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Reflect · Poetry Minific ·
Organised by Anon Y Mous
Word limit 50–1000

Original fiction.

Show rules for this event
A Thin Crescent on the Water
silver sliver:
veilless vessel rises, revels,
vies, relies, relives
severe reverie.

miles lie, reverse lore’s simile
over lover’s eros, rovers, livers,
or losers; loose rose, verso, overlies river’s roil. solve solo,
no lens enlivens inverse Selene.

believe visible bliss vibes; livelier river ebbs, revels,
ever rosier rills revere, serve level verse.
aerial salver reveals several rival seas,
mere rim, slimmer, smiles, revives me.
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#1 · 1
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This is the first one I'm reviewing, so I'll leave an overall comment up here.

I'm not going to be great at sifting hidden meanings out of poetry, so don't be surprised if things go over my head. I can comment on what I do get out of it, and I'm good at analyzing poetic structure, but I don't think many of these entries will end up being very structured.

On this one, I do see the arrangements of similar words together, but I don't know if there's some scheme behind which ones you pick. Do they have to be close anagrams, differ by no more than 2 letters, etc.? I don't see a pattern to that, or to how many syllables are on each line. So I'm going to conclude it doesn't follow any structure except having words containing a roughly similar set of letters on a line.

As to meaning, I wouldn't have known it was about the moon's reflection without the title, but I wouldn't call that a weakness. It's a legit way to communicate the meaning. Some of the phrasings are striking, which is probably mostly what poetry is after, though I can't tell how much of that is deliberate and how much is an accident of the form chosen. I only get a vague sense of what the poem means, though. The speaker seems to like the moon and is speculating on ways different people might react to it, I think.

It's really hard to judge poetry, except from a structural standpoint, since so much of it relies on a personal reaction from the reader. Some of them, you can just look at and tell they took a lot of effort to write. Barring that, voting is going to rely on whether they strike a chord with someone, and that's pretty hit or miss.
#2 · 2
· · >>Bachiavellian
Cleverness is like... (click here)

I might end up posting that as a review for all of these poems, I fear.

Poetry sometimes uses structure to force creativity to emerge, but constraints applied improperly can turn a poem into a chore. In this case, you've attempted to add as many words as you can which match your constraint without concern for the amount of meaning they add to the piece.

I think this would be better trimmed down to remove the excess, like, "overlies river's roil". That's not doing anything for me.

You're also splitting sentences and thoughts in two, perhaps in order to make waters appear deeper than they are, but it doesn't add anything. Why do this:

miles lie, reverse lore’s simile
over lover’s eros, rovers, livers,
or losers; loose rose, verso, overlies river’s roil. solve solo,
no lens enlivens inverse Selene.


When you could do this, which is far easier to read and less jarring:

miles lie,
reverse lore’s simile over lover’s eros, rovers, livers, or losers;
loose rose, verso, overlies river’s roil.
solve solo, no lens enlivens inverse Selene.


Also, 'revels' is in there twice, and I'm guessing that wasn't intentional. It's the only word like that in the poem and it doesn't seem relevant for it to be the sole outlier, unless I misunderstood the message.

EDIT: Please note I tend to sound harsher than I intend to. Just because I'm picky or contrary does not mean I didn't enjoy reading your poem! I'm only trying to help and am socially not so gifted.
#3 · 4
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According to fable, the author still sells sea shells on the sea shore to this very day.
#4 · 1
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This piece is really interesting in that unlike most other forms of poetry, I'm pretty sure that it's meant to be read silently rather than spoken out loud. I mean, I tried reading it out loud a few times, and it doesn't really have much of a flow to it. On the other hand, seeing the similar words with your eyes has a striking effect that's emphasized by your use of all lowers. Cool decision!

Unfortunately, I'm a bit lost as to what this actually means. I'm getting romantic and nautical vibes based on your word choice, but I'm not able to parse any coherent images or thoughts. Even reading >>Trick_Question's clarified version didn't really help.

So in the end, the words certainly look pretty, they sound a little funny, and they mean something incomprehensible to me. I'm not 100% sure whether or not that was your actual goal here, so I'm hesitant to give suggestions. Would love to get some more context when the round closes!

Thanks for entering!
#5 · 4
· · >>LoftyWithers >>Trick_Question
There's also a kind of acrostic here: svvs moon beam. I have no idea what svvs might mean.
#6 ·
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>>Pascoite
Maybe a latin u? Google Translate gives me trouble with it, and won't round trip most of my attempts like "Capillus suus canis cresceret."
#7 · 2
· · >>LoftyWithers
>>Pascoite
Save versus moonbeam?
#8 ·
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>>Trick_Question
System V Verification Suite
#9 · 1
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I didn't realize you could turn a game of Boggle into a poem.