12 days of poetry (2023 edition)

Hey there! Plume here, with a review! I noticed your piece has been in the Green Room a while, so I thought I'd give it a review to bump it out!

I enjoyed reading this piece a lot. Your poetry always has such a raw, emotional quality to it that makes it so lovely to read. I might be biased since I already know that you like these artists but I can definitely feel a Swift and Rodrigo-like influence on a lot of this writing, intentional or not! (I mean it absolutely as a compliment!)

I think my favorite part of this was the poem "gibberish." It was so original, and I loved how it came from a place rooted in the common expression "talk in circles" and gave it a new meaning. You did a wonderful job of capturing the understated joy and comfort that comes from being truly understood, particularly when you are typically misunderstood by a lot of people (the gibberish, stars, pentagons, etc). I was initially on the fence about it because to me, gibberish generally has more negative connotations, but I think that it actually adds a dimension to the poem that a softer word like nonsense wouldn't have captured.

While all of the poems were tied together through vague themes of relationships and a big focus on the speaker's emotions, I think incorporating some specific images/lines to tie them all together would have made this piece even more powerful. I know that each of these are all technically separate poems, but I feel like more was needed to justify publishing them together besides the 12 days of poetry transitions between them. I did notice you put 2023 edition in the title; if you do this again in 2024, it could be something to keep in mind/an added challenge when writing this year!

Specifics

your feint words of affection

you are

a liar

to be honest

that is how you made me feel

anticipation

for i wrote poetry

i wrote poetry for you

review part 2 hehe:

"undeserved hope, undeserved glares"

this one is tricky for me to interpret also. "all those times you held a blind eye // i wondered if i truly deserved to stand here." to me, this feels like the narrator is saying that they aren't being paid attention to. they're there on a podium, meaning that people should be paying attention to whatever it is they're doing/saying, but they're given a 'blind eye,' this in turn makes them feel undeserving of this place. one thing that's super unique about this poem is the use of alignment to single out the word 'mockery.' which i really like.

"liar to be honest"

i love this poem. i love the use of oxymorons. putting the words truth, liar, wrong, and honest all right next to each other, the words themselves simply contradicting each other by nature. this poem just makes me think of parents lol. idk for me, it reminds me of my mom. being told a false sequence of events, being forced to take accountability for things that never happened, or at least, that you weren't at all involved with/responsible for. and then being told you're being disrespectful or a liar when you call them out. "you are // a liar // to be honest." love it.

"anticipation"

LETS GOO more repetition. love. excited to get into it. the repetition used here really captures the title of the piece. it makes the waiting and the crying, and the screaming feel endless. but as we go through, the repetition gets smaller because we get over it faster. you're waiting for something to change, and you cry for not as long, and you scream for even less, until finally, you're over it and you've accepted what's happened.

"one day away"

ah yes, secretly another poem about anticipation. and more repetition. heck yeah. this poem is about waiting for the next day. what happens the next day? maybe it's christmas, maybe it's the end of school, maybe it's your eighteenth birthday, who knows? this poem is about looking forward to tomorrow.

"i write poetry"

this is the perfect poem to end off the twelve poem collection. it's like a "dear reader" to finish it all off and wrap it up in a bow and maybe some christmas wrapping paper.

i really enjoyed reading all your poems and look forward to reading more.

hey there! just dropping by for a quick review : )

first off, i really enjoy the concept of this. it looks lie you decided to write twelve poems in twelve days in honor of christmas. i was expecting the poems to have something to do with christmas, but found myself sort of relieved that they weren't. in fact, the only thing really connecting the poems to the 'christmas' theme is the whole, "on the first day of christmas my true poeot wrote for me..." which i found very clever and endearng. i'm glad i'm finding this in the greenroom now so that i can read all twelve. anyways, let's get into it.

