Young Writers Society

Hey Harrington, Strange here and I have a review for you on this Review Day!
I like the theme and message that is in this poem. It shows that you still miss them and are sad that they left. It is written well, no grammatical errors. Good job
I don't really like the pattern. This is your choice on how you write it but I wasn't a big fan of what you did. Its a great poem, don't get me. It's a little iffy
Overall, great job
Strange gives you...
Off the charts!
Fantasticspectacular job
Keep writing
Stay groovy, my friend *Hair flips*
Paint the roses red, my dear

Hey Arri!

Shady here with a review!

I don't review poetry often (and free-verse less so), but I'm going to give this a shot anyway.

It looks like you posted the same poem twice? I'm assuming it's a technical error (they happen to the best of us), and am going to review this like it was meant to be a three-stanza poem.

I...don't really get it. I get he's gone, and I get she's crushed. At least...I think so.

of your perfume

Title: “Where Love Was Made”

I immediately thought about having sex in a bed. That’s what this poem title made me think of.

Stanza 1: “I wake up alone.
The bed is empty and too big
for my small bones.
I don’t want to rise
without you.”

When you open a poem, you want to pull the reader in. I was wondering why you woke up in bed alone, but I wasn’t dying to know. You want to make your reader anxious to know what’s going to happen and you want to make your reader desperate to continue reading.

Stanza 2: “But your side of the bed
still has the scent
of your perfume
and my pillow
smells of your shampoo:
mangoes, coconut and baby powder.”

I’m on the second stanza and nothing is popping out at me. I’m not too curious about what happens next. I feel like I’m just reading words on a page. I want to connect to this poem, but I can’t seem to get into it.

Stanza 3 “So i must rise
before i lose myself
in the indulgence
of your scent
of where
we made
love.
I wake up alone.
The bed is empty and too big
for my small bones.
I don’t want to rise
without you.”

This stanza seems clunky. I felt like you created line breaks wherever you wanted for no particular reason. There is no rhythm here.

Stanza 4: “But your side of the bed
still has the scent
of your perfume
and my pillow
smells of your shampoo:
mangoes, coconut and baby powder.”

I am a big fan of repetition, but because I couldn’t get into the poem properly in the first place, the craft in this stanza is lost on me.

Stanza 5: “So i must rise
before i lose myself
in the indulgence
of your scent
of where
we made
love.”

I am not a fan of how this poem ended. There needs to be a POW! And this ending didn’t make me feel anything.

Overall: I am a fan of reputation, but I feel like it was just a bunch of “repeating stuff” and nothing of “value.” Repetition needs to be employed properly for it to be of any value to a poem. I think that you could make the reader feel what you intended to make them feel by using more description and widening your vocabulary usage. This is a great start to a poem. Keep it up.

Hi there, harrington!

First of all, I want to welcome you to YWS! If you have any questions about the site feel free to contact me.

Now, let's get to reviewing.

I want to begin talking about the title. I like it! Somehow, it makes me curious. However, the way you wrote it is not grammatically correct. I've read that was is right in a title is to capitalize the first letter of each word (excluding the prepositions), and since it isn't a sentence there should be no periods. Here's how it should be done: "Where Love Was Made". It looks way more professional, don't you think? ;]

I really want to encourage you to make your writing look as professional as it can be. Why? You may wonder. Well, the more professional you are the more serious they will take you and your piece. You do have the potential; your poetry is beautiful! It's entertaining, and it's catchy. But in this whole writing world grammar, organization and consistency are essential in order for you to stand out as The writer, not just another writer. We want them to listen to you and what you want to share, not to take you for granted. That is why it is good to be a perfectionist sometimes. It's simple stuff; check your punctuation twice, remember that all I's should be capitalized when you're using them as a pronoun, etc.

I also noticed you repeated the poem, but I also read that it was an accident. Good news is that you can fix that! To the right, under your username and avatar, there is a huge shiny button that says "Edit work". I hope that helps you!

Hopefully, I've expressed myself correctly. However if you have any questions, feel free to contact me.

~GeeLyria

harrington,

I'm kayfortnight, and I'm actually fairly new to the site as well. So, welcome to YWS! Take this review with a grain of salt, since I'm only a mediocre poet and don't do much with people in my poetry, going more for pure emotion or personification.
First, did you post this twice, or was the repetition intended? I'm not sure. If it was, could you possibly make the second part different, with a touch of memory of something? This way is, well, a little boring. You heard it all before, why do you need to hear it again?
Sorry, I read the review string now. I've actually done stuff like that before, with pasting something twice. Don't worry, you'll figure it out pretty quick.
The scent thing seemed a little weird, in that I couldn't really connect to the emotions there. Maybe say things like how you can almost, if you close your eyes, believe she never left? Give us connections that will make us feel personally about this poor soul who doesn't want to get up anymore.
Some of the line breaks seemed a little unnatural. In the last stanza in particular, it seems like you just wanted it to taper off for it's shape, not caring how it affected the rhythm. Try reading it aloud and pausing where you break the lines. Then try reading it aloud and pausing when it feels 'right', when there's a rhythm to the piece, in a way. Last, try reading it aloud, pausing at completely random times, and seeing the effect you create. Tailor your breaks to fit the mood you want to set.
Great poem, all in all. I hope my review was helpful, and always remember, never give up writing!

