Young Writers Society

This is dedicated to all the people who are missing their loved ones that are over seas during the Christmas holidays. <33 God be with you. This is for the holiday poetry contest! )

Especially dedicated to Lauren2010 <3



Candle in the window-


Can you see it, my missing one?
That little spark flickering behind the pane?
The frost makes patterns across the glass,
drawing you closer, like a moth to flame.

Jack Frost holds you close,
keeping you from me,
and even though you can hear my voice,
do you remember it?

Your memory is fading,
like the Christmas joy in my house,
I seem to forget what it’s like
to know you’re home.

I miss you,
like the the trees miss their leaves.

That light could be snuffed,
burnt out from lonesome longing.
The wind is blowing colder now,
so where can I find you?
You’re lost!
Held in the bind of time.

But, if you look
I’m sure you’ll find,
the candle in the window.

Come home for Christmas,
we miss you.
Your daughters and sons are crying for you
when they think I can’t hear.

I miss you,
my brave soul
fighting for my country.
I’m so proud of you,
my missing one.
But I miss you more.

But all I ask,
that if you can’t come home for Christmas,
please be here, by New Year’s day.

Hey! Stanza-by-stanza again.

First- I adore your imagery, and I think I like what you did here, opening this work with a question, drawing the reader in. I'm not sure. I feel like the first and second lines could be more connected - with a comma, perhaps - to keep the flow going in the reader's mind. There's a slight rhyme, okay. Not continued, I'd guess.

Second- I'm not sure I can get to what you're saying in the last two lines of this. It doesn't quite make sense, I'd say. Maybe rephrase it - though I'll fully admit I can't understand it, I might just not get what you're trying to get across.

Third- Ooh. At the end of the second line, there should be a longer pause -a full stop or semicolon - and at the end of the first, no pause at all. Yes, this is punctuation-related, but it helps the poem along, and right now, it feels like the words are limping, not flowing.

Fourth- okay, the comma is stylistic, but I still say you could get rid of it. The line break makes the reader pause some automatically, and it's an issue of grammar here.

Fifth- This is going back to the imagery in the first stanza, which disjoints the reader a bit from the flow. The last line seems very out of place, stilted, short as it is, and the stanza as a whole feels very rushed. Put together quickly.

Sixth- No comma after 'find'? It's not even stylistic here; it's a superfluous pause that makes the reader stop and say "that doesn't feel right". Perhaps eliminate the comma after "but" as well, but that's - at least - stylistic. I like how simple this one is, because it keeps the flow going, and it's rhythmic.

Seventh- Maybe turn that comma after "Christmas" into a semicolon to lengthen the pause only slightly. I'm not sure if I like this after how imagery-stuck the last was, because this seems to be pulling the reader away from the symbol of the candle and into the crying children, which doesn't work - for me - half as well.

Eighth- I guess I like this? I'm not sure. It drags the reader completely out of any sort of imagery or symbolism and into the real world. The flow is disjointed, but I think that's mainly word choice getting to me.

Ninth- Uhm. I think this might read better if it were "But all I ask is that/if you can't come home for Christmas,/please be here by New Year's Day." "Day" is capitalised, no comma after "here" because the pause is superfluous (again) and ungrammatical, and a bit of rearranging of the lines to give it a sense of rhythm.

Overall, I love the idea. Adore it. Wonderful potential, wonderful idea.

I think the main issue is punctuation and flow. Most of your punctuation seems to be stylistic, but at some points it feels like you just say "to heck with it" and scattered commas all over the page. I know you didn't, lovely, that's just how my mind feels when I look at this. Your imagery seems to be stretched, as far apart as it is with each instance, and the symbols hop from "distant" (mind-wise) to "close" to "real world". This could use work, but I like the structure you used, I like most of your word choice, and I like the poem overall.

Hi Spark! It was really sweet of you to write on such a beautiful topic. This probably sounds really geeky, but this totally reminded me of the Dr. Who Christmas special this year... The Doctor, the Widow, and the Wardrobe.

Anyway! Your poem's beginning started off strong, but then it seemed like you wanted to stuff in as many Christmas things you could in your poem, so your poem started to lose focus. Remember that song, "White Christmas?" In that song, there are things that are mentioned, but the main theme of the song is always going back to snow, where snow is the nostalgic part of the song. So, in this case, make your focal point be the candle. Candles mean so many things... your very title reminds me of a candle next to a window that is all frosted over, except for that one tiny bit which is heated by the tiny flame of the candle. And so it evokes images of frost and snow, and you can totally make this work. Especially if you make it so that you can see the Christmas tree through that tiny little hole. So! Make sure you bring it back and don't ramble on. This has the potential to be really good!

Happy editing!