Young Writers Society

Hi person!

I have to agree with the previous reviewers - the part where you talk about cold being comforting should be either expanded upon, or removed. It just takes away from the essence of the poem as it is right now. I found the premise of it interesting, though. How can winter be cruel and comforting all at once?

The second stanza is a bit choppy-sounding. Here's a (not particularly good) example of how you could change it -

"Winter is unforgiving;
its bitterness cuts
even through the
thickest hearts."

And the third stanza definitely yearns for more explanation and detail.

I don't think you should necessarily make your poem longer, but it feels as though you have merely summarized the idea you are trying to convey. Add more depth throughout, and this poem will turn from a mere description into a stream of tortured thought (in a good way!)

Well, I sure hope that makes sense. I adore your last stanza - it made me feel like the sun came out. Thanks for writing this, I'll make sure to read more of your work!

Hello and welcome to YWS! I love Winter so your title really caught my attention and that is why I've decided to come here and write you a review!

Specifics

1. I like the first line but I'm a bit iffy about the second. The tone feels off somehow. I think it's because it sounds slightly archaic. Maybe you could re-word it to be a little more natural, let's see... (I hope you don't mind me playing with your words!)

make no mistake
OR
Don't be mistaken
OR
Do not mistake << which is similar to what you already have, but removing the me softens it somewhat. You'd have to perhaps change the next line to 'the cold is comforting' to fix the flow though.

2. This seems a contradiction and I want to hear more about what is comforting about the cold. Because in the next few lines cold as used as being a bad thing when describing the skies and... that feels awkward. Either cold is good or it's bad, or if it's both, you need to explain the different elements of it. Otherwise, your character becomes difficult to connect with and understand.

3. I don't like the repetition of the hearts in the second stanza. You've used that one already so choose something new! I like the suggestion that winter is cut throat though. That's a nice statement and I wouldn't mind you expanding it further and giving us more imagery or examples to back it up.

4. Stanza three is a little too ordinary for me. I like the animal imagery as I do think the seasons are very strongly tied to nature and winter is for the hardest of animals. All the others hide away and it emphasises this really harsh, unforgiving season. You've not given us enough though. I want to feel the ferocity and the desolation.

5. You need to introduce the theme of waiting and longing for summer earlier. It's very late in the poem to be revealing another theme and I think there needs to be more leading up to this. More explanation of what there has been during these long winters and why they can't be the 'summer'. Because of course that's a metaphor for good times, falling in love and reaching new heights in your career etc. But why does Winter feel like a month when none of that will happen?

Overall

I like your premise but you need to think more about your ideas and what you want to say with this poem. You need to expand the imagery and build an atmosphere. Use the form and the flow of the poem to show us that winter is cold and hard. She us isolation!

You could do clever things like this which
isolate
a word or
a few words
and symbolise winter in that way.

Maybe you'd want to bring summer into this more and as the poem stretches toward summer have the lines get longer to show the days getting longer?

I don't know, but there's a lot of potential and I wish you all the best with this!

Heather xxx

Hi there.

Overall, I like it. The way your words sit on the page are reminiscent of winter themselves. They come out cool and still, and really add a lot to the poem.

There are only a few things I would address that would probably make the poem better. When you say
"do not mistake me,
I find the cold comforting."
I understand what you're saying, however it doesn't do anything good for the whole of the poem. It's like an aside to appease people who say "HEY I LIKE WINTER YOUSHOULDTOO." but it's your poem, and your opinion. So I would take that out because it adds nothing to the poem as it is.

"cut throat" should be "cutthroat."

"and the bitterness is cut throat
even through the
thickest hearts."
"cutthroat even through the thickest hearts" doesn't make sense. "cuts through" makes sense. But not "cutthroat."

In the second to last stanza, I would omit all the The's in front of the lines. It would feel better if all the sentences had identical structure, and it would have a little bit more impact if you put the subject of the sentence as the first word in the sentence.

Omit the "So" beginning the last stanza. It only puts off the impact of the first line. It serves no purpose other than to delay.

I enjoyed reading and reviewing this piece. The more specific and nitpicky I am, the better your poem is. And as you can see, I'm pretty darn nitpicky here. Good job and keep writing.

It's a pretty nice poem; I especially enjoyed the last stanza. However, the first stanza confused me quite a bit. You say that you find the cold comforting, and then you go on to say that the skies are cold....and for some reason you don't like that?

"hovering beneath it" should be changed to "hovering beneath them"

In the third stanza, consider adding "the" in front of "lips are numb" or removing "the" from the first two lines, just to keep it flowing smoothly. I personally think adding "the" in front of the third line would sound best.

I don't want to seem overly critical, the poem was pretty well done. I especially liked the second stanza.