Young Writers Society

Hey, amazing poem the language was top-notch (lol.... Top-notch) and the grammar was perfecto. I didn't really get how you put Xs at the start of some of the words, but I'm guessing that that was on purpose and it's something people do that I haven't heard about because I live under a rock:)

"xe stopped depending; he stopped hoping; she stopped trusting.
the thread is red, the thread is orange, the thread is yellow.
we pulled it out of xyr lips, and the staples out of her eyelids.
we ripped away the cords you used to tie his ankles.
the thread is green, the thread is blue, the thread is purple,
and we wove it into a cloth and hung it over your doorway:
we stuck up a cross in the middle, and the gates of hell crumbled.
xe knew you, he knows you, she breathed you;
now we're immune, and you can't touch us."

This was definetlely my favourite paragraph, the emotion really flows free and you get a sense of what you may have been feeling when you wrote the poem. "That gates of hell crumbled" awesome line! Once again, a lot of feeling, and you sort of envision these massive gates toppling down ontop of you keep writing and thanks

Hey it's Neverland here to review your piece!

Just like to say one thing to start off by saying that your grammar is a little off. But other then that I can't really find anything 'wrong' with it. Maybe the stanzas are a little long but even that's not something I'd bother changing unless you really wanted to go all out and also I don't really understand why you use brackets quite often.

Overall I love this poem!

''we tie our banners to street corners, and try to stomp you out
under our feet, while you're digging holes into our heels.
i know you, i knew you, i breathed you.
you're a parasite and you'll just keep climbing.''
^^ I love these lines so much!!!

Good luck with your writing and I look forward to seeing more of your work in the Greenroom.
~Neverland.

I appreciate this!
The first thing I want to say is that I love how you made the non-binary pronouns FIRST and FOREMOST, but still supported them, for now, with the common pronouns of he and she so that even people who have never heard of the concept of other pronouns can understand them through the parallel phrasing.

The other brilliant point that I remember was bringing back the threads from the first stanza into a later stanza as the colored threads that ran as a refrain. The first time they were mentioned, they were utilitarian. You need something to sew lips together, but you circled back around and brought them deeper into the color theme, and I think that's a powerful and effective instinct.

But over all I felt like this poem was too heavy on the repetition for my taste. It seemed like everything had a parallel phrasing somewhere, as if everything had been said before and would be said again. And the FRAME of the refrain was so LONG that the NEW information you put in to change up the stanzas got lost in trying to wade through the long repeated parts.

I also felt like the images were too similar to hold up their weight in such closely repeated quarters. If you were working with lots of different images, the repetition could serve to bring them together, but these images of violence have nothing substantial to differentiate them from each other, so it all kind of runs together, you know?

I did also like the image of something boring holes into the heels, but at the same time it seemed out of place. I dunno! I want this poem to work -- I like the images of the threads, especially tied back into one of the images of violence. I feel like you could try to cut down on SO MUCH repetition -- what would a lean version of this poem look like? Don't discard this version, but what would a lean version look like? See if you like it!

I hope these thoughts and suggestions are helpful to you!
PM me or reply to this review if you have questions.
Good luck and keep writing!

Hannah

Wow, I haven't really seen a work that represents non-binary characters in the poetry department before! Yay for representation!