Young Writers Society

We are the helpless generation.
Plagued by apathy and expectation,
as we grow tired from staring listlessly at hollow relationships.
White and blue, wasting time.
We feel independent
but fall in step with the gray carpel tunnel masses of the rest of us.

We are the empty generation.
Allowing fake syrup to fizz and fill us with binary,
and insulin shots, and broken latex lives.
As for those of us who are brilliant, we are scared to explode
and refill with things that matter.
"Don't try to bottle sunlight, that time has passed."

So grind your teeth and fall to vice.
Avoid light, because it causes glare,
and pass notes by pressing "enter,"
so you can hide from emotion.
Then finally fall a martyr to feeling.

Let's shuffle,
shackled together by a fear filled world.
Let's sing electronic chain-gang songs.
Try your best to create because the future started yesterday,
so run in place to catch up.

Now watch it shake and crumble,
and try to catch the rubble,
so maybe you can sculpt something from the ruins.
Or maybe you can freeze in place
as a computer lab pompeii.
Trapped by your, no our, empty, hollow, helpless, screen generation.

I've been looking for a good poem, one that I actually enjoy, and I've found it. I'm not going to lie -- I'm picky when it comes to poetry. If it's just not right, or the author is talking about how sad or depressed they are, I'm not going to give a shit. Your poetry demonstrates a certain maturity that is rarely found on this site. It's clean, and I would love to hear what this sounds like out loud.

Avoid light, because it causes glare,
and pass notes by pressing "enter,"
so you can hide from emotion.

This couldn't be more true. I wrote one of my research papers on social networking and Generation Y -- our identities are complicated by this technology. We grew up with it. The commercialization of the internet occurred in the 1990s, the childhood or teen years of most Millennials, which resulted in its popularization. I feel like your poem presents this case as a form of slavery. We're 'independent', yet so dependent on technology. This is awesome.

Try your best to create because the future started yesterday,
so run in place to catch up.

I don't know if you intended this image, but I saw us -- the writers of the generation. What can we do when everything has been written? What can anyone do when everything has already been though of? It's like we have to catch up with "the times" in order to create something worth while.

The critique is very minimal, and it's more of a suggestion. When I was reading your poem, the punctuation played a strong role. Your enjambments are great, but play around with the lines. You don't have to start a new line because there's a comma or a period. I would just see how it affects the rhythm-- are there spots that should be sped up or slowed down? Are there any words you really want to set apart from the others? Like I said, I think you did a fantastic job. It takes a lot for me to comment on poetry. I'm definitely interested in your work.

Cheers!

I'm not going to critique every little nitpick of this. I think over all your word choice was good but a little redundant. I agree that our generations falling to pieces and I enjoy someone seeing things in a way that I see them as well. The poem itself is a bit confusing. Definitely one of those you have to read a few times in order to understand. It'd be really good to anotate this in an english class. Thanks for writing this.