ghost of me

Your title honestly got my attention. You seem to be quite creative and you think out of the box. this shows that you have so much potential. I honestly got curious i could not help myself. I love how creative you were and how you express yourself. It leaves ones imagination wondering. So all i can say is good work, keep it up.

I love this!

Hello Yellow!
The title of this piece is what caught my attention at first.I think that you have something really good here. I love where the poems takes me. Its something about this piece that has a soft undertone to it which I really love. Even though some of the lines maybe cliche I personally don"t think that it takes away from the message and the beauty of the piece.
Keep writing!
-Justwrite3

Just stopping in to say that I really feel this poem. <33 I'm in a similar situation and this hits me pretty hard in the best way. Thanks for writing this, it was good to read.

Hey yellow, here for a review to try to keep on track with Team Tortoise!

The idea of catching the love in a mason jar, is really intriguing. I love that image, and with it directly following the line about "you bury me six feet deep in the cold earth" (which I do agree a bit with Morrigan, is slightly cliche -> I think you can find a way to describe burial in an even more haunting unique way) I was expecting that line about the mason jar to be paired with some more apparent reference to cremation? You sort of go there wit "let the love i had for you extinguish into the ether" but then you move on - > I think if you can figure out how to get that cremating-love vibe a bit more solidly sold it'd be really really interesting.

My interpretation of the poem, is that the speaker has completely given up for hope in a relationship with someone they really value(d) and so they have now decided their only hope is that their love will be sort of reincarnated, that the person they used to love will go and love someone else as they say "you and him deserve it / much more than you and i ever did" (man that just kicks me in the gut - super tragic)! I'm not quite sure where the poem goes after the line "do not let me haunt you" - because it's kind of contradicted in the final line "please haunt the ghost of me" -> I guess they want to be left behind, but they're also hoping that some element of their love remains?

I think the second half of the poem feels very contradictory to the first half.

First half feels like the message is: You deserve better, leave me to die.
Second half feels like: You deserve better, but don't leave me.

^ You probably intended this tension to be there, but for such a short poem it feels a bit off, I think you need to show how the speaker transitions from the first half mood to the second half, why do they make that leap? You need to address the tension that your poem implies I think.

A few other little critiques - I didn't like the adjective use of "cotton candy stained" because it felt so removed from the poem's imagery that was being used and was hard to put in context of what that actually means? Oddly enough, this is the third poem this week that I've read that's used "cotton candy" - maybe it's a summer trend

I think the sentiment in this line is good, "you're deserving of spirits that can be there for you." but it's a little bit of a clunky way to say it, the poem's first half is just phrased so elegantly and sort of dances around the subject with metaphors, that this feels too direct.

Last critique - it sounded a bit odd for both of the last lines to end in "me". The repetition puts emphasis back on the self instead of the subject, but audibly it's a bit awkward sounding.

Normally I'd leave a recommendation to "even up your lines" for the sake of flow, but I actually thought the uneveness worked for this poem, I thought they were broken up in logical places, and perhaps because the poem is so short, I didn't think the uneven line-lengths detracted from the poem at all, but maybe made it feel more casual/whimsical/ghostly.

Overall I think you did a great job with addressing lost-love in a way that's really emotionally-catching and unique! Even in just a few lines, this poem definitely pulled at my heartstrings and made me feel empathy with the speaker. I think there's some wording aspects that could be improved, but you're a really solid poet yellow - I've really enjoyed reading all these last few poems you've been posting, so keep on writing!

Let me know if you had any questions about my review!

-alliyah

The six feet deep, always a classic line, Yellow! (I like the username, by the way. Reminds me of the Beatles song, Yellow Submarine!)
I would presume that this poem is about an ex leaving you are you realizing that they didn't truly love you or had feelings for someone else during that time and you're ready to give them up. You don't want memories of them to haunt over you, to scare you into not doing things or giving up, and vice-versa.
You want them to be happy but you don't want either of you to feel guilty. Maybe you want to remain friends or maybe not, you just don't want it to remain a bad experience for when things are all the sudden done.
I would say, maybe try to change classic lines, like six-feet under. It's used very commonly, so it seems a bit bland. Some more description would have been nice since at some parts you are describing things and then others you are blander than tofu with elements of literacy.
Try to keep things interesting, try different formats, and don't be afraid to use a dictionary from time to time! Those are the poets' best friend, I promise.

-Cow

Hi yellow, I'm here to tear your poem to shreds, as requested.

First of all, I've been here. It's rough. I'm sorry you're going through something like this. Your feelings at this time are messy, and honestly, that reflects in your poem.