Hi, Harrington!

I quite liked this - you certainly painted a vivid image with the words and it was a pleasure to read. I could really imagine/see the scene in my mind. I was a bit confused whether you really meant to sort of have it twice... the fact that there's no line break between the "last" line and the "first" line where it starts again kind of made me wonder whether you had accidentally just pasted it twice, haha.

But intentional or unintentional, I think it works - surprisingly! - pretty well. It makes the repetitiveness of the speaker's mornings even clearer in a deliciously obvious way. If you want to add an element of surprise or just some variety, you could add some other senses in the second part of the poem. The second/fourth stanza is basically all about scents, so it might be interesting to know what *else* than the scent makes the speaker feel like they do. The scent is even mentioned again in the third/fifth stanza, and maybe by that point it would be wiser to drop that and move on to describe something else. Although, it can't be denied that different scents are really powerful for memories and things, especially in these kind of situations. Some variety would be nice, though.

I really like the description of the bed and "too big for my small bones". I can really relate.

Well, that's pretty much all I can think of saying. Keep writing!


Demeter
x

Hi everyone, thank you so much for the reviews and I promise to answer questions but one thing I feel like a fool for not noticing is that it's posted twice by accident. It wasn't meant to be repeated - sorry guys!

(Also accidently posted under horror, unintentional.)

Thank you
H.
x

Hey Harrington,

I don't think we've met. I'm Audy, if you write poems often, which it seems like you might just! then you will see me around pretty often. I just want to take the time to welcome you to YWS <3 I know the site can seem overwhelming at first, so if you ever need any help just let me know. But enough about that, let's get this show on the road.

First, I'm going to assume it's a formatting error and posting the poem twice in succession is not an intentional thing, right? o____0

That aside, it is a wonderful poem :3 It's kind of like that breath of fresh air poem that engages upon your senses and is clean and lovely and simple. Your first stanza especially is the most powerful part of the piece. I feel as though the bed is just stretched out to fill the room, and the speaker is just tiny and cramped and in this fetal position. The spacial language in this is excellent. The emotions are there too, but you lose it a bit with the listing of the scents, which I just thought were out of place. All of these are happy and lovely things, but what you want is bitter. You want to evoke a sense of bittersweet, a sense that she's not there, but traces of her are. A lock of her hair, or something, I unno. I sorta see it with the scents, but the specific fruits evoke a colorful/bubbly happiness or peacefulness. I don't know. It just seemed like the first stanza seem to carry this sadness/loneliness. And the second stanza just threw that tone away, as though it forgot about it completely.

Your last stanza, blech. We get that this is where they made love and that the girl has left, and that he is smelling the pillow, we don't need it stated again word for word.

If you need help trying to end it, ask yourself, why are you writing it? Or why are we reading it? I feel as though the best endings give you this satisfaction where when we read them, we understand or realize for the first time how the whole poem fits together. Give me some of that, it might be able to pack the punch that this piece needs.

Hope that helps. Let me know if you want to chat this over. Best of luck.

~ as always, Audy

This is the thing to read when you wake up in the morning and the room you’re in feels so wide, and all the sounds echo through it and it seems like the morning light that comes in through the window is carrying them, and no other light would carry them the same. It has that same quiet, reflective quality that works well for the moment.

In being so quiet, it has that quiet intensity in some places. Just saying these words simply: “I wake up alone”, not comparing it to anything, not reaching for a grand metaphor, gives it strength. Just one simple thing carries itself. So I think that is the weakness that I sense in the second stanza. Because you mention one thing – shampoo – but it suddenly has all these different and weird scents, mixing with the scent of the perfume that’s already present. Four scents at once is a lot to take in, when none of them are even the one you really want to be referencing. Not to be crude, but that’s not quite what would be left behind afterward as the most compelling scent. Now, of course it would be tricky to try to describe that one, so you don’t have to try, but piling on fruity and perfumy scents actually covers the important one and makes the audience lose sight of it, so you don’t want to sabotage yourself, right?

I think you could continue to use the word perfume. It wouldn’t have to be a literal perfume. And then just cut down on the shampoo. Giving it a less fruity or strong scent would also help evoke the freshness of a shower, which would evoke nakedness, and add to your tone and content. Be careful of what each word you add does!

