Young Writers Society

A poem about the past two weeks...

Too much,
Too little,
Still overwhelmed.

Thinking
And the absence
Of everything,
Of anything,
And thoughts.

Pitted chests
Are no cure
For distended hearts
Or minds.

Then there is
Time
Surging by--
That racking ribbon,
Pricking naked arms
As it runs.

Slowed bodies
House weeping blood
And erratic minds
That coax light
Into cardboard victories;
But these minds know
The speed of darkness and
Carry it on their backs.

Tunnels or spines
Serve as arbitrary passages
For lapsing signals, but
Do they know
That signals
Are only chemicals?

Too much,
Too little,
I don't know if this feeling
Is a choice or something that's given.
Or maybe those innate
Just choose what to do with it.

This is really interesting. I suppose it's one of those poems where you take what you want from it, as it doesn't seem to have a definite meaning. Absolutely nothing wrong with that though, I can tell it's very personal and not necessarily meant for an audience.
The structure of your stanzas make the entire piece quite choppy, but if you're going for a sort of disjointed, monotonous feel from the narrator then it's doing its job

One nitpick that I had was:

Slow bodies
Always have gushing
Blood and racing minds
That fools light
Into thinking that it
Is winning

I think the "always" in there is unnecessary and breaks the rhythm. Also, "fools" should just be "fool"

Overall, I think this is a moving piece of writing that many people can relate to on their own level. Very few mistakes grammatically and easy on the eyes, which many people take for granted. Bad spelling and grammar are a huge turn-off, so thanks for paying attention to detail.

I hope a poem for the next two weeks is less overwhelming, and that everything works out

Keep writing,
Chelsea

Hey Bird! Dogs here with your review today! This is a great idea for a poem and you get your topic and idea across very well so props to you on that! There is lots of imagary and strong words in this poem which is excellent! Although i do still have a few tiny nit picks.

Firstly this topic is a little overused. People talking about how hard things have been and how they are dealing with it or how they arn't dealing with it yada yada. Now don't get me wrong it is a great idea for a topic but do something different, make your poem stand out from all the other poems about the same thing. It is missing some more UMPH! You need a little PIZZAZ! "ALL YOU HAVE TO DO IS SHINE (Billy Elliot) Sorry bad musical anoligies... anywhooo in this poem, i suggest that you add more emotion and more imagery to the already great imagery you have here. Your goal as a writer should be, in this kind of style of writing, to leave an impact on the reader. Make the reader feel what you feel and see what you see. If you accomplish that as a writer it will make you a fantastic writer.

If you are having troubles with "adding more emotion" then i have a couple suggestions for that: You could throw in a little personification. Giving inanimate objects life and movement. Or with similies. SIMILE NOT SMILE! I have had lots of confusion with writers reading my comments on the differenct between simile and smile so i thought i would clear that up now lol. Anyways I also suggest that you expand your vocabulary. You use a lot of old, overused, everyday words that I read day after day in lots of poems. If you are having troubles with expanding your vocab you can take one of your simple words and look them up in a thesarus and choose from that list instead. It adds so much more depth to your poetry if you do this. I do it all the time to my poetry.

Now on a grammatical point real quick. I suggest you don't captalize every letter at the beginning of every line. Personally I don't like the look of it unless you are writing what I call a "latter poem" where you spell out a word vertically in which case they should all be captalized. But it is up to you.

All and all this poem has a lot of potential in it and I have high expectations for you! Only because i know that you can reach them! Keep up the good work!!!!

P.m me if you want any more help with this piece.

TuckEr EllsworTh

Thanks! Really? Whenever I don't capitalize I get a million comments from people saying I should! I personally don't like the way it looks either but people kept on telling me I should... ahh I guess I should just stick to my instincts

Thanks! Really? Whenever I don't capitalize I get a million comments from people saying I should!n Just thought I'd chime in; it's a personal preference. You get a lot of people saying one or the other, but personally I think it depends the poem though typically modern poetry is NOT capitalized on all lines. It's up to you though.

Anyway, about you poem!

Well, it's not a bad start, but I feel like right now it's just kind of bare. When you're doing such a commonplace subject, the real challenge these days is to make it stand out. So to me, this poem as you have it looks like the framework skeleton of a developed idea. I would expand on this until you've found your own little "niche," which makes it much more emotional and relateable. It's also more fun/challenging to write this way.
Keep Writing!
StoryWeaver

Hi Bird!

It does seem a little bare! You keep on repeating yourself... it feels like you're just writing your own version of "Goldilocks and the Three Bears" in poetic fashion. That is, the idea where there is too much, too little... except in your case, there is no Baby Bear to steal from! A pity, really.

Anyway, what you might consider doing is actually adding on to your imagery. Right now, you have a bunch of images that are randomly put together. Xirenia said this, "I suppose it's one of those poems where you take what you want from it, as it doesn't seem to have a definite meaning" and I have to agree from her with the whole it has no definite meaning... it flip flops and doesn't really have any particular center.

Maybe that's the point... maybe you had a very chaotic past two weeks. But, if you want to really impress on us about the chaos of your week, you can definitely do better than this by defying even popular convention for poem. Poetic structure was meant to be broken for those reasons.

ANYWAY. I really like this part:

Tunnels or spines
Serve as arbitrary passages
For lapsing signals, but
Do they know
That signals
Are only chemicals?

Yay, neuroscience!

Ah I know... I've been trying to work on it, sorry! The choppiness was kind of intentional though... because for the last two weeks I've been really disoriented and dazed and every moment is just a random different feeling or thought and like... its weird haha so I was just trying to make the poem in the same rhythm of things really seem. Not that that is really an excuse... but I'm definitely trying to make it work better so thanks for the feedback!