Young Writers Society

This is my first submission It was an assignment I had for English and I ended up liking it.



1. A frog splashing into cold, dirty water to find his dinner of squirming insects.
2. Tiny, pale fish swimming through fuzzy green algae and using their streamlined bodies to dodge in and out of tendrils.
3. Mosquito larvae sitting still and growing inside their cases, abiding until it's time to hatch and soar.
4. Beer cans tossed by someone too bothered to enjoy life in a ditch.
5. Broken glass from unknown sources, maybe broken by drunks or flung from a wreck.
6. Tiny yellow wildflowers braving thick grass to find their own ray of sunshine.
7. A pair of dragonflies lustily hovering around each other like rope-less trapeze artists.
8. Rotting fish spilling from a discarded cooler that fills the air with salt and carbon.
9. A dead body stuffed in a garbage bag and left to spend a few days visiting frogs, fish, and dragonflies until someone finds him.

Something feels off to me. I think I used too many descriptive words or "ing" sounds. Help with fixing this? Besides that, I'm still new to writing, so please please please point out anything I missed!

Hey!!

Huh...I’ve never thought about what resides in a ditch before! You've really captured the essence for each sentence and I love the individuality and creativity.

Though, I did notice a few quirks……I know what you mean about those tricky little 'ing's. XD They tend to weaken the impact of a sentence which doesn't mean to avoid them completely, but be careful when using them. I'm still learning the balance act myself.

I suggested a few ideas of variations below each sentence, though it’s your decision to see if they fit.
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1. A frog splashing into cold, dirty water to find his dinner of squirming insects.

A frog, splashing around in icy, watery filth in search of squirming insects for dinner.

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"2. Tiny, pale fish swimming through fuzzy green algae and using their streamlined bodies to dodge in and out of tendrils"

Tiny, pale fish swimming through fuzzy green algae, using their streamlined bodies to dodge in and out of tendrils.

Tiny, pale fish swimming through fuzzy green algae, dodging in and out of tendrils with their streamlined bodies.

Tiny, pale fish swimming through fuzzy green algae; their streamlined bodies dodging in and out of tendrils.

The streamlined bodies of tiny, pale fish swimming through tendrils of fuzzy green algae.

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"3. Mosquito larvae sitting still and growing inside their cases, abiding until it's time to hatch and soar."

Stagnant larvae casings plump with mosquitoes budding to life until their time to hatch.

Wow! That’s a yucky visual when eating...XD

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4. Beer cans tossed by someone too bothered to enjoy life in a ditch.

This confused me at first to think that someone was enjoying life in a ditch. Instead of what I think you meant as someone was too busy enjoying life?

Aluminum beer cans, tossed by someone too bothered with their own life to care.

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5. Broken glass from unknown sources, maybe broken by drunks or flung from a wreck.

A glistening array of broken shards of glass. Its sources unknown but maybe from drunks or flung from a wreck.

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6. Tiny yellow wildflowers braving thick grass to find their own ray of sunshine.

Tiny, yellow wildflowers outstretched to brave thick grass in hopes of finding their own ray of sunshine.

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7. A pair of dragonflies lustily hovering around each other like rope-less trapeze artists.

A pair of dragonflies hovering sensually around each other like rope-less trapeze artists.

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8. Rotting fish spilling from a discarded cooler that fills the air with salt and carbon.

Rotten fish spilling from a discarded cooler that fills the air with salt and carbon.

Rotten fish, spilled from a discarded cooler, reeking bitter fumes of salt and carbon.

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9. A dead body stuffed in a garbage bag and left to spend a few days visiting frogs, fish, and dragonflies until someone finds him.

A dead body stuffed in a garbage bag, left to spend a few days visiting frogs, fish, and dragonflies until someone finds him.

Great writing!

~Ceely

So, a list poem I take it? I have to say, I've never seen quite THIS stuff in a ditch, but I loved this. I think it was funny, actually, especially the line about the dead body...although you may not actually have meant that to be funny, you probably meant it to be chilling or something. If I were writing this, I think I'd have to add a line about marijuana, because it grows in the ditches where I'm from - the neighbor frequently had to clear it out and burn it up. (Which would prompt my mom to say, "That's smells like marijuana. Does that smell like marijuana to you?" Me: "Mom, how the heck would I know what marijuana smells like? Is this a not-so-subtle way of finding out if I've ever smoked a joint?")

I would like to say that I LOVED the line about the dragonflies - "a pair of dragonflies lustily hovering..." Although I think "lustfully" works a little better here - I mean, I know what you meant, but while "lustily" can mean "lustful," it's usually used in its other sense, meaning "strong" or "vigorous," while "lustfully" means "in a lustful way." However, I think "lustily" sounds better, so you can really go either way here.

As far as the rest goes - I think it's not so much that something sounds [i]wrong[i\] as that something might be missing. You have great imagery, for sure, plenty of it, and definitely a good list of things that are (or could be) found in ditches. But I think there's not enough feeling in this poem, or figurative language, or both, or something. I mean, it's fine to have a straightforward poem with plenty of imagery rather than figurative language (i.e., Robert Frost's "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" or "Mending Wall"), so maybe you don't need figurative language, but right now the poem feels mostly a little bland. I think there needs to be some feeling to this. That might be hard to achieve, with a list poem...but maybe if you add something at the beginning or, better yet, at the end about what the narrator thinks of all these things (as a whole, not as individual things) or her reflections on them or what they might mean to her, that might give this poem what it's missing.

PM me if you have any questions!

~Blue