I would also like a little teeeeensy bit more clarity as to what this indulgence is. Is it a replay? Is it just laying there? Is it just a mental indulgence that the speaker doesn’t want to give into because of the fact that he/she is waking up alone? Otherwise, this is a strong piece, strong in its silence, and I’d like to see it when it’s completely edited.

Gimme a PM or wall post if you have questions or comments, as I don’t get notifications about replies to reviews. Good luck, and keep writing!

Wow. O.O Bandit was right.

It's amazing how much I can feel from this. For some reason, I really don't think I can write a proper review for this.

Maybe something you shouldn't have done was that repetition. I'm not saying it was bad... Just that maybe instead of repetition, you could have wrote something else in it's place. ^^"

I mean, in my head it's like the same old thing over again.

First 2& 1/2 stanzas were awesome. The rest was kind of boring.

What happened next? I want to know. But nothing. Just the same thing over! >u<

Otherwise, this is nice. Very nice. Just... Argh! I can't get over the last part! Sorry... ^^"

Please write back. Post it over. Please? *~*

Well, in short... this was amazing. Utterly, absolutely amazing. Your descriptions are vivid and positively gorgeous, and you've truly captured me with your poem skills. This is a great job. But, as seemingly fantastic this is, it is not perfect, and I feel I must point out some of your mistakes. In warning, I am not a fan of poems, nor romance, and the fact I've looked at this is utterly amazing. This also means that I will be rather harsh with you, so take my advice: brace yourself.
First off, there are a few grammatical errors, which every author makes, and luckily for you, these ones are not too glaring. But I shall point them out, none the less. The third stanza, in lines 1: "So i must rise" and 2: "before i lose myself". And also in the last stanza, 1 & 2 as well. Remember to capitalize! You've forgotten to capitalize the "i" which makes it rather annoying to read.
Another thing I noticed, in between stanza 3 & 4, you've forgotten to space between them. Nothing too big, but it's like a clump of lines together, and it's distracting. Make sure to fix that!
Another complaint I have is that this is a poem, and you've made it like a song. Repetition is not necessarily a bad thing, but in this case, it doesn't flow like a poem. I think you've just categorized it wrong, as it works better as lyrics. Also, on this subject, your stanzas are different lengths. Usually, a poet works to try and make her/his poem the same size all around, but you've gone quite unevenly, and it detracts from the appearance.
On a happier note, however, I did truly enjoy this poem! As aforementioned, your descriptions are absolutely lovely, and I don't say that lightly. You've also managed this incredible feat of balancing lyrical, graceful lines with the kind of realistic, great lines that almost every poem lacks. You've done a great job with this.
I'm looking forward to reading more from you, harrington!
~Bandit

Hello there

First of all, I must tell you, I'm definitely not a poet myself. As far as I can be from being a poet, I am, actually. Therefore, you don't need to take my words as something serious, as some guidelines or as law - I shall only give you my honest opinion, of the way this makes me feel like a regular reader, leaving aside my own writing preferences. Also, I will not be looking at the grammar matters, as I am not a native English speaker and am definitely not a native poet, so I wouldn't know at all what to say on that point.
This sounded like something I should bow after. So, *bows*

Now, onto the review.
All in all, I liked it. I liked how you mix the sadness and the sense of emptiness with the scents that make you remember. It seems to me like a song that could be sang, though I can't quite imagine its melody, and actually, I like that too.

However, it seems a bit too.. Chopped. I know poets tend to do that, and it does give a certain rhythm to the poem, but on some points, some lines, it just didn't feel right to see you hit Enter. Now, of course, I believe you had a reason to do it that way, and I most certainly respect your poetic freedom, it just seemed to me that the whole image is somehow shattered, like I can't quite catch it and dive into it.

Also, I'm curious, why did you put this poem under "Horror"? There is that sense of unease, of emptiness, of lost, and it can make a reader feel a bit shaken, perhaps, but I don't really see what makes it a horror..

But. Like I said, all in all, I liked it. Perhaps even more than liked, as I stopped by to write this review. I do hope I wasn't too harsh, or said anything wrong, as that was not my intention at all. Everything I said is just my opinion, and the way to poem of yours made me feel. I would like to see more of your works, and, of course, do keep writing!

Kind regards,
Aria

I've never done a review of a poem, but I'll give it a try. It's strange how you mixed something dark with beautiful senses of smell. It sounds pretty romantic in a strange, different way. I like the repetition in general, but the thing I don't like is that this poem seems like it's written in half, and you copied and pasted it below the first half. Either way, keep writing and add more feelings, because that's what poem needs. Don't blame me for being unprofessional and honest, I'm about to be poet myself.