Young Writers Society

It Only Makes You Stronger


Such a distance between us,
--- 660 miles to be exact.
I want so bad to be there,
--- But things keep holding me back.
My close friends know of you,
--- And how much I love you.
I think of you all the time
--- And you are always in my heart.
You’ve changed me-

In more good ways than you can imagine;

----- A more open heart
----- Even more caring ways towards everyone
----- A larger charitable side
----- A green stripe in my hair
----- A new favorite color
----- More prayers
--------- Especially for others.
I know there’s pain,
--- but you’re getting through it.
You’re the strongest person
--- I will ever know.

Uncle Tony.

--- Now is a time when it’s good
------- to look back
At all the good times…

--- The visits to Georgia
--- The warm, loving hugs
--- The stories -My favorite part of all.
--- The accent that I absolutely love.

And even some of the
--- bad times.

Because you made it through those,
Just like you’ll make it through this one,
And come out even stronger.

I don;t see any grammar mistakes, YYYYYIIIIIPPPPPEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!
I hate having to do that.
I like your poem, the story it told, the message it conveyed (Guess that's the same thing isn'y it?). The wording was very good, the only problem I could see was the way you had the words placed, at least the way it looked to me.


It kinda
Looked like
This.


It coud just be my computer being screwy, but if it's not I think you should change that. It was I bit of a turn off, and didn't look very neat to me. Of you like it like this, that's fine, that's just my opinion. That being said, loved it!

Hi!

I really liked your poem. It was really nice and very understandable. I don't like the layout you have it in, I do think that needs to be edited.

I liked how you made it seem like a list in a way, a list of how Uncle Tony changed you and the memories you share.

It was a real nice read.

Deanie x

Hi! It looked like you needed more feedback so I thought I'd stop by and leave you a review

Title: Okay so the first stop is the title which is reallly important, particularly when posting on a site like this as it could be the difference between getting read and not getting read! Even out in the published world, when people are flipping through a poetry book, they'll stop on a page where they see an interesting title or where a strong first line grabs their attention. What you have here is too vague/ common a statement to be interesting. Okay so we've all heard the saying 'what doesn't kill you only makes you stronger' but then you've took the less interesting part of that and made it into a title. I'd suggest revising it to something fresher and more attention grabbing.

Specific Comments

1.

Such a distance between us,
--- 660 miles to be exact.

Instead of an exact figure here, it would be more interesting to have a simile or something vaguer. You could phrase it in the form of:
'The distance between us is like the span
of the hands on a grandfather clock.'
Obviously you'd want a different comparrison as clock hands really aren't that far apart, but you get the idea!

2.

I want so bad to be there,
--- But things keep holding me back.
My close friends know of you,
--- And how much I love you.
I think of you all the time
--- And you are always in my heart.
You’ve changed me-

Okay so this whole section here has a really sweet sentiment but I'd like to see you use some poetic language and techniques. At the moment it reads like a line from your average romance novel and that's a little dull. Why should we care about this particular couple, what makes them unique?

3.

In more good ways than you can imagine;

----- A more open heart
----- Even more caring ways towards everyone
----- A larger charitable side
----- A green stripe in my hair
----- A new favorite color
----- More prayers
--------- Especially for others.
I know there’s pain,
--- but you’re getting through it.
You’re the strongest person
--- I will ever know.

Okay so it's interesting how you've played with the format, but it isn't really working out for you. This is too listy and impersonal. You're taking your reader too far away from the speaker which is baaaad. We want to like this guy. We want to know who he is and more importantly, how he feels. And not the 'my heart is bleeding for you' kind of stuff, but more the 'my world frays at the edges and it falls away like threads of light'. When a person reads poetry, they're looking for just that: poetry.

What is Poetry?

I think that's enough of the specifics because really my complaint is universal to the whole poem and that is that you haven't quite touched on what poetry actually is. It's more than just plot and character. It's about selecting which forms and poetic techniques best suit the story you want to tell or the emotion you want to convey. At the moment this reads more like prose than poetry.

I could spend hours trying to tell you what poetry is though and we'd get somewhere but the best and most valuable advice I can give you is to read. If you read poetry and study how it makes you feel the way it does then you'll start to pick up on the techniques and can try them out in your own writing.

I hope this helps! Send me a pm if you've got any questions,

Heather xxx