Young Writers Society

Hello!
First off, I'm writing this at 1:00 am, so right now, in the moment, I relate to this extremely well. The repetition of the word sleep can be seen as sleep taking over the person's body, despite the person wanting to do other things, such as play, write, and color. Maybe this could be seen as how an excited child sees nighttime. Seeing how some children see sleep as unimportant.
Again, I love shorter poems, because not only does it challenge the writer to fit a story in such few lines, but it challenges the reader to figure out the meaning and dive deeper into the poem. I love the ending to where it seems like the narrator sees that falling asleep is inevitable and will eventually happen.
I love your poems, they really make me think about what they could possibly mean and let me make my own figurations.

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Hiya!
I think this is a poem that most people can relate to. The push and pull between wanting to sleep and wanting to use the hours of the night to do things you didn't have time to do during the day. The frustrations of not being able to sleep when you want to.
It's a common sentiment presented in probably the most straightforward way possible.
If complete, pared-down simplicity is what you're going for in this poem, then I'd say you're pretty much there.
But in my opinion, poetry shines when there are layers to what is being expressed, and unfortunately, I can't really find anything in this poem to examine on a deeper level. There's also nothing here that really delights the senses or plays with sound or words.
Ezra Pound came up with a theory that there are three different aspects to poems: Phanopoeia, Melopoeia, and Logopoeia. I try to make sure that I have aspects of all three in every poem I write.
Here's a quick breakdown of what they mean:
The "phan" in phanopoeia is the same "phan" in "phantom." It basically means "image." With phanopoeia, you're looking to give the reader an image in their imagination while they read your poem.
A famous poem of Ezra Pound's is "In a Station of the Metro" and it's nice and short. It goes like this:
"The apparition of these faces in the crowd:
Petals on a wet, black bough."
In this poem, you can picture clearly in your mind the petals on a wet, black bough, right? The two short descriptions of the branch, "wet" and "black" enhance the image so you can almost see the translucence of the petals, smell the scent of the recent rain mixing with the flowers. It's a clear image in your mind.
That imagery there is phanopoeia.

Melopoeia's "Melo" comes from the same as in the word "melody." It has to do with sound. You know those poetic devices you hear about so often? Like rhythm and rhyme and alliteration and consonance and assonance, etc.? Those ones I just listed (not simile and metaphor, we'll get to that later) are all examples of things you can do to add melopoeia into your poem! There are some poems that are basically just melopoeia. A lot of Dr. Seuss books are mostly just melopoeia, full of rhythm, rhyme, and fun noises. But melopoeia exists in serious poetry too. The fact that Pound's "In a Station of the Metro" rhymes creates a little bit of pleasure in the reader's mind. "Crowd" and "bough" might not be a traditional rhyme, but their shared vowel sounds create a nice assonance, and it's almost like a bell is rung when you say it out loud. The natural rhythm of the words, and the cool half-pauses you have to take when you say "wet, black bough" are also very subtle uses of melopoeia.

Finally, Logopoeia, with "logo" being the same as in "logos" or logic. The pleasure from logopoeia comes from clever use of the language or words. A deeper meaning beyond what is just written there. In my opinion, it's the hardest one of these to do on purpose, because you've got to be able to stumble into a new connection or observation. In Pound's poem, the logopoeia comes from the comparison of the faces in crowd to these petals. The implication is that the crowd of people may seem monotonous or featureless, but there is beauty in them and in the situation. Both situations are full of life. And the visual similarities (most people in the crowd probably are wearing black clothes, it may have just rained so perhaps they're wet too, and their pale faces stick out against the darkness that surrounds them) ring true as well.

So coming back to your poem, I'm struggling to find any of these three aspects in this poem. There's not really any imagery for me to hold onto as all of the nouns and verbs in this are abstract, and there aren't really any adjectives at all. I'm struggling to find any sound devices beyond the perhaps unintentional rhyme of "away" and "anyway." But even if that was intentional, I would urge you to make your rhyming words more weigty. Two of the most important words in Pounds' poem are "crowd" and "bough," and they are equal. You could almost have the same poem if you just wrote "faces crowd = petal bough," although of course that poem would be worse because it's missing out on the natural rhythm of the lines.
Sorry I think I got a bit on a tangent there.
Finally, I didn't really see any logopoeia in your poem. The closest I could potentially see is the anthropomorphism of sleep, saying that it's "hiding." But there isn't much done to expand that idea (where is it hiding? Why is it hiding? how can you find it? etc.).

Poems are actually even more relatable if you fill them with specific details. I like the 3 o'clock in the morning detail, since that is specific and grounds the poem in a time. Now I want the poem grounded in a place, the speaker grounded in a body, and the idea grounded in real, tangible objects rather than abstract concepts!

I hope this review has been helpful! Let me know if you have any questions, and keep writing!!
Rook

Hi! This is a random weirdo here to give you a short review.

I think this is the shortest poem I've ever read. (At least on YWS)

I think I've felt like this before. Not tired at all. Maybe excited. I want to do something else. Like write. Or draw. Or read. Or play. But sleep eventually does find me.

Because it's short, every line is important. In something that's longer, it doesn't matter as much. But each line in this does, and I think they're well written.

The title is perfect for this poem, and I'm glad you chose it. Where did you get inspiration for this? Did you write it at 3 AM like the poem said?

Anyway, I enjoyed reading this. Nice job, and keep writing!