"ihearnot"

this first poem is about the power of words. the poem is the narrator telling someone about how their words hurt, even though sometimes the person pretends to be kind, ultimately the kind words are always overshadowed by the hurtful words that are said. what i like most about this poem is the fifth line, which reads, "your feint words of affection." when i initially read this, in my head, i immediately replaced 'feint' with 'faint,' which is probably due to them sounding like homophones. faint by definition means to be barely perceptible, which i think could still fit within the context of the poem, meaning that the hurtful words always overshadow the 'faint' kind ones. however, you used feint, and feint by definition means a movement made in order to deceive an adversary. i immediately think, oh sword play. a feint. duh. your use of this word in the poem brings a more powerful meaning to the poem itself. you're telling the reader this person is trying to deceive you with their kind words, and you've recognized it. and youhearindeed.

"downandupanddownagain"

this poem is about the narrator regretting leaving someone. though we don't know exactly why, i think the why is unnecessary. i think that when things are left vague they really open it up to the reader to pull out what they want/need from a particular work, so i really like that in this poem here. that being said, the notable thing about this poem is that you can read it downandupanddown again. the process of doing so, sort of puts us in the narrator's shoes, this repetitive cycle of thinking over the situation over and over again and sort of wondering whether or not they made the right decision.

"a question"

for me, because i always like to think of everything interconnected and on a timeline, i almost feel like if these poems were all linked and were a sequence eof events, this poem occurred before the previous. the narrator asks this person, if they were to leave what would they do to make them stay. this person gets offended that the question and in turn, doesn't actually answer it. to me, it seems the narrator is trying to gauge how much this person loves/likes them. i honestly can't tell whose side i'm on in this poem. i can see where the narrator is coming from, but at the same time i can see why this person would have been bothered to be asked this question in the first place. and the narrator agrees, saying in the end, "maybe some things // are better left unsaid // an undone," the "undone" referencing the last poem where the narrator did actually leave and regrets it. what i find interesting about this poem are the tenses. the narrator says, "i have a question," implying that they still have the question, which makes sense because it was never actually answered. then in past tense, the narrator says, "you responded." i don't know if the change in tenses was intentional, but i do think it adds depth to the poem.

"gibberish"

this poem is about being with someone who understands you unconditionally. i love the use of symbols in the poem. it's a metaphor. people don't actually speak in symbols, but it can feel like that to people on the outside.

"tears i held back"

this poem is about being left, and bottling up everything in. i am a SIMP for repetition. honestly, if you've ever read any of my works, it's everywhere in there. i LOVE repetition so much, i think it adds so much emotion and meaning to pieces when it's done right, and i think you did that here. the obvious use of it is, "slowly // slowly // slowly," but it's also used each time you say 'held back' and 'held in.' the repetition here really gives this sense of numbness and silence that is revealed to be sadness leaking out of the narrator's eyes.

"why i won't say yes"

to me, this poem is about the narrator leaving things that are vulnerable unsaid. they can't say no because it's not true and they won't say yes because they don't want to be vulnerable with the person that they're thinking of.

"truths in disguise"

this poem is really tricky for me. and i don't know if i'm reading too much into it, but it reminds me a lot about religion. just the first two lines, "they say every mishap // is a blessing in disguise" reminds me of biblical scripture that gets shouted at me all the time, that "god will work out all things for good." and then later in the poem when you say, "because this life is not a blessing // but it is a mishap," this literally makes me think about the big bang, the theory that literally everything, life itself being possible on earth, is an accident, or as you put it, 'a mishap.' when you say, "another reincarnation // dead in my footsteps" makes me think the narrator believes this is it, and there's nothing after death, not even reincarnation. the last couple lines read: "still it is a truth i hold close // because instead we should say // every lie we throw // is a truth in disguise." to me this means that you hold onto this belief that everything is a blessing, despite thinking it a lie, because even some lies have some truth in them. but again I DONT KNOW this is just like what i pulled out of it. and i loved it

This is great!