Young Writers Society

Hello, darling! Pardon if I repeat what others have said.

Let's start with a few high points of this piece. First off, I really enjoyed how you thought to tackle music in this poem, as poetry and music have been intertwined since the beginning of civilization. Secondly, it flows strikingly well from one stanza to the next, which is a breath of fresh air.

And now on to a bit of a critical standpoint. Keep in mind that these are all problems that I have with this piece specifically, and they can all be fixed with a few tweaks or a bit of elbow grease.

To start: Your rhyme. It honestly confuses me why this poem rhymes, because it doesn't exist within a preset scheme like a sonnet or a villanelle, and the rhyming itself actually detracts from the images you're presenting. Because you've trapped yourself in this strict ABAB rhyme, your stanzas seem muted—they can't reach their full potential because the words you're using are subpar. I would stress that nuance and depth are more important in early stages than rhyme; when you edit this work, you'll be able to find a way to keep nuance and still have your rhyme, if you really think you need it.

In short, if you use a word simply because it rhymes with another, it weakens your poem. And unfortunately, there's a lot of that in this poem, especially with such stretched and forced rhymes as "serenity/eternity" in stanza 5.

On to my next point: Your imagery. For a poem tackling such a lofty subject, you kind of missed the mark as far as images go. I couldn't find a single image in this piece that I would actually call "strong", because all of them are dependent on each other, and there are simply too many—I would recommend cutting it down to only the train image, or only the swan image, or only the canvas image, before daring to add anything more to it. As it is, your poem is coming across a little confused, like it doesn't know what it wants to say exactly.

The weak images really negatively impact your message, too. You want to convey the beauty and light and creativity of music, but in this jumble of images and forced rhyme, it doesn't come across very well. I feel like this poem was shooting for the moon, but exploded at liftoff instead. I would definitely recommend paring down words when you edit this.

I would also recommend finding someone to proofread for you, to make sure that you're using words correctly. There are spots in this poem that read confused in the general sense of English as a language, and while I won't say that grammar has to be perfect in all poetry, it's plain to see that you were trying to write a more old-fashioned piece with better grammar.

Overall: It's not bad, but it could definitely be strengthened by a good few rounds of editing, cutting images before adding them back in, and re-evaluating the presence the rhyme has in this piece. I think I'd really enjoy this poem if it was a little more coherent and conveyed its message a little more cleanly. Keep writing!

Hello!

Happy Review Day!

I am ILoveBooks ready to review your work!

First thing first. I love your topic. Which is music. And we all know that music is such a wonderful thing. And everyone loves music. Because seriously music really is our life because that's where we express our feelings and emotions. And I'm happy that you thought of this topic to write as a poem. Okay I want to say this is such a beautify and magnificent poem!

So I'm gonna make it so quick...

Put up your deep vocabulary more. So you can express more deep feelings and emotions. So it wouldn't be so complicating and mess up. Because we need to read the poem clear as possible right? So yeah think about that. But if you want to use simple words so most readers can understand. Then its your opinion. You can do whatever you want.

Your format. So good. Nothing to say about that more.

Rhyming good as well. But watch out of this clearly. You need it

Lets go to the deep meaning of the poem shall we? You used simple words because you think this is enough for being such a deep poem. Feel it first before actually writing something. You need to know if this is already the right one okay? To get other attention right?

Every words you just right is so touching and interesting and well written. I hope i heard more from you! Because just wow you are one great writer. You express your feelings so good. Oh well. That's all what I wanna say.

-ILoveBooks123

Hey there Kat here with a quality review for Team WHY?

I am a sucker for music poems! It's my two loves in one! I assume you are writing about a violin ? I loved your repetition of the words bow and black and ripple and swan through out this piece .

However, the second to last stanza didn't make any sense to me, it seemed like you were really strained there and it interrupted the flow (especially the first to lines ). just be mindful of that and maybe you can ad or subtract words. Flow is usually affected by rhyming, phrasing, and syllable count. So just play around with those, I think you will be fine though because it seemed to be pretty consistent everywhere else in your poem

And on my second re-read I noticed ...YOU COMPARED THE MUSIC TO A TRAIN IN THE FIRST STANZA AND THE LAST STANZA BRILLIANT . Sorry lost of praise .

In the second stanza shear is not the word I would use there . Shear is like breaking off or when you shear a sheep, so I am not sure what you are trying to say there.

Lovely imagery and I hope you write more like this.
~Kat

Walker here, as requested (though a little later than I planned so for that I'm quite sorry!). So lets get this on the road, shall we.

The first thing I want to note on is that I love the concept. Music has such an interesting, visceral sort of way that it captures you, whether being the musician or the listener, and putting word to something that is oftentimes wordless is something I personally admire. In my own beginner poetry days, I wrote something similar based upon Chopin's Tristesse though I fear it's not any good.

In any which case, I'm going to start off the criticism aspect with a bit of general advice. Contrary to popular belief, simplicity is a good thing in poetry.

One of the many concepts that seem to get hammered home for young poets is this need to throw your whole vocabulary down in such a great feat of diction that the words alone make the poem complicated enough to be deemed interesting. This is never a good thing. Most famous poets use simple, easy language to describe these heavy, fascinating sorts of feelings. It's what makes their work so poignant. They don't need to throw in heavy words because the concepts are heavy enough, and I think thats whats important to really get across here.

Your poem tries to be deep, and in a lot of ways it achieves this, but in a lot of ways it looks like it wants to convey to the reader more that you have a large vocabulary rather than in wanting the reader to feel moved by the concept of music. That, paired with the fact that some of your word choices, frankly, don't make any sense, makes the poem look rudimentary when the concept is quite brilliant.

The best example I can give comes from your own work. It's the two lines that moved me were not because they were difficult to decipher but because they were simple and uncomplicated, and offered metaphor without being showy.

[quote=paula08]The music has a mind of its own

Creating railways not seen before.[/quote]

Simple, clear, interesting. Consider these lines. Consider how the other lines feel different than these ones do, because you're not hiding behind your vocabulary here.

You'll also find lines like these don't happen when you slim it down:

paulao8 wrote:It enclaves in bitterness, guilt and disruption of a kind.

Hi there, Paula!

Beautiful poem you have created here. I, too, am a musician, so the only thing I have to say about content is YES. Definitely a great description.

There were a few lines I would just consider revising a bit.

Before the shear of pure embrace

Hoping for a splash, the swan to fight taupe.

White gracefulness enhancing swan,

Unsettled creature in the dark flow,

Like a black canvas tainted with a white spot.

It takes just a black stroke to eliminate the glow.

Hello, paula08! I have arrived to do a review on this poem (which is surprisingly sitting in the green room) and definitely should be getting a lot more attention.

As a musician myself, I find this piece very elegant and well written. I think it captures the idea that music is not just something written amongst a blank sheet of paper, but that it does tell a story and portrays a lot of emotion as well as symbols. You remembered to keep your rhyme scheme and used exact rhymes instead of something close to rhyming, which makes this poem all the better and seem more professional.

One thing I did notice while I was reading this piece is that you kept bringing up the idea of a "swan," and I was somewhat confused on the meaning of this. Is the swan the notes that are being played, the instrument, or neither?

The one line that did kind of bother me was "The musical mind has a mind of its own." I feel like this could have been phrased better in the sense it wouldn't have repeated the word mind again. Perhaps "The music has a mind of its own" would allow a better flow to the poem, and take away the senseless repeating.
That being said, that was the only "problem" I saw in the poem. It really was a beautiful poem and I would love to see more like this later on. Keep it up!
~Prez. T