Young Writers Society

Hey Momo! The loosest leaf here with a quick review because I'm in Biology class.

I really liked this poem, which is unusual because I generally do not like poems. You paint a good picture with it and, honestly, I could kind of relate.

A headphone's cord was a great comparison for the first stanza. Out of all three comparisons you make, it's definitely my favorite. It made a ton of sense and I love how you compare each aspect of the headphones to some part of emotions. One thing, though:

...sometimes sticky...

Although this makes some sense, I sure hope no one's headphones are sticky! That'd be disgusting and I don't want to know what that stickiness is. Onto the next stanza!

OK, another great stanza. I do think "like an ocean" is a bit cliche, but it fits into this poem nicely. I was able to relate to everything in this stanza as well and I especially loved how you used a metaphor in a metaphor. Like, "spider's web of squishy seaweed?" Amazing. Last stanza!

I will tell you, I was not expecting the sky to come into play here. It fits well with the other stanza. I like how you mix the happiness of emotions into this stanza while also doing a really good job of displaying the sad as well.

One thing I will say is that stanza #2 and #3 fit a theme, while kind of ostracizing the headphones stanza in the process. I like all the stanzas, don't get me wrong, but the first one doesn't fit as nicely as the others.

Basically, I loved the whole thing! All of my advice was really nit-picky and I totally understand if you don't use it. I hope you have a lovely day and happy reviewing!

Hi there Momo! Let’s talk about your poem. For first impressions, I felt that the figure of “emotions” in this piece felt very difficult to grasp, very elusive. At the same time, they seemed to be monotonous, in the sense of having a common underlying frame despite maybe the surfaces changing.

This seems to be a list poem, with each stanza being connected to the other by the structure and by being about the subject of emotions. A lot of the imagery here exists only in a metaphorical sense – each stanza is a long simile, “like a tangled headphones cord . . . like a rippling ocean . . . “and so on. The background picture used seems to reflect the first and second stanzas the most. “knots” are mentioned directly in the first stanza, whereas the shapes in the image to me also seem to resemble the spider web image of the second stanza.

Subject and Meaning

I interpreted the main message of this poem as ‘emotions are volatile’. What made me think this was the ‘main’ message was the title: “sometimes”, a word that is repeated many times throughout the poem to express how emotions can change.

Another interpretation that I had was the paradox that: all emotions are constant in one thing, and that is their complexity. After all, “tangled” wires, “rippling” waters and clouds on the sky all share complexity in common. The use of parallelistic structures, where every list item begins with “emotions are like” and goes on for four lines, gives the poem a sense of regularity.

Language and Imagery

As I mentioned earlier, I thought the three groups of images were connected by each being ‘complicated’. Was there a similar connection in mind for you when you were writing this piece?

Within each group, there’s a sense of inconsistency in how connected the individual images are. For example “tangled headphones cord” makes me think of tech and devices, but the background image is of a thick rope, and I don’t usually think of wires as being “sticky” (unless something has been spilled on them or they’re melting in the heat?). “too interlaced to solve” also reminds me of a wire puzzle or something similar, though I can imagine that untangling headphone cords can feel like solving a puzzle sometimes!

To contrast, the images in stanza 3 are all connected obviously to each other, since they’re all descriptions of the sky in different weather conditions.

Some of the images I liked best were “spider’s web of squishy seaweed” and “like a tangled headphones cord”. They’re very unexpected – “spider’s web” seems to come out of nowhere in the stanza about the ocean, but then links back to it with the “seaweed”, while I don’t think I’ve heard someone compare emotions to a “headphones cord” in particular. So they were interesting to read.

Sound and Structure

The poem, though it looks regular, has a somewhat irregular rhythm when read aloud. I think I expected that the first and last lines of each stanza would have a similar length, but I realised they’re each different when I read them aloud.

I found the caesurae in the third line of each stanza very well placed.

sometimes sticky, sometimes smooth,
sometimes too interlaced to solve.

The pause in the middle helps to frame that “sticky” and “smooth” are contrasting, and I like that the punctuation (i.e. the commas) help to break up the three repetitions of “sometimes” in general.

One question I had considering structure was about the purpose of the first ‘and’ in:

emotions are like the sky,
and blank and beautiful . . .

In a prose sentence, I think having the ‘and’ there would be pretty unusual, since “blank and beautiful” seem to describe the sky rather than be other objects in the same list as the sky. I didn’t notice any unusual sentence structures in the rest of the poem so this one stood out to me. Was there a purpose behind it?

I also noticed the alliteration in “blank . . . beautiful . . . blue . . . “ and “stunning . . . stormy”. I thought they made this part sound particularly rhythmic.

That’s all

Hope some of these comments were helpful, and feel free to ask me anything about what I’ve said in the review. (Or ask for more feedback.)

Keep writing!

-Lim

Hey Momo! Incoming review!

It's always a treat to see some Momo poetry. Although, I don't think I've reviewed any. That ends today! On with the review!

I'll start out by critiquing your work.

and blank and beautiful canvas of blue

I think you meant for the first and to be "a". Another thing I have to critique, and you can take it with a grain of salt, is the numbering on the stanzas. They don't necessarily help or hinder your work in any way. They're just there. I only say that because they don't bring anything new and each stanza on its own conveys different thoughts. But it's up to you if you wanna keep it or not.

Okay don't with critique, let me praise your work. I like all of the metaphorical ways you describe emotions to be. They're all very captivating especially the first stanza's connection with wired headphones (I can't believe I live in a world where I have to specify that they're wired.) The line "sometimes sticky, sometimes smooth," really made me think. I would interperate it as sometimes emotions have solid reasons why we're feeling them. But other times they come out of nowhere for seemingly no reason.

But that's all I have for today. I hope you found some of it useful! i can't wait to see what you come up with next, but for now keep dreaming! Anyway byeeeeeeeeee<33