Your poem is full of images that are half baked. Why a mason jar? Why cotton candy dreams? How is someone haunting a ghost? While these images are nice, why are they there?

Let's take a look at "catch it in a mason jar." So the "it" in this poem is loosely linked to the love the narrator had for the other person. I feel that there are two ways you can go about remedying this. Either 1) there is a more appropriate canister for love, or 2) connect the image of a mason jar with the rest of the poem better.

Is this love alive, or is it dead? It seems desperate and tattered, perhaps. Is it a moth escaping? Would you catch it in a net? A gas is a hard thing to catch, though you've characterized it this way. I feel that maybe even changing what the metaphor that represents love is would benefit the poem.

One way that you could keep the idea of mason jar as the item to save love is to change the circumstances around it. You have a good start. Six feet deep refers to a grave, but perhaps you can refer to it as a cellar without changing the reference to a grave. The reason you would change it to a cellar is because people pickle things and then store them in the cellar to keep for later. I am not sure if this is what you're going for, but something about the image should change to aid the poem.

Ask yourself these questions about the other images I mentioned. Can you change them to something that fits the metaphor more? Or can you change the circumstances around the metaphor to make it fit better?

Something that would fix all of this is if you decided on a motif and stuck with it throughout the poem. If you're not familiar with the concept of motifs, a motif is a running theme in imagery. Choose some concrete imagery to illustrate your main points that all work together. If you choose cotton candy, why not choose a carnival motif? While there IS a motif of death and ghosts, these are abstract concepts in themselves, and do little to anchor the other abstract concept of love in reality. It's important to anchor your poems in reality! It brings the reader into the poem and allows them to visualize and feel something akin to what the narrator is feeling.

My challenge to you is to rewrite the poem and include a consistent motif and avoid abstract concept words, like "love" and "death" and things like that. It can really sharpen what you're doing, and forces you to find other ways to say these words. It's something I try to do if I'm finding myself stuck in a rut.

"six feet deep" is basically a cliche at this point, and I think you can find other ways to illustrate that the narrator does not care to live anymore.

The last thing I'll say about this poem is that it feels very self-pitying. Like, self-pitying in a very sad-boi aesthetic way, but self-pitying all the same. If this is the point of your poem, so be it, but it really kind of made me feel icky. The narrator wants to wallow in the sadness of this other person loving someone who is NOT the narrator. I've been here, and it's not a fun time, but if you don't frame it in the right way, it comes across as someone who might be afraid of love in the first place, or someone who feels like it was their right to receive love from this other person. Something about the point of this poem just feels off.

All of that being said, I don't hate this poem at all. There's a good amount of emotion in it that just needs some polishing before it's done. If you decide to update it on YWS, please tag me! I would love to see another draft! I hope that this review proves useful to you, and that I've shredded it enough for your liking, enough to make a tasty BBQ pulled pork sandwich. If you have any questions, let me know, and keep writing!

Hi yellow! Haraya here with a review.

I like the opening lines of this poem. It immediately makes an interesting scene and sets the tone for the rest of the poem.

On to my critique.

This is just my nitpick. I was confused in this part of the poem:

"you and him deserve it
much more than you and i ever did."

Was the "it" referring to the love in the mason jar or the action of giving it away? While I do think it was the latter, this looked like it needed clarification, since the second line makes it seem like you meant the former.

I want to focus my review on the last line of the poem, since the weight of poem hinged on it. I think it needed more build-up along the way. It felt like more hints were needed to decipher the controversial last line. I think it was meant to accentuate the meaning of the poem, but instead it made it vague. Let me expound on this.

What I understood by most of the poem is that the speaker wants the second person to forget the speaker's feelings for them. This is why the speaker wants the mason jar of love be given to someone else. But, the speaker had one last request, that is to keep haunting them. What I interpret from this is the speaker wants the second person to carry the memory of their relationship, which is why I thought it was controversial. If you accept this as a variation of how to interpret this poem, I think this is very interesting since it shows the contrary feelings in the act of letting go.

The problem with this is it was only revealed at the end of the poem, which is why I wished there was more preparation for this twist. A sudden twist could have also worked, but I don't think the ending was strong enough for that. Maybe replace the last three lines with something like:

"My only request is you grant my will:
pay visits to my grave
and haunt the ghost of me."

I don't know if this is the effect you want so feel free to try something else.

That's all I wanted to say! Hoped I helped out. Best of luck to you in your future works!

Hi there, yellow!
What a nice poem. It's really short, but still manages to convey the sadness and pain of the narrator. I also love the imagery:

please haunt the ghost of me.

your cotton-candy stained dreams

you're deserving of spirits that can be there for you.