i have never seen the ocean

wow i really like the poem. So many questions that really need answers. Like honestly at times you often wonder if all these motivational statements you are told daily are practical. Like 'reach for the stars but all i know is the ground' at times the reality is just a bit too harsh and we often feel like failures because of what we will be currently facing. And honestly i love how your words are relatable and how i understood your emotions as i was reading. That is good.

And the format adds meaning and is creative. This is indeed an amazing poem and i think i would love to read more of your work because this just caught my attention and is motivational to new writers.

Hi!
I really like this poem and the emotions you've embedded in every line.
The formatting really adds to the meaning of the poem and creates a strong impression on readers though i do feel that having a bit more of regular poetry would add to its significance.
I thought the refrain in the parentheses was a really nice touch, especially the effect of changing it in the end. I also felt that the imagery you used was extremely powerful and impacting.
Overall i think this was an amazing poem with so much uniqueness and emotion and I just loved it! I didn't really have much to write but i hope this review does help... keep writing more beautiful poems and stories like this one

This is wondrous <3

This is really neat StarlitMind! Love how you played with the words in so many different ways, and also that the poem wasn't just a "gimmick" or something, but was really rooted in a good message / imagery too!

My formatting suggestion is I think the very bottom part could have looked a bit more like waves or maybe even roots. I also wouldn't necessarily think of "constellations" as a dip - > but rather as sort of random - sparsely dotted letters.

I really liked the use of parenthetical asides, I wonder if you could give us longer chunks of just poetry without the formatting - maybe in parenthetical asides like that, because I felt like I understood the message but I almost wanted to hear more about it if that makes sense, and would give you a chance to give greater clarity to the message too. Right now it seemed like the poem was about someone who really longed to see the ocean, and more so to have a sense of home or rootedness because they feel like there is something essential missing where they are. The "ocean" may even be a symbol for heaven, freedom, or some other experience that the speaker longs for but can't encounter yet.

I'm not sure if the image of cotton candy fit the rest of the imagery family you were working with, and I couldn't quite fit that in with the other images you had going on. My favorite image was the drowning in an empty bathtub. For some reason the detail that it was empty made it both more whimsical and tragic.

Well done! Keep on playing with formatting, this is great!

- alliyah

Team Tortoise

Hi StarlitMind! Haraya here to review!

First off, congrats with your first experimentation of form! Let me say that as far as I know, I understood why you chose specific forms for certain words. Also the title intrigued me, because I myself only saw the ocean when I was thirteen, so I guess it resonated with me.

Nonetheless, here is my critique.

Generally, the imagery was well done. My favorite was
"but no matter how much I dig
all I end up with is dirt..."
All the way until the following stanza.

That was wonderful and you smartly made use of enjambment. By cutting the line with dig, you make the image that you are digging on the ground, but then you continue the lines and it turns out you were digging your fingernails. And then, you built up on that even further and said flowers don't grow there, which makes the reader imagine an infertile land. I love the flow and power of that imagery.

However, my problem is with clarity of the message. I think that the poem was about an experience others know but you don't (I'm sorry if this is wrong). For me, you laid a very strong foundation for this message in your first lines. What I think caused the vagueness with the message is the lack of a consistent flow between stanzas and some lines.

For example, when you ended with that intrguing line of how you've never seen the ocean, I expected you will expound on this. But then you suddenly talked about reaching the stars but being stuck on the ground. I think it connects with the preceding line, because in both images, you're always stuck on the ground. However, I wish this was clearer.

As for the form you chose, one of its connotations is it made your poem seem playful because the words look very active. But I think you had put too much here. Sometimes it felt distracting to the reader. I suggest you choose only certain words to animate with this form.

That's all I wanted to say! Hope my review helped. Best of luck to you in your future works!

First off, I’d like to say I love the formatting on this piece. It’s amazing, and I can tell that it’s not just arbitrary. It really adds to the poem, and creates a sense of movement that wouldn’t otherwise be there. I also like the repetition of “(is this really a home?)”. The placement, in the corner right, is so out of the way and understated, but it makes the statement so much more powerful. It’s a questioning, doubtful thought.
The language in your poem is very beautiful. There are so many phrases that are so clever and also meaningful. For example, where you say “but no matter how much I dig / all I end up with is dirt”. That’s so clever, and makes such a good point. Sometimes we don’t reach our goals, even if we try hard, because the circumstances aren’t right. I also really like the way you start and end with the same sentence. It gives is a feeling of finality, like the poem is coming full circle. As a reader, I interpreted and understood the sentence in different ways reading it the first and second time, which showed the growth that occurred throughout the poem.
The one suggestion I would make is to clarify what you mean by the phrase “I… wonder what cotton candy tastes like”. I personally didn’t understand the significance of cotton candy. It didn’t seem to connect back to the idea of water, or the stars. I can see that it could represent all the things the speaker hasn’t done, but if that’s the case, I would use another comparison. Cotton candy just seems out of place.
Overall, though, this was an amazing poem. I loved it. You’ve clearly paid a lot of attention to form and meaning and figurative language.