Young Writers Society

Hey! I read your poem like 3 times. I like the metaphor behind the poem also. Your poem is great and the style of your writing is great and overall this whole thing is great. I like that you can right and share about a hard time that you've had. I'm really glad there is no longer a threat to your mothers life and I hope everything is looking up for you guys.

-Ellie

Hey there! This is Ina aka loveissourgrapes and I am here to give your lovely poem a review/comment. It is good to know that your mother that no threat in her life. It is reassuring that she will live after all those surgery and chemo. I love your poems by the way. Bless your mother. I hope she is better.
The title "when the bees sleep" is a pretty metaphor. It is also very imaginary and heartfelt. You meant the bees represent her life, winter, I believe, represents her cancer and spring, like when she blooms and her sick heals. Spring is the season where winter goes away and the sun shines again.

"she will wake again next spring

and the melting frost will water the daylily-hope and the daisy-joy

and the sunlight will be warm enough for the bees to leave the hive

and this life i hold in my hands

will beat its wings again."

This is my favorite part. If my mom I would have thoughts like this too. I hope you and your mother are feeling better, emotionally and physically. Overall, writing wise, it was great and had metaphors I had to re-read again. Keep it up! Have a great day/night c:

Hi wayward,

I found this poem to be really impactful and had a lot of heart to it. Especially after reading I was very happy to hear your mother is doing better - and wishing you and her well in continued treatments. <3

The metaphor you use of the bee seems to be used in a few different ways throughout the poem -

The words, maybe related to diagnosis or conversations are like bees - seeming careless and pesky attacking hope and joy and fragile bodies.

Then life is described like a bee - determined, and busy until winter comes (wasn't quite clear to me if winter was a metaphor for - maybe illness?) - and then the life is kept alive by company, dreams, and hope - waking again in the spring (maybe a metaphor for healing). In the spring the hope, and joy come again and life will be thriving with the bee being able to easily fly again.

Very unique to use the bee in those different ways and I liked very much how you bookended the poem with the lines about "daylily-hope and daisy-joy" leaving then returning as it made the poem feel very complete at the end there.

I like the image of holding a bee - because it feels caring and gentle, and yet not what is intended for a bee to flourish.

It might be interesting to dig into the hive imagery a bit more, or even get a little technical about bees in the poem - but I do enjoy the different images that you use a lot and especially the sweep and conclusiveness of the poem.

I also enjoyed the incorporation of alliteration throughout too - it felt very natural and made the lines flow very nicely too.

I think one area that you might take a second look at is without the author's notes, I'm not entirely sure I'd associate this poem with illness of a loved-one, and I think in particular you might want to add a bit more detail or specificity to line two about "words" - "words" can go in so many different directions, so that feels quite vague and ambiguous which could set the reader off on assuming one thing about the poem, then reading forward and having their expectations changed multiple times. Maybe some clarity could be added there.

Another area I'd like to see a bit more in would be your images - right now the imagery you use feel very direct and to the point - which is okay here and there, but I think the poem would be lifted to the next level if you lingered on a few of those images and added a couple details to help readers visualize the scene you're writing -> like adding spice to your cooking. An example of where you might add more detail would be this line " kept alive by the warmth / of thousands of thrumming bodies" -> "kept alive by the desperate warmth of thousands of thrumming bodies; wings brushing close, hearts beating in united percussion" - throwing in something that paints an image I guess!

Overall, as I said this poem was thoughtful and heartfelt and I very much enjoyed reading it - thank you for sharing it. Hope this review was helpful!

alliyah