You have always puzzled me
You seem to be nothing more than a beautiful face
With blue, bashful, stormy eyes
And a strange, lingering, gentle gaze
That makes the most rational
Dazed and dumbstruck.
You have a subtle charm in your ways
That brings out my vanity
For I find myself, a being most rational,
Dazed and dumbstruck
By nothing more than your lingering, gentle gaze.
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125,020 Literary Works • 672,734 Reviews
This poem is nice as it's based on the simple subject of "attraction". The poem perfectly describes attraction, and how the sensation is with a person experiencing it. Poetry that focuses on a simple subject as such gives more scope for you to write more expressively, which is what you've done.
Content wise, I can see everything as it is. All we need to know is that you're describing the sensation of being attracted to someone or something, for that matter. I can see that you've described the feelings experienced by someone who's attracted - starting with the initial symptoms and moving on chronologically.
Grammar and Spelling wise, I see no issue with your spelling. You may want to check the last description made in the first stanza. I think you want to say "That make me most rational, dazed and dumbstruck". Otherwise, there are no serious issues here.
Structure wise, I see you've organized your content into stanzas. First stanza is significant for presenting initial symptoms, and the last stanza is signification for present the after-math of being attracted. This is good.
Having based on a simple subject, I see it's very coherent as well. So in this case, any random person landing upon this page, can grasp the content very quickly.
You've effectively made use of literary devices. I'm able to spot adjectives, personification, and metaphors.
My personal rating for this work is 3.9/5
Keep up the good work
Thank you for your review and advice!
First off, I love this poem! Second, the repetition you used really emphasized how you wanted the reader to feel. The descriptions were great, but I think replacing words like beautiful with something like alluring or winsome and strange with peculiar or eccentric would have made the piece more illustrative. Other than that, the poem was delightful!
Thank you!
Hey, Dogs here to review.
First off, let me say that this poem had so much meaning and effort, but it was so simple. Sometimes simple poems are the best poems. Like in this case.
You had a terrific title, which it a type of title that will drag the reader in. It certainly did me! I'm glad I read it!
As I said earlier your poem was short, and simple. Sometimes I have trouble with long poems, but this is the perfect poem for me. It's short, but in those few lines, it holds so much meaning.
I loved how you repeated "Dazed and dumbstruck" in each stanza. I think that was very cool the way you did that!
The whole poem feels like a crush from afar, which I think was really cool to write about.
The poem was well written, and has tons of fabulous thoughts. The poem has so much meaning.
Keep up the great writing,
Love,
Dogs
P.S. Welcome to Young Writers Society. I hope you like our community!
Thank you!
No problem, if you have any questions about the community, please let me know and I can answer them for you!
Hello!
I really like this poem as it's simple and easy to read, and sometimes when I'm online, I struggle with long pieces of work. The great thing about this, however, is it conveys meaning in not very many words.
Firstly, you gave it a great title and it attracted me straight away. I love the repetition that you use in this poem with the 'Dazed and dumbstruck' line in particular. There's something in that line that I like, but am not sure exactly what it is. Maybe the alliteration.
I have to say, I think this is a really well written poem, and I think it has a lot of beautiful thought gone into it. This is one of those poems - I can't really think of specific things to say about it, I just love the whole essence and feel to it.
Keep up the good work!
Thank you! I will!
'Simple Attraction' is a simple poem that uses simple repetition to express a simple emotion.
The repetition of the last three lines in both the first and second stanza is the most compelling part. The way the rational first stanza's lines are scrambled up by the second, affected as the narrator is by the 'lingering, gentle gaze.'
The whole poem feels like a crush from afar - 'nothing more' than that - but well aware of this.
I'm not sure I have anything by way of constructive criticism for this piece. Perhaps a period after the first line of the first stanza and a comma or period after the second line of the second stanza would help with the flow. Perhaps also adding another line to the second stanza would balance the two out, but only if it works for the work.
Overall, this is a cute little poem that shows good understanding of poetry and wordplay. Well done!
Hello, reikann. Generally, punctuation (and capitalisation) in poetry is overlooked and unimportant, since for poetry the rules of grammar are somewhat distorted. So even if the punctuation isn't on-point, it's not something you should see as a flaw. Just thought I'd point that out. Have a nice day.
Hi, Candy! Thanks for your comment.
I'd like to respectfully disagree with your assertion that because poetry plays by different rules than prose, punctuation and capitalization don't matter as much. It is true that the way words work are distorted in poetry, but that doesn't mean they don't matter.
