Young Writers Society

Hi paper!

This is another seriously good poem. You have so much variety in your poetry - with rich fresh imagery every time. Let's take a look at this poem.

Stanza 1
Right from that first line, your imagery is powerful. Wow.

words cannot capture the frill of fungi on a creaking tree
words cannot give me the sinew of a blue beech, the feel of it beneath bare hands and feet
words cannot sing the same way a strong wind can, roaring through the forest above you and
streaming through your hair and reddening your cheeks and ears and thighs,
making you feel so, so alive
so alive.

I love the alliteration incorporated through every line, which makes it flow really nicely. There's also some climbing rhyme and assonance with "tree, beech, feet, streaming" and "blue, you, sinew".

I feel like this part is a tad wordy, "words cannot sing the same way a strong wind can" - could be said in fewer words, "words cannot sing as a strong wind can" - you loose some of the alliteration with the shorter version, but with it being the second line, you don't want readers to get too lost in trying to get through a single thought either.

The two things I love about your imagery here - is the specificity (you've got scientific, technical language even) and then how the imagery twists too different senses so seemlessly - this is especially present in lines 3/4.

One aspect I wasn't sure if was intentional or not - is that the last "so alive." feels so stark after all of that sweeping imagery, and with it being off set and the end punctuation - creating a dissonant feeling. Because the images above felt alive, but then the words that say "so alive" feel hollow/stark/empty - which is really interesting considering what the poem is saying about words so far.

Stanza 2
Loving where this is going. Because it's so out of the ordinary to see a poem that is about the limits of words/ because poems strive to break those limits - it's an interesting juxtaposition. You have another set of strong imagery pieces here, although some of the lines feel difficult to follow.

"life is truth, and birdsong and the wind and trees are truth," -> this line could be interpreted as "life is truth and birdsong. And wind and trees are truth" or "life is truth. And birdsong, wind, & trees are all truth" I read it the first way first, and then had to go back and correct - I'm not sure if there's a change in punctuation that could clear it up.

Your subject almost gets lost here too:
"words strain and stretch and reach for it but they cannot catch it,
it is all lightness and touch and the " -- and in the last line of this stanza you say "all it does is leave you wanting more" -- so it becomes unclear if "it" is words or truth or both, or if the poem is maybe purposely deceptive there.

Stanza 3
"people's memories of remembered sight " <- this was a bit redundant.
Stanza 3 also felt a bit too meandering, like as a reader I wanted to clearly see the contrast between what words are and what they aren't, and the speaker says words aren't truth, aren't alive, aren't satisfying, but are full of different things instead. But it was sort of difficult to piece together all of what words were contrasingly full of; memories, feelings?, ways to look and see, hope?. This was a difficult stanza - because at first it looks like the poem is a negative portrayal of what words are, but by the end it seems like words actually have a lot of benefit too - so as a reader you have to do a mental swap.

I'm wondering if there's some word that could sum all that up or connect those threads a bit more clearly - because I think the concept is really solid, but it's hard to grasp on a first and second read-through. It seems like the thing that ties them altogether is that words are intangible, that at the end of the day it's almost like they're just in your thoughts or imaginary, unlike the physical world that the words represent.

Stanza 4
I felt like the fairy imagery kind of came out of nowhere, which is maybe purposeful, but the whole poem felt so rooted in concrete imagery and an almost academic/philosophic look at words that the jump to fairies is a little jolting.

I do think this stanza begins to pull together some of the strands from the stanza 3, but I wonder if it could connect back to some of the initial imagery too.

This line alone though is really thought provoking, "it is a different thing to merely live than be alive, and words are made of want," -- wow that's powerful and intriguing.

Overall Message
As I mentioned in the stanza through stanza, I felt at times the meaning was a bit difficult to grasp - but I think any reader should be able to take away a general concept of what this poem is about. I interpreted the poem to mean that the speaker feels a person ought to be somewhat cautious with words because they're alluring and helpful, but ultimately not real or tangible - we need to experience more than just the intangible but also live. Words can even be extended as a metaphor for other things in life that are intangible, and even a metaphor for poetry itself - which is really interesting!

I love that you tackled this sort of highly conceptual philosophic idea, but the poem is also rooted in imagery - so that even if the reader doesn't what it's about they're going to still walk away thinking, "man, that's a beautiful poem" - writing at multiple levels is always a good strategy I think. You could incorporate a bit more imagery in the last two stanzas - I realize it's difficult - because what would "intangible imagery" even look like?! But it did feel a little lighter than the first two stanzas.

Formatting
You did a lot of clever formatting in the first two, and then the second two chunks also were more plain. I think that there were a few lines you could have drawn attention to like you did with "so alive" - for instance "but it is not life" // this repetition of "alive vs not alive" is in the last stanza two - and I wonder if you could have off-set those two lines alone to highlight this continuity of theme. The winding look of stanza two - totally worked with the content.

Throughout the piece you had a really thoughtful use of linebreaks that forced the reader to pay attention to different interesting words, and the enjambment kept me winding to the next line. I noted the few places in stanza 2 where I thought the flow was iffy, but besides those, the flow was really nice for this piece.

Well done! This was an enjoyable read! Let me know if you had any questions about my review.

~alliyah

Go Team Frozen!!