracted from the very clean clear story you had. Key chains are just in a different imagery family than water / sailing / longing, so it was hard to make the connection there.


Overall

Overall I think a few phrasing corrections to refine the poem, and maybe removing that stanza about the key-chains would really tighten up this piece. You've got a strong, clear story that communicates clear emotion and has good unique concrete imagery -> so all the workings of a very powerful poem are here.

If you want to take this poem to the next level, it might also be fun to play with the formatting a bit - maybe try it both ways of making it clean and conventional, and then totally wacky, then see which one fits the tone/meaning better. Sometimes that can even generate ideas for new content/phrasing.

Best of luck editing and writing!

- alliyah

Hi ellas! I'm Haraya with a review.

Generally, the imagery was good. "Squinting against the sun and salt" was great. But what I wanted to point out was "Like the last gold drips of honey on the deep blue sea at sunset..." This was brimming with visual imagery and I loved it. It immediately stuck with me with all the concrete words: gold, drips, honey, blue, sea. I do think adding sunset was unnecessary and redundant because you were already describing the sunset. I think you used it because without it, it's not clear that you were describing the sunset. If that's the case, I recommend using something else so as to not weaken the imagery.

Some lines lacked imagery though. "When I am in the depths of shame." The words depth and shame didn't paint images in my head. Fortunately, most other lines were more vivid.

There was a line that confused me. "the keychains on it’s wallet if it had made it to sixteen." I was wondering why the sailboat had a wallet and made it to sixteen. That's when I thought you were no longer referring to the boat. This change was too sudden. I wish that instead of suddenly referring to a person, why not instead personify the sailboat as that person? Why not compare the person's keychains to the sailboat's anchors and chains? I think it would have made your poem more imaginative and powerful.

With that said, I like that the image of a boat was dappled throughout your poem. It gives coherence to your work. That's all I have to say! Best of luck to you and your future works!