Young Writers Society

Hi there Gemmy! I was scrolling through the poetry tab and found this poignant poem of yours, so I thought I'd stop by with a review <3

I enjoy how you started with a very sad, sorrowful beginning, and gradually grew more hopeful throughout the poem. I think that created a really nice sense of progress as the poem built, and the concluding line ("those sad things are in your past") felt like a good way to end it and tie everything together.

I also liked the rhyming scheme you used! It was very consistent (which I always love!), and worked well to add a gentle flow to the poem. It also had the effect of softening the sound of the poem in some places, which was lovely. I especially noticed that effect in the second-to-last stanza -> the rhyming of "tears" & "fears" and "strange" & "change" was nice in those lines. Also, for the most part, the rhymes felt natural and not at all forced, which is always a plus c:

One teeny formatting thing I wanted to mention is that most of the stanza are single-spaced, except for the opening one, which is double spaced? I can't think of a reason for why you'd choose to format it like that, so I'm guessing that it's just the publishing centre being finicky. If you want to reformat it to be single-spaced, you can hit ctrl+enter instead of just enter!

And one last general comment I had is re: punctuation. I think every single line (other than those ending in periods) end in commas, in some cases even where that disrupts the flow a bit unnaturally. I'd recommend getting rid of line breaks and punctuating the poem how you'd punctuate prose, and then put the line breaks back in; sometimes it's hard to figure out where commas / dashes / semicolons / etc. make sense when something's formatted like a poem, so pretending the line breaks aren't there can help!

and you feel their soul floating about almost like a dove,

the sky remains in it's pretty frame you're looking for someone to blame,

the greening meadow is growing new grass,

Wow, this was a really good poem. I can feel the sorrow coming through; it’s clear that you have a lot of really strong feelings, and I commend you for putting them to paper. There were a lot of descriptions that I particularly liked, such as when you wrote “you feel their soul floating about almost like a dove”. That really captured both how their soul left, but also I felt like the comparison to a “dove” brought forth a sense of spirituality and innocence. It added a touch of beauty to an otherwise sorrowful moment. I also really liked the description of tasting fire. The idea of tasting is so sensual, and is a feeling so full in sensation, and it really describes the power of grief, how it just gets hold of you. Grief permeates every one of your emotions, much the same way eating something that’s too spicy can affect all of your senses. I loved though, that after describing the sorrow, you then transitioned on to something more happy, and showed how you can recover from sorrow. The last stanza, in particular, was very moving. I loved the description of “the greening meadow is growing new grass”. The idea of a meadow is such a calming one, and it reminds the reader that there’s always hope. Overall, this was an amazing poem, and I really enjoyed reading it!

Heya, Ches here to drop a review!!! First of all, great poem, very emotional and I'm sorry you had to go through that. I know it's tough to lose someone, so I'm sorry for your loss, I think you captured that emotion of death pretty well.

This line I don't know how to explain, it just sounds wrong? I don't know if that makes sense, like it doesn't sound grammatically correct, but I can't quite place my finger on why.

but we must all face up to change.

I know it is strange,
but we must all face up to change.