Young Writers Society

Heya, Fortis! Casanova here to do a review!

I was taking a break from poetry reviewing for the rest of the night, but then I came across this and thought,"Why not?" So here goes!

The first thing I noticed was the first stanza-

continues to burn,
yet we are the ghosts caught
behind a window's reflection:
we spiral through.

You say,"continues to burn." What is continuing to burn? I want the answer to that question. This and the ending, together at least, don't make sense to me. It is an interesting start to the poem though, I will give you props for that. Anyway, on to the next thing!

your main mode of transportation
is backpedaling.
all the way back
to your New Hampshire home.

I like these lines. Backpeddling isn't really a method of transportation, but I like these lines nonetheless. I know what it's like to know people who keep going back to the same things over and over again, so this is much appreciated.

you shrug it off like a too-hot coat
and melt your skin in front of the fires
of the 6 o'clock news.

What does he shrug off? Also, I didn't particularly like these lines because the imagery here doesn't fit. In the previous lines you talk about the person shivering in the sun, then here it's a,"too hot," coat, so that didn't make sense to me. The other thing that didn't make a lot of sense was if the coat was too hot, why would they be in front of a fire to begin with? This just doesn't make a lot of sense, at least to me.

your mouth droops open,
and I fill it with yesterday's casserole
and last month's rainwater,
because here it just moulders in the gutter
and seems like such a waste.

I guess I can relate.

The last lines seem to fit, but also came across to just rhyme? I don't know if the rhyme was intentional, but it felt odd considering the rest of the poem didn't rhyme.

Anyway, that's all I have to say about this one. I hope this helped, even a little bit.

Keep on doing what you're doing, and keep on keeping on.

Sincerely, Matthew Casanova Aaron.

This is Kaos here for a review!

continues to burn,
or we are like ghosts caught
behind a window's reflection.

This was an interesting way to start the poem, and I don't exactly know if this was a stylistic choice or not of you starting with the line with "continues" and without capitalization (Well, I figure it was on purpose.), but I did enjoy it. One of the complaints that I have with it is that we don't exactly know what you're talking about, but that may be something you chose to do. I like the image that you give us after the first line, it's strong and in a way that I haven't thought about faces in windows, but the wording is a little awkward.

Your main mode of transportation
is backpedaling,
all the way back to your New Hampshire home.

I thought that this was an interesting image of someone only going backwards, and one of the more clever parts of the poem. I didn't really see the relations between this and the start of the poem other than the window being a car window, which would make sense but isn't quite specified.

but I know that's not really true
by the way you shiver even in the sun.
have you ever really felt the snow melt
on your arm hairs?

The "b" should be capitalized in the first line if you're trying to keep this consistent? I think it would be good to stick with one, either punctuation or none. I think that this poem would have more of an impact without punctuation, but I think other than the start of the poem you should stick with one or the other to keep from confusing the reader.

Moving on from that, the odd images that you create here do a bit at messing with my senses. The one thing that I do have to say about them is that the "even" in the second line and perhaps the "really" in the third don't particularly need to be there and only take up extra space. The contrast between the two images here works, but the power behind the lines could be something stronger.

you shrug it off like a too-hot coat
and melt your skin in front of the fires
of the 6 o'clock news.
I am like the ticking of yet another grandfather clock.

I didn't particularly like these lines, mostly because of the messy flow of them and then the images that don't really do good at fitting each other. That's one of the things that I kind of wanted to bring up is that this feels broken up into fragments that move onto something else and don't do the best job at transitioning. The images would be able to work if you did a bit of reworking with them. The "too-hot" description of the coat and "in front of the fires" could be cut or made into something else. I didn't quite get the part about the news? I was thinking that maybe it was supposed to symbolize anger or tension or maybe even forest fires that were being reported, but I wasn't quite sure. Some clarity on that would be nice.

your mouth droops open,
and I fill it with yesterday's casserole
and last month's rainwater,
because here it just moulders in the gutter
and seems like such a waste.
I guess I can relate.

Oh man. This last part of the poem killed it for me and I think that with proper execution this could definitely be salvaged. The lack of punctuation in this poem in some places could be fixed and I wanted to bring this up here since I actually thought the use here was stronger.

Onto the images that you imbue here. They're strong and originally when I read through it I didn't exactly feel them but using the casserole and the rainwater to symbolize being or feeling like a waste gave a strong melancholic tone to the piece. The last line takes it home and sends the idea through one last time. Loosely I felt the poem connected but it definitely felt broken into pieces and I would love to see it more strongly connected. The beginning and ending here were pretty A++ and I can appreciate them for being relatable and down-to-earth.

I hope I helped and have a great day!