Young Writers Society

Hey, whatcha! Me? Reviewing poetry?! Crazy, but stranger things have happened in 2020. This piece caught my eye, and I had a hankering for abstract poetry, so I thought I'd stop by for a review!

This is a beautiful poem that bring me back to a nostalgic time when I was a kid running around the house during a cold winter month. I'd get up for school, groggily walk towards the kitchen as my mom makes me cereal, and then I'd notice it was snowing! I'd go outside with glee, trying to catch snowflakes, and my mom calls me inside telling me it was time to eat—but not cereal, because the milk has gone sour.

That random imagery probably has nothing to do with your story lol but it definitely captured a cozy nostalgic memory. Thank you for bringing me back to the good ole days!

Anyways, this is a pretty short poem, so I'll give some of my thoughts line-by-line.

1. "the milk went sour, so she" --> I like the imagery of the milk going sour, but I think you can use a stronger word than "went."

2. "splashed curdles across the sky" --> I loved the verb "splashed" you used here! It reminds me of pushing the bristles of my paintbrush back to splash tiny dots across my canvas with white paint to make tiny white stars, except instead of a paint across a canvas, it's curdles across a sky.

3. "one day the stars will tumble" --> I think you can emphasize the word "tumble" to actually be tumbling (example at end of review) rather than slant the whole line.

4. "from their ledge on the milk jug's edge" --> Three things: first, because an edge is straight, I think it would be better if the entire line was not slanted. Second, I think the wording here is too wordy, for lack of better words. I tried to say the line out loud and I kept getting tongue-tied! Arrgh! The words ledge, jug's, and edge make this a minor tongue-twister if you say this line too fast. Or at the very least, it gets hard to enunciate unless you're saying it very slowly. Lastly, I think putting an em dash at the end of the line would be pretty poetic since its indication usually means thoughts are interrupted and the reader is left on the edge. (Hah, get it? Edge?)

5. "dive-bombing through lazy air" --> Similar to point #3 , emphasizing "dive-bombing" so it actually looks like it's dive-bombing through the poem rather than slanting the whole line would give more of an impact.

6. "the way snowflakes do-" --> Maybe consider ending this line with a period rather than a dash. I also think it's also better if this line was not slanted, and maybe you can replace the letter o with a snowflake! Example will be at the end of the review.

7. "she'll catch them on her tongue," --> Decent line! Maybe a word stronger than "catch" can be inputted here instead. I also think instead of the word "she'll" it should be the the word "she'd" since it seems to read better for the poem.

8. "and realize that they taste like cheese." --> I like this! For greater impact, consider breaking up the "like cheese" part, but it's still pretty nice as is!

Okay, as promised, here's the example formatting I whipped up! Let me know what you think.



Hope this helps!! I enjoyed reading it. <3

~ Carina

This has such a whimsical tone to it I love it! Really reminds me of being a kid it's very imaginative (especially the way you formatted it). Never once did I think to relate stars to cheese so points to you for that I really like the opening sentence and "so she splashed curdles across the sky" flows so well and is very memorable. This was very entertaining and satisfying to read, great job.

I like this poem! Just the line, "from their ledge on the milk jug's edge," sounds too repetitive to me. Maybe change it to, "from their perch on the milk jug's edge," instead? Just a suggestion! I really like this! Keep writing!
Momo

My favourite type of imagery! c:

I really love this unique comparison <3 the title itself is so very interesting and lovely and beautiful and amazing!