Indeed, the distortion of classic prose rules makes the poetry's use or misuse of style conventions more important! Poetry ignores rules in favor of beauty, and so every simplification or complication should work towards that. Every deviation from the norm draws attention, but in some words, the adherence does more. In poetry, there is no word, no line break, no comma or lack therefore that doesn't matter. And that's why poetry is so powerful.
My comment is this matter is not that the use of punctuation is incorrect. If that were my concern, then it would be far more pressing that the sentences that make up the stanza, if taken as a sentence, have random capitals. Rather, read this poem out loud. 'You have always puzzled me' is supposed to be a stand-alone line. However, the lack of a decisive mark makes it possible for the line to... not, and the reader to run fill-tilt into the next line without comprehending that they're supposed to stop.
Hello, pattyricia. Welcome to YWS!
So, firstly I will comment on the structure of the poem. In fact, it doesn't seem to have a particular structure: two uneven stanzas, the lines don't have a consistent metre or syllabic count, though there is some repetition (in which I fail to see a pattern). Therefore, this is free verse, which can be pretty cool when executed well (I've seen some incredible poems in free verse).
Alright, now that that's out of the way, let's focus on the content of the poem. For me personally, it didn't do too much, partly because the imagery is quite vague, and it didn't convey anything that would make this poem a bit more personal to the reader.
So, let's go line-by-line, shall we?
This opening line is quite good and attractive, in the sense that it's mysterious, and made me want to find out what about the person is so puzzling.
Personally, I, too have had people puzzle me like that, and they make me want to know more about them.
I think this directly contradicts the first line. If the person is nothing more than a beautiful face, then there's very little do be puzzled about, wouldn't you agree? If it were "You seem to be more than just a beautiful face", however, it would have been a completely different story.
I actually have people like that, friends, who have absolutely gorgeous faces but have so much more to them as well, and they're like a maze of interesting quirks and positive traits that make me like them for who they are on the inside.
"bashful" is pretty much the only thing that sets this person apart from the stereotypical image of someone who has a gaze like that.
Here I see an attempt at a rhyme, which is repeated in the second stanza with the exact words (gaze and dazed), which I think I see as a good thing, adding a bit of rebellious conformity to the entirety of the poem. That's good.
Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but if a person's eyes are "bashful", their gaze wouldn't exactly tend to be "lingering". But I see where you're going with this: even though they throw soft gazes that tend to linger, they're still shy and everything. I suppose a person could gaze at someone in a shy manner for a prolonged period of time (which I must admit, is indeed puzzling, so great job there). That does reveal some information about the person, as well.
"The most rational Dazed and dumbstruck." I like the little bit of alliteration in the last line there.
These two lines go in accordance with being puzzled by the person. What makes this relatable I think is that we've all at some point found ourselves blanking out in face of someone we like (even as a friend). I think that the bit of alliteration saves the last line imagery-wise, despite "dazed and dumbstruck" being a tautology. So, this part works well as a whole.
Here we go: these two lines are good. They reveal some information about both the narrator and the person they're talking to. This makes it a bit more personal and relatable. The person makes the narrator feel like something really special, and "vanity" is a pretty good word to use here, describing the sense of self-importance the narrator receives in the company of the person's charm. I can imagine that a lot of people have been made to feel this way by someone who reciprocates their feelings.
However, I feel like you should include one more line beneath this, describing one more thing the charm does for the person. It would work great and it would sound better.
To be perfectly honest, I don't think this repetition works the way it is right now. It's too close to the first time it was used. Maybe if you had a third stanza in between the two, it would reach more of the desired effect. Or, it could also work if there was one more stanza at the end, repeating the same general idea with the same or similar words. This would add to a sense of symmetry, since the idea is not positioned at the same place in either stanza at the moment.
In conclusion: I like this poem. It's relatable at times, but at times it's too broadly relatable, that it loses the sense of something personal, directed at someone who is different and special. A ton of people have blue eyes and are shy and can make you feel like you matter. So, if you have multiple people like this in your life, you could give them the exact same poem and it would refer to all them. That's the biggest issue I have with this piece.
Other than that, it reads quite well, it does deal a bit more with abstract feeling rather than imagery, but that's not a bad thing. It did make me feel, and it did make me think about the people in my life, so I think that's a major plus there.
This poem has some potential. And no matter what reviews or opinions say, you should definitely keep writing. There is always room for improvement, even for amazing writers, something I think everyone should strive to achieve.
Hopefully this review helps. If there's anything about it you disagree with, note that it's just my opinion and you don't have to take any of the advice if you don't feel like it's in order.
Have a nice day!