Young Writers Society

Hello! Ripple here. Hopefully you've been having a wonderful RevMo!

I think that this is probably the most demeaning poem I have ever read, which is a tone I've seldom seen. It's this odd mix of love and... distaste? I don't know how else to describe it. You capture that unknowable emotion so well in this piece.

One thing that I would like to point out is your use of punctuation. With the rhythm you set up, there is obviously supposed to be a pause after each line. You cover this most of the time with punctuation, but there are a few instances where you don't.

No, your voice is far too loud to hear,
So you’ve got no poet’s soul
And your smile isn’t light, or fire--
It’s normal. It’s too real.

The second line in this stanza...

Darling, you’re bad poetry
You’re the “best friend” in the tale;
You’re always too predictable,
and you come back--each time--no fail.

...and the first line in this one.

Another thing I noticed was the line spacing that is default on YWS for whatever reason. If you don't want that, hold down {Shift} as you hit {Enter}. Voila! Problem solved.

Overall, I really enjoyed reading this. I think that I've read some of your poetry before, and liked that as well. I'd love to review more of your poetry in the future.

This is Kaos here for a review!

Darling, you’re bad poetry--

You’re no tortured soul at heart.

You’re sloppy, bland, too odd to find--

Too different to be art.

This is a stronger start to a poem, though I do have a few things to point out. The first is something small, but this poem isn't in stanzas and if you wanted to put them into stanzas or separate them in the most simplistic way you can put a "~" in between stanzas.

The next thing I'm going to address is the "--", which was used twice in this part. I think it just feels a little repetitive to have it so close together and I suggest changing it to some sort of other form of breaking the line, like a comma.

You use "You're" for two lines, which goes along with feeling repetitive. I think it fits the poem to be addressing or being written to a specific person, as it adds an edge to the voice, but you also need to be aware of the weaknesses of doing this. It can often come off as repetitive or lazy in the execution of the lines if you aren't careful with your word choice.

Darling, you’re bad poetry;

You’re an anthem all gone wrong.

Your voice cracks loud, a ghastly sound,

Your voice isn’t a song.

I actually didn't mind the starting line being repeated throughout the poem. It's an easy gateway into the rest of the lines that are after it. Again with the repetition of "You're" and "Your", find different ways to start your sentences. I suggest maybe starting the sentences with some form of imagery.

The imagery in this stanza is good, but it could be improved. The second two lines feel a bit disconnected from each other in the way that they don't really follow each other up, structure-wise. If you put the extra effort in to even just change some of the words in this poem to stronger synonyms of those words, it would make the poem stronger, and it would help expand your vocabulary.

No, your voice is far too loud to hear,

So you’ve got no poet’s soul

And your smile isn’t light, or fire--

It’s normal. It’s too real.

Why'd you ditch the form? I thought that the inconsistency that this part of the poem made interrupted my thoughts while reading the poem. The imagery here is lacking. The first line is repeating the thoughts from before. The imagery with the poet's soul and the description of the smile is weak. I didn't really see or feel a reason as to why this part of the poem was here, and it rather started to drag on too far. The less you drag on, the stronger the poem will be. Don't waste time on lines that only are in the poem to lengthen it, or are only "okay". You'll be able to put more focus into the individual lines and it would be easier to put focus and strength into them.

Darling, you’re bad poetry

You’re the “best friend” in the tale;

You’re always too predictable,

and you come back--each time--no fail.

I see that in some parts of the poem that you're rhyming. You have too much going on to make room for the rhyming, so I suggest that you cut it out. The poem doesn't benefit from it, and it only feels faintly there. In place of this, you could focus on the descriptions in the poem.

These four lines and the concept of them didn't appeal to me as much. The concept was well, but I felt like the lines themselves were weaker than that and were wasted potential. The wording was awkward, but if you rewrote and reworked this stanza, it would be one of the stronger ones in the poem.

Your fingers don’t trail hot ‘gainst mine--

they’re chilling to the touch.

They’ve got too many callouses,

they’re too easy for me to clutch.

The first line in the stanza is awkward, due to the "'gainst" in it. It feels like you're trying too hard to be unique in this poem. Instead of doing that, focus on the message that you're trying to get across first before deciding to put things like "'gainst" in here. It doesn't flow naturally, so just use "against".

The "They're" and "They've" make the flow of this stanza weak and awkward. Instead of using it to start the lines the whole time, you could also followup on a line with a comma and continue the imagery or thought in the line before.

Why are you so solid, dear?

How do you exist?

You just go along and come along;

You live, and don’t resist.

The voice starts to feel forced here, like you're trying to use the words like "darling" and "dear" too frequently. Use them in moderation, and not every line has to have words like them in it. The poem is a mess. The thoughts are now all over the place, and you're trying to fit so much into this one poem without precise thought. Each stanza in the poem feels similar in tone, and the concepts of the poem all fit together, but the structure is a mess.

Poetry is portalling;

It channels deep within;

It brings about the otherworld

Until you’re deep in sin.

This all was unnecessary to me. You use two semicolons in a row, which you should really fix. I don't think "portalling" is a word, and rather seems like an easy fix if you changed it to something like "another world" if you /really/ insist on keeping this stanza. It felt offbeat with the ideas of the other stanzas, where the rest at least had the same thought and feel to them. The "otherworld" in this stanza goes along with "portalling", easy change, get rid of it.

You don’t live above the clouds,

Or way below in Hell;

You’re real, and that’s bad poetry--

You’re too good, but still unwell.

I had the same problems with this stanza as I had with the last stanza, other than "--" which appears in the poem again, and my suggestion is to cut out the usages of it that aren't really needed and ones that overdo it. Compare it to exclamation marks, don't be using them every line or every few lines, it gets repetitive.

The rest of the lines in the poem are covered by what I've already said, so I won't quote them, but I'll go over it all a bit. The "Cuz" really throws the poem off, so I suggest taking it out. Overall, I think you need to clean this poem up and rework it. The poem started strongest, and then went downhill as it went on. I think you should definitely keep the first half of the poem, but rework it.

That's all I had to say about this poem, I hope this helped and have a great day!