Young Writers Society

Hello again, I’m here for another review!

First of all, I really enjoy acrostic poems and sometimes they can be a bit challenging to write, but you’ve chosen great words that fit each of the eleven letters really well. All of the lines flow together nicely, while also telling a very sweet sentimental story.

This poem immediately reminded me of a dream or a daydream, maybe even a memory. I enjoyed the creative use of “Nowhereland” and the great descriptions given to depict this pine tree forest the narrator is briefly seeing/experiencing.

Overall, nice work. This was well-written and I enjoyed reading it!

~Spider~

Hey Gem, here to review!

Form
I agree with inconspicuouslyalpacaing that the extra space after each first letter is unneeded -> acrostics are best when they are happy surprises; rather than being hit over the head with the vertical word / phrase.

Besides that, I didn't really mind the variety in line-length, though I did notice you added some almost near rhyme at the end of some lines (ie. in/everything, scent/branches, break/stay) and it would have been nice to maybe amplify this up a bit more or maybe even bumped up the alliteration a bit to get some nice sound devices in there. Acrostics can be hard to make flow very well; especially if they're broken up by capital letters at the beginning of each line -> that can break up the phrase miD-pHrase -as the reAder pauses at eaCh capital letter. (you see what I did there :] )

I think you need to choose whether or not to capitalize "i" or lowercase it consistently -as you switched between the first and second stanza; this could be an interpretation of the narrator becoming more concrete rather than observational in nowhereland, but I think it'll trip readers up for you to switch between the two if you're not doing any other playful grammatical shifts between stanza 1 and 2.

My last formatting suggestion -> I don't think the ellipses (...) does you any favors. The problem is that an ellipses can be used for dramatic pause, or comedic/sarcastic pause, and a reader often doesn't know which one to use, so unless the ellipses is being used to illustrate time passing I normally urge against it to prevent the reader from reading it as comedic pause (aka the pause before the punchline). You don't want the reader to interpret that lin as "if only I could stay the night *wink, laugh* ... inside my mind" - a different way to pause without using ellipses is to use extra conjunctions (and, or, etc), hedging words (like maybe, perhaps, i wish, i think, one day, possibly) or repetition (ie. the night, the night)

Imagery
I think you imagery was quite strong in stanza 1. I was intrigued by why the narrator was lying on the ground in the middle of dew; and it did feel whimsical with your word choice and the very specific imagery you were using. I think in the stanza two you could do a bit more to contrast the naturey imagery with the bleak indoors - the second stanza has very little for imagery.

So that seems like a good area that you can really extend your skills from stanza one into stanza two, to build up that contrast and build on your strengths.

Meaning
I thought this was a nice naturey reflection, that went somewhere. A pet-peeve with nature poems is they can become very external, and miss any internal dialogue which can be hard to make impactful or connect with, but you start with a strong "I" voice by placing the speaker directly in nature and keeping the focus on their interpretation of nature rather than just nature in abstract. And then in the second stanza you also bring the poem into the internal world as well - so as a reader we get a wide and close lens of what's happening - which makes the poem more interesting to read.

I don't think the theme of feeling "free in your mind" is particularly unique, but I do think you've taken it in a new spin especially with it being an acrostic.

I like that "mist" can refer both to condensation / physical fog - but also mental fog / mist / or confusion -> that double meaning came through by the time the poem was over.

Note on Acrostics
A last suggestion that can be applied to all acrostics -> the point of the acrostic form in my opinion is for the vertical word to move the poem to a new level just by it's existence in the poem by labeling in a new way, or bringing the reader a surprise. By titling the acrostic the same phrase as the word that you spell out vertically, you take out the "surprise" power of the poem because we've already been given the vertical word in the title- so we get nothing new when we find it. In a way it completely defeats the purpose of the poem being an acrostic. I would urge you to not title acrostics with the vertical word, this will increase your impact power and word economy and capitalize on the form you're using.

Overall this is a nice poem and I look forward to looking through a few more of your new ones too! It looks like you had a very productive break!

Hope this is helpful! Feel free to let me know if you had questions about any portion of my review!

- alliyah
~ Happy RevMo ~

Hello, Madame Gemstone. I have arrived to review your poem!

This is a very creative take on the acrostic, especially since they tend to be more lighthearted or gimmicky. Which isn't to say that this was a particularly dark poem, but definitely more dramatic than what I'm used to seeing. You did an excellent job capturing both the beauty of a dense, lush forest, as well as the disappointment the follows exiting a dream/daydream. I don't have very many negative things to say about it, other than a few nitpicks.

-Having a space between the first and second letter of each line made the flow feel very peculiar. While I understand that it highlights the words "Morning Mist", it would've been much more engaging to read the poem as is, then go through each letter. This might be just me, but having that separation at the beginning of each line made the rest of the poem feel detached from the acrostic.

-Referring to the grass as 'dew filled' makes it sound as though the ground is much wetter than a single morning dew should constitute. These poor blades of grass must be drowning!

-The use of 'peacefully' when describing the pinecones falling gives me more of a 'slowly floating to the ground' image. I see where you were going with this, and describing the rapid, blink-and-you'll-miss-it fall would absolutely drag the reader out of the atmosphere, but it makes me wonder why pinecones can defy the laws of gravity in this perfect, misty forrest.

Like I said, these were all fairly nitpick-y, and a little subjective. I loved this poem, and your works are always a delight to read. Rock on, Gem.

-Alpacas