Young Writers Society

Hey there serpyre. Sorry I didn't get around to filling this review request sooner but I don't check my thread very much. I see that you already got a few reviews on request, hopefully I can still provide you with some good information.

The first thing that I'm noticing as a reader is the structure you chose, which is now centered in the middle of the page. I don't see any particular reason for its placement like this, unless it was just dependent on how long the lines were, and you wanted to give a different appearance. If I were able to have more of a conversation with you about structure, I would recommend against what feels like simply centering. There almost always need to be a reason for the way that you push things together and I'm not feeling a strong reasoning here.

Jolly! Blighted war, a patron saint for the calling of purpose and glory.

A harbinger for our best, a worthy sacrifice, all in the name of our people as we fight by God's side.

If there were an afterlife, I wish myself in hell,
For how could I share a heaven with war-mongers, pray tell?

Hi there! I'm here to review your lovely poem! Thanks for requesting a review!!

So first off, I like that you went for some rhyme and formal language - not many do anymore, and it's good to see someone do it right! Rhyme really helps out the flow of a piece besides. It felt like you lost your rhyme scheme a bit in stanza 3, and I couldn't tell if it was random or intentional, so you might want to see if you can incorporate some semblance of a rhyme scheme in there.

Another aspect I think could use a bit of work is consistency in the line-length. It felt like some lines really went too long, and were repeating information that wasn't necessarily essential to the overarching themes of the poem. If you even your lines out a bit more in terms of length the piece will read less as a long run-on sentence, and more as phrases and thoughts joined together with breaths. It'll also help out the flow tremendously.

As far as interpretation I had a little bit of trouble. I interpret the poem as saying that some people treat War as their sacred saint, and they live their lives according to this war that they love and worship. They find almost a sort of peace and purpose within the war that they fight. They believe their war is even divine and endorsed by God. Then in stanza three - their beloved saint dies - meeting the same end as all who worship war. The speaker ends the poem saying, if there's an after-life they'd rather choose hell than live forever with these war-mongers in heaven.

It is quite an interesting critique, and I think a whole lot of people could relate to this - not just passivists, but also others who aren't fans of "spiritual warfare" and other types of aggression that those who fancy themselves believers in God sometimes become drawn to.

A few questions I had - I couldn't tell if the speaker is referring to a literal physical warring (stanza two would indicate maybe not) - and if you're referring to a more metaphorical war could you expand on what that might be for the speaker? Also I assumed that the "saint" and the "she" referred to were just "war" itself rather than a "real" saint - I think it might be interesting in the poem to name the saint - maybe that was even what the title was evoking - and then refer back to that name in the piece, since I don't think all readers will get that the "saint" being referred to is the personification of war.

Anyways, this piece was a lot more complex than I anticipated, and you chose a really unique topic too! I hope to read more of your work in the future!

~alliyah

Hi serpyre! Niteowl here to review as promised!

Let's start out with something I like: the rhyming couplet at the end. It has a strong message and good rhythm. Just one tiny correction that's bugging me: I think "were" should be "is" to fit the tense of the rest of the sentence.

One thing that's bothering me is the structure. The rhyming itself isn't too bad, unlike the forced rhyme I see a lot on here, but the rhyme scheme goes from roughly alternating to kind of confusing in the third stanza. I parsed out the rhyme scheme below. I'm not sure if there was a specific structure you were trying to follow, but the third stanza is both longer and following a different pattern than the other stanzas.

ababc cdcd efggef hh

I feel like the first stanza is supposed to be more positive, talking about war being glorious, and then the pessimism sets in as the piece goes on. In light of that, I would make a couple changes. "Blighted" is negative, so I would replace with a more positive adjective. "It is a grave that she lives", doesn't make much sense as written. Perhaps it would be better as "In our graves she lives", since this is a reference to the worthy sacrifice in the previous line. I think that the last line of the stanza, being the introduction of the darker side of war, would fit better as the beginning of the next stanza.

The second stanza is great, using imagery to show what isn't depicted in the rosy picture of war painted in the first stanza. "Negligible" is rather long and I trip on it when reading the poem out loud.

The third stanza has a strong message, but it has a bizarre shift to a more informal tone with words like "drownin'" and "dyin'". I'm not sure if "it were" (which grammatically should be "it was") is supposed to be part of this dialect or not. Personally, I'm not a fan of this tone shift. I'm also not sure if you meant for "it" to rhyme with "dead", which seems like a stretch to me, or not. Like I said above, the rhyming doesn't work as well in this stanza as the first two.

Overall, I thought this had a strong message and some good imagery. Welcome to YWS and keep writing!

This was a very powerful piece. It resonates with you, like when you hear a powerful speech or sermon. While the content is excellent and very well written, I have to admit that the punctuation and the separation of the lines confused me a little. I feel like, to me, it did not flow as well as it could have. However, that is more my personal preference rather than an actual critique, so it's not really a negative thing. I'm sure when you wrote this you did so knowing that the way you wrote it was the best way you possibly could.


"If there were an afterlife, I wish myself in hell,

For how could I share a heaven with war-mongers, pray tell?"

These lines are, in all honesty, my favorite lines of the whole work. I love the use of the rhyme, I feel that it gives what you're saying here an extra kick. It truly was a wonderful pice.