Young Writers Society

Hello Felistia!

Here to review your poem as requested!

I did find this to be a very beautiful poem. You mention time a lot here, and how it can touch nature and the environment around us, whether it is over a long period of time like the gold grains slowly moving, or simply a second wherein an insect can chirrup. I think the diction and careful choice of words you applied to this poem as well made it as wonderful as it was. It was a very special touch that added to the imagery behind the poem and made it become all the more real and vivid to me as I read.

This poem is short and fairly perfect in itself so I don't have too much to say. One thing that I do have a little issue with is the rhythm in this poem. When I was reading it at times it felt like there was an awkward reading rhythm or that the sentences were too long.

In general you have a lot of long sentences as each line is fairly long. I would ask you to consider breaking them into shorter sentences, using enjambment to your advantage to put some focus on more words. Then you might even want to break it into two stanzas or not, depending on how you feel for it. I gave an example for the first three lines below:

Endless waves of sloping dunes
stretch beyond the horizon,
steadily rising and falling
on the ancient winds of time.
Millions of golden grains slowly shift
across the landscape.

This way we have the focus on the words like time, shift, falling... all things which kind of relate to your theme of time and how change happens as well. It also simply helps make it easier to read and makes it appear to be in more of a poetic format, so that when you read you are expecting there to be some sort of rhythm to it so you start reading it rhythmically as well. The syllables in each line are roughly similar too, which helps.

Now for upgrading your poem to the next step which could help all the more with the rhythm and how it reads. And that would be to throw in some literary devices, and especially in the case of this poem I could see assonance and alliteration, especially the latter, working well here. If you put in alliteration which you sometimes begin to do here but don't quite carry through, then it can just make the poem sound so beautiful. Usually a group of three pegs it as alliteration. So for example, taking the line 'just dead quiet and the shifting of the sands of time.' Now make the word quiet silence instead. Just the dead silence and the shifting sands of time. I took out the words 'of the' to make the alliteration more prominent by having the 's' words directly next to each other. They don't always have to be, as you can see from the word silence and its positioning. It's a very small change - only one word - but it makes a big difference while reading. See if there are other places in the poem where you can do it too, and make the whole poem come alive.

Because this is a short poem I don't think there is much more that I can say. Keep writing!

Deanie x

You paint an extremely vivid picture and do it with a very economic use of words. This is fantastic.

Hi there!
First off great poem, I can really imagine the desert around me. The isolation of the area and the vast space you create in the poem is truly effective in conveying how lonely it could be in a place like this. I can almost feel the wind whipping my face and having to do high knees to protect my legs from the sand. The absence of noise is so effective in showing the isolation of this landscape and how everything in this area just seems so endless.
I do feel however the flow could be improved a bit in the poem as I feel it needs something more to fully connect with the audience. A rhythm to help the poem be more engaging or more expression.
Overall a great poem and I do plan to contuin reading the 'Search for the Ruby' once I go on break.

Hello! Here to do the review you requested

In advance, this will probably be a shorter review for a shorter poem, and poetry is hard to pick out grammar and structure since most poetry's structure is up to the poet's preference. So therefore, most of this will be me analyzing the feel of this poem and how it makes me think.

Anyways, let's get into this.

"slopping" is just a weird word, interesting, but I can't really visualize dunes doing that. Just tr a different word? Maybe sloping? haha it's only slightly different but it works waaaaay better.

So, very short poem as I mentioned before, but man, you packed so much into it! In my poetry taste, I like poetry to tell me a story so I can connect more, which is something I would recommend to help people really connect, but that's just a side note haha.

Honestly, I do like it, it just lacks emotion. There is beautiful imagery and vocabulary used throughout the poem, but I'm just not really getting anything feeling wise from it.

I hope that this review didn't seem confusing, and if it did, just comment or shoot me a PM!

keep writing!

- Del

Hey this was a very good poem, and I really liked it. You have a great vocabulary with very descriptive words. Details is what helps the reader know what's going on in your book and/or poem. I'm really glad you did this. You gave detail, and had good no excuse me great vocabulary.

This was one of the best poems ever.. So much detail, so much vocabulary. It was just great!

I really liked your poem.

Keep up the great writing,
Love,
Dogs <3

Hey!

This is an absolutely stunning piece. The imagery not only creates a beautiful image in my mind, but it also holds so much emotion. I particularly enjoyed the contrast between some of your descriptions- the "clear blue skies" hovering over "dead quiet", for instance. On a similar note, I also like how you used imagery that is not stereotypical for the beach. I would have never described a beach as silent, shimmering, or a wasteland, and yet these all fit seamlessly into the portrait you have created with your words. Finally, your words. They were expertly chosen, concise and yet so full. Wow. Keep writing!!

First off I loved this I love your description and wording it sweeps. Wording that is the most important part in poems, to make people realize how much this means too you, from liked to adored stuff like that and you understand it beautifully. I admire every bit of this beautiful poem. I recently posted a poem called time it's a lot different but I can't help think of what you're poem could help me add. This is so inspiring please please please don't stop writing ever you are a great writer who rise to amazing. Good luck