Young Writers Society

Specifics

1. I love the alliteration of bandit of the beautiful, though I'm not one hundred percent sure what it means. I guess that she steals beauty or beautiful people?

2. I think constellations should be on the line above as the pause between cosmetic and constellations doesn't have a great flow and especially with the being your title, the two words should be on the same line. Again, pretty alliteration.

3. I think 'glimmering with highlight' is weak. You already have showers of spotlights and that's beautiful so this feels like a less strong way of saying the same thing.

4. Why four layers of skin? Foundation is only one additional layer so what are the others? It seems a strange statement and needs some justification. Also, is the foundation a layer of skin or a mask? It's okay for it to be both but at the moment it's not very clear. I like the description of what's below the layers and that you've kept the cosmology imagery going with the freckles as stars and her pale skin.

Overall

The last two lines are really nice and they're a great way to end the poem and in general I really like this. In fact I don't think I have anything else to say except keep up the good work and I hope my suggestions help a little.

~Heather

Hi there Marms. This is Kays here delving in for a review seeing as I want to earn my next star before October so I better get to work tonight and in the next two days even though I have school tomorrow I'll probably be able to squeeze a couple reviews in before I slam down with the reviews on Friday and with that being said, let's delve right in, shall we?

The title is probably what first drew my eyes to the poem because cosmetic constellations makes me think of pimples forming constellations which is always quite the interesting concept and I've seen this done before with birth marks forming constellations and other shapes that can occur on the face and the alliteration in general is pretty grabbing so nice job on the title. Anyway, the title isn't everything so let's delve further into the content, ya know? As for my overall opinion on the poem--the second and third stanzas are probably the strongest and the wording of 'bandit of the beautiful' is quite appealing for the reader to read.

As for the first stanza and the short ending I believe that these don't fit in as well as the middle stanzas do with the bloodthirsty vampire comparison not relating all that much to the cosmetic constellations aspect of this piece? I'm also wondering the meaning of the last two lines here because they don't stand out as particularly significant. What do they mean by 'but she wasn't born to be'? I like the concept and I can appreciate the beautiful words but as far as meaning and themes go, I didn't receive a whole lot out of this. I understand that her flaws are meant to be seen as beautiful even though she doesn't see them this way.

I have a bit of a social comment to make about timid, beautiful people--I realize we all believe that we're ugly but if somebody is genuinely pretty, I hate when they're modest or downplaying their aesthetic beauty even if they don't mean to even though I know many, many people do this nonetheless. Not fully relating to the piece but I felt the need to talk about that a bit here.

Working on making the themes and intended interpretation of the piece as well as working on the weaker parts is what I'm going to suggest doing in editing and revising even though I can appreciate the imagery and while I see a lot of potential in this piece there's a lot of early-draft mistakes made that can be fixed simply by writing the next draft. I can't say that this is my favorite because there are parts where the diction is a little off but other parts where the diction is a strength and generally I'm neutral but I know you're able to fix this up and make this clearer and hit harder from experience of seeing you grow and all. What's done well is done well, Marms. Nice job on those parts.

If you have any questions, don't be afraid to ask! I hope I helped and have a great day.

Hi there!

(Accidentally closed out of YWS there on your feedpad, but oh well. I'm here to review now, anyway.)

I like the focus on the girl as someone who seems not as confident as she probably should be in her looks. I don't know if that's what you were going for, but let me just break down my thoughts.

1. "with a talent for thieving compliments"

Sounds like she wants those compliments, and based on the next verse she probably gets them.

2. the second stanza, describing her beauty

From this stanza, it sounds like this girl is, in fact, beautiful as she is - it mentions her skin and her body. But then we get to the third stanza.

3. the third stanza, describing her "flaws"

Pores, freckles, etc. The girl is trying to hide them with makeup, so clearly she doesn't like them. But even the description of her "flaws" makes them sound beautiful! Okay, maybe not the "pores as big as craters," but "freckles as numerous as the stars" has a nice ring to it, and "pale as the moon also sounds nice," even though skin that was actually moon-colored would look sickly, probably.

I'm confused by the last line, however. So far the poem seems to be about a girl who longs to be thought of as beautiful, who is beautiful but has body image issues and doesn't think she's beautiful at all. The last line doesn't seem to have much to do with that, but if it does, it seems to be saying: she's ordinary, but she was born to be great, and luckily all that makeup will help with that!

Which sort of seems to undermine the message I got from this.

My other thing is the line "like a bloodthirsty vampire." Aside from the fact that it doesn't fit the other metaphors used, there's the fact that, well, the girl is portrayed as a sympathetic character for most of the poem...but "bloodthirsty vampire" makes her sound like someone out for herself, bad, not caring about hurting other people, etc. So it just feels like it doesn't fit.

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