July

hey niteowl,
i think this poem is great. it gives impact to me. i hope u could deepen the poem and tell more about it. as i love how you describe and express your poetry. I am looking forward for more from you.

Niteowl,

I really love the title selection for this, framed in this way I feel it does so much in so little calling forth images of summer, of fireworks, of all sorts of relatable memories :^) The poem's got this theme of a carefree youth & nostalgia that is pitted against suggestions of experience and newfound responsibilities, and I think it does an excellent job of evoking these feelings. Chief among the reasons I love this poem is the use of present-tense when describing memory - I think that "reliving" the memory in present tense is so rich and powerful and a great point of view choice.

It's a difficult poem for me personally to edit, because what it does, it does well and what it can do better - will only change the poem? I want the poem to go deeper, but I don't want the poem to grow longer (that means, this review is mainly going to focus on your diction - I know, I know, I hate diction-edits too, be forewarned) I feel the brevity of this gives it a photographic spell, we focus only on one thing, one idea, one memory and that stands in as metaphor for all-the-memories. Point of view-wise, I get also this delicious sensation of blurry/hazy edges, stylistically akin to Life is Strange - just the way the poem utilizes white space and the voice of the narrator tinged in regret & longing.

So! I gushed about this enough :3 Onwards to something more helpful(?)

My only sore-point with the poem is that the first line almost rings like a cliche. We can probably get rid of the entire line and still the poem will do what it's already done - but I like how we start with "I am lost" and the next two lines give us the setting of the cliffside, what if we have "I am lost on the edge / my wet toes clinging to the granite " That can be powerful Or you can squeeze maybe some more interesting sentiments/words on that first line, but I say get rid of memory. I think you can allude to it without even using it. Already, you do so!

In the third line - the use of "remember" hints to the reader that this is a memory. Someone can only 'remember' a memory. I mean, we can remember facts too, but writers use "recall" more like-than-not, so it'll be fine! The reason it sticks out to me is that you're showing us in a variety of places how this is a memory so you don't need to tell us that this is a memory when it is already shown. In the third stanza for example, "oh, to live those days again" once again gives us the idea of memory. You can also sneak in a "once" somewhere to give it that memory, hazy tone & mood without disrupting the rest of the poem. For example, (and this is just one suggestion - you really can stick "once" anywhere you choose and it'll be fine) you can say "only the way my skin once danced" and bam! Memory. Now, we can scratch it out of that all-too-important first line without guilt.


Loved the line "plunge / into Lake Superior" -- Fantastic!

Do not like the "danced / against ". We can stand against the wind, but dancing implies a sort of bond as an action that you do in conjunction with someone and not "against" someone. I imagine more the skin stepping on the winds' toes which ... doesn't work xD Perhaps an edit to the "against the wind" line: to the tune of the wind / with the arms of the wind/ with the flow of the wind - You may be able to come up with something more creative, but just some ideas.

I do like the way a skin can dance, it is not something that normally we see as moving the way a skeleton moves, skin is just flab really, but the idea of it dancing makes me think of the motions that a skin CAN do - the jitters that charge underneath the surface, the twitches of a smile, the sun and water droplets reflecting off one another, and yes, all too delicious flab fluttering in a wind, oh boy! 8D) But it's more the feeling that is evoked when we are watching dancers - you know how you sit back and think "look how graceful! how elegant! how smooth! how beautiful!" and it's not just that - but dancers are carefree and raw and this poem is all about that carefree(ness). So then that same feeling attributed to someone's skin is like we're saying all those things to that person's "identity". I feel like in this language, skin is so tied together closely with identity that when I read that line, about a dancing skin, I felt that. Wind helps too in this instance with the image of its motion. Ahhh! Just liked that a lot

I hope this helped some! Overall, loved it and you should totes keep writing poetry more frequently <3

~ as always, Audy

Hey Dogs here to review!

First off I just want to say, love your avatar! It's so cute, and fun!!!

Second of all, I really liked this poem. It shows lots of detail and emotion, but we will get into more of that later. So I'm going to be starting out with small nitpicks, and suggestions, then we will get onto the good part of the review! Let's get started!

Nitpicks/Suggestions:

1)

as I try not to remember the fear, only the way my skin danced against the wind.

I only had to leap and never worried about the climb back up.