Young Writers Society

Hey SteveBayor,

I really like what you're doing with imagery in this poem. You're pushing it towards the edges of what we think about and trying to balance that fine line between believable and understandable, and something we just throw up our hands at and say I don't know.

I really like that.

I think one of the ways that you could improve this poem immediately is allowing yourself more freedom. Writing a poem doesn't have to be about keeping it in a certain flow or order of words, it doesn't even have to have punctuation! If you allow yourself the chance to just allow your words to GO, instead of having to stop and pause at the end of every line, I think you're going to find that you can really get into a beat and settle into a rhythm that helps support your poetry even better than it is now. We don't need commas or capitalization to understand language, it just helps us read it, so instead of focusing on having a capital at the beginning of every line, or all of these commas, allow your language to be broken into interesting parts, and that makes your lines, Instead of "Crowned with beauty such as ivory" try breaking it up like "glory, crowned with beauty" and allow those images to really sink in.

Go into detail for the images, allow yourself to explore what that symbolism really gets into, and what the heart of it is. If you do that, you can really find a passion for how language relates to itself, how these words bend and fold together to create the images you want them to see, and push beyond the structures of poetry, beyond what you're seeing as your poem, and into something that's unique and completely yourself.

I think you need this because I'm a love poem that's trying to be original, but because of the structure you have it in, it's falling somewhere in the middle. It feels like it should be original, but it looks like it isn't. You have phrases like "epitome of dignity" which rhyme, but don't really mean much, which tells me that you're playing with language, exploring it, but not delving into what it really means. You're playing with sounds more than meanings, and I'd like to see meanings more than sounds.

I hope to see more of your work! Happy Review Day!

Aley

Hey there! So, first of all, I loved the opening of this poem. I loved the first five lines immensely, and thought they spoke of the breadth of a life with a nice brevity that was fresh, especially in such tight rhymes with true meanings. But from that point I was confused, and from that point it seemed like the tightness fell apart. WHICH, by the way is totally normal. Probably 100 percent of my poems start out gorgeous, because that's when the impulse is flowing, but become weak and twisted by the time I'm finished. Let's look at some of the reasons why it wasn't as satisfying as the first lines, and maybe we'll see if editing can't strengthen it up.

The main reason was that I was confused by the message, because it says you have not found someone with a voice like a serenade, but then suddenly change to describing what seems to be the particular girl you have found. That can be quickly fixed. As for the rest, the only problem is that so, so many people have fallen in love before you and tried to put it into poems, that words like intoxicate, beauty, rare, blessed, princess, epitome, etc. have all be used, used, and over used to the point that they have no meaning for the reader. When you wrote them, I'm sure they had some meaning, because YOU KNOW the love you have for Valerie, so you imbued each word with the emotion that you possess. We don't know her. We can't. We need a description, or a comparison. Something that brings up emotion in us as well, otherwise this is a poem that will fly in one ear and out the other.

I hope this makes sense to you, and I wish you luck working on bringing the specificity of Valerie to an edited version if you decide to do so! Let me know if you have any questions or comments about this review, and good luck,

Hannah

I love the words and wordplay in this poem. More than telling about Valerie, this poem tells about the narrator, whose passion is clearly the written word. And do they ever know how to spin it. There is a playful tone to the poem, whose oft rather unnecessary use wordplay speaks to a light-hearted, fun tone, where the author is enjoying themselves all around.
While this may well be no more than a typo, line 5, 'I've *not* found', turns this poem from a romantic poem to a perfect girlfriend to an idealist's ruminations on what their ideal woman would be.
The trailing off at the end feels like a dreamy sigh on the part of a narrator, content within their pleasant fantasy, or maybe just satisfied by all the fancy word they got to use.
My take on this poem is that it is one meant to be fun more than serious; a tribute to an ideal. If that Line 5 'not' is just a typo, it's then a good gift for a woman the narrator is clearly enamoured with.
It is the bit about meeting Valerie makes me wonder whether or not that one word is a typo - that sort of specification is one more associated with real people than fantasies.
I found this poem fun to read overall because of the joy of the narrator.

This is a clever little poem, though it seems to contradict itself as it says at first that the persona hasn't met a lady of worth yet but without any real transition in between, by the end they surmise that they have met Valerie and that it... er, she is that lady. Maybe just start from the beginning with saying they have met such a lady. It won't make the twist any less powerful.

Also, I wasn't sure but were you referring to the valkyrie airplane or is this a different famous object which is called Valerie? I understood the poem enough to realise it's not a real girl but I wasn't sure what in particular it was. I wondered if the 'needle' at the beginning referred to the space needle and was supposed to be a hint but I couldn't put all the pieces together.

Specifics

1. By line five it's impossible to keep reading because you haven't told me where to stop and take a breath. This needs some punctuation to help the reader understand how you want it to be read or they'll take a breath when they run out and that could be in the middle of a line.

2.

One whose smile touches at every nerve

Whose gait makes great minds swerve

I'm most blessed, to have, in my days met a library of glory,