Young Writers Society

I'm not sure about the ending of this in particular, but help with any of it is really appreciated.

--

Our barbed tongues worried away at old grudges,
dug into putrid flesh and picked away
at the crimson heads of fresh scabs;
we squawked over a mess of mangled carcass,
wolfed down that one last juicy morsel
before we chewed monotonously
on regurgitated scraps of old gossip.

You, an effigy of a corpse,
straw limbs hanging by a thread,
droplets leaked from a ragged pinprick
forced through by our bitter hands –
your pain was a release for waves of acidity that
crashed and burned on red-raw wounds.

Now, voices stifled by the hand of chastisement,
we confine ourselves to whispering resentments
that flush with shame and stutter into
loath-tinged silences.

--

Thanks in advance!

Amy

I have to say, the poem was good though it was definitely not my cup of tea. I liked it as a poem, but it was a bit too gory for my tastes. The first line hinted at metaphor, but a lot of the rest of the poem seemed to be very literal. The only advice I can give you it to make it more clear which one it is. I'm not saying make the metaphor too obvious, cause some people do like it to be a little more hidden, but give a few more clues in the rest of the poem.
Overall well done, and goodluck .

This is really a very powerful poem. I love all the descriptive adjectives and imagery. Everything appeals to the sense.

picked away at the crimson heads of fresh scabs

You can see it and feel it and clearly imagine it. I love your writing style too, it's very sophisticated but not overdone.
The only remark I have is that I felt like "squawked" wasn't the best word. It kind of jumped out and felt a little out of place with the mood of the poem.
But overall this was just great. I really enjoyed reading it.

Bazinga!

So, yes, I'm definitely not a poetry person and here're my comments.

I enjoy the theme of the poem and I like how it's written. Especially the first stanza.
I do agree with loud about use of 'squawked.' It's a good word, but when I read it out, it seems to break the flow of the poem.In the second stanza, I'm not entirely sure of the flow from line 2 to line 3. It seems slightly forced. Another thing is the use of the colour 'red' a lot. Personally, I'm a little meh with it. As to the end, I'm not sure I loved it. Didn't hate it either.
Feel free to disagree.

~Lava

*pounces on Aquadoodle!*
Hey there, first customer!

All in all, I’m a little tied on whether I like this or not. The imagery and the word choice bruised my jaw (because, you know, it fell open and busted into the concrete) but on the other end of things, I’m pretty sure I don’t understand it.

*nods*
Yep, I sort of get it or at least I can pull the emotion off of it and this feeling of something very powerful or at least very dark coming to a close. It’s something ending, but what, I couldn’t tell you though I would take a guess that’s it’s probably about some sort of twisted relationship coming to a close.
Am I at least close?
My only other theory was very possibly about jealous rumors…but, I guess that’s for you to understand and me to guess at.

Now, voices stifled by the hand of chastisement,
we confine ourselves to whispering resentments
that flush with shame and stutter into
loath-tinged silences.

I think the reason that the ending feels rough is that it’s hard to decipher the meaning out of it completely. But it’s probably, at the same time, the easiest part to digest (at least for me) and I’m pretty certain I just contradicted myself.

On a basic level, I understand that something is ending, receding into that “loath-tinged silence” as you put it. But is it the voices or is it something else. And part of this too comes from the fact that I’m trying to figure out what is “flushing” – resentments or voices…or something else maybe? (What I’m getting at of course is that the verb flush lacks a definite noun to describe so it’s just laying there which could be the cause of what you see as a rough ending.)

I mean, overall, I like this as a whole. The word choice is beautiful and dark and oozing with this potent sort of decayed feel. Squawked. Crimson heads of fresh scabs. Red-raw wounds. I love it all really. They fit together very well.
But on the other hand, a lot of it comes from the fact that you’re talking about this ending silence yet – and I’m still caught up on whether it was meant to be the silence after a horrifying relationship or the silence behind bitter rumors, like that uncomfortable lack of noise when you’re talking about someone just as they walk into a room – you’re left wondering what has ended. And this gives the ending a good deal less potency.

*is confused by her own review*
And if you are as confused as I am, you know how to get a hold of me.

~lilymoore

Great wording! I love the flow. It has a sort of sombre feel t some points and I like that.
An amazing poem, I currently have nothing to critique since everyone before me has corrected you. All I have left to say is: amazing poem and one day we'll all find that perfect poem but when we do, we won't need to look any more.
I hope I never find it, you better watch out, one day you'll write one with no flaws at all.
And that's no fun.


Keep writing.

I just want to start off with this: great job. I love the vocabulary you've incorporated. You have some really great words here, and some nice imagery. Kay. Onto the actual review now.

Our barbed tongues worried away at old grudges,
dug into putrid flesh and picked away
at the crimson heads of fresh scabs; Great beginning-- I especially love the first two lines
we squawked over a mess of mangled carcass, "squawked" feels weird to me here.
wolfed down that one last juicy morsel
before we chewed monotonously I think that monotonously chewed would sound better.
on regurgitated scraps of old gossip. Excellent last line in this stanza.

Okay, like I said: great imagery, great word choice. However, you've taken a little far in some spots. It's easy to get lost in how your words look and sound on our tongues; we want to be able to feel them, to read this over easily without getting caught up in how nice it sounds. I would take out some of the descriptions, to make this a little bit more coherent. For starters, you could remove these words "fresh", "mangled", "juicy", "old" in the last line. You can definitely clear this up a bit. Nice beginning though, as I said.

You, an effigy of a corpse,
straw limbs hanging by a thread,
droplets leaked from a ragged pinprick
forced through by our bitter hands – Excellent imagery, again, but if you actually look at this, it's a fragment. You could change that by putting "You are" at the beginning. Again, there's a lot of description that could be made more concise.
your pain was a release for waves of acidity that
crashed and burned on red-raw wounds.

This stanza is nice, but I would make it tie in with the tone before it a little bit stronger. This piece is consistent and obvious has a solid subject, but it gets lost in your words and descriptions. Bring it to life and make it outshine your descriptions. While imagery is incredibly important, you want the base emotion to be equally so.

Now, voices stifled by the hand of chastisement,
we confine ourselves to whispering resentments I think "hissing" might be better here, but that's a personal preference.
that flush with shame and stutter into
loath-tinged silences.

The ending isn't very strong-- the images are, but the subject isn't, and it lacks that tone of finality. I think that you could probably fix this pretty easily-- try cleaning up the excess words, and maybe play with the structure a bit to hit that emphasizing point to mark the conclusion.

Sorry for the lame review-- mostly full of nitpicks.
Like I said earlier, I really do like this despite all the bold writing. You obviously have a great deal of talent.
Great job!

-Coral-

Alright, so the poem is kind of disturbing, but I liked it. I like disturbing poetry. I'm weird like that. But let's get serious. I liked how descriptive it was, and your sensory imagery was fantastic. Your spelling and grammar was sport on, and this was an overall great poem. Keep up the great work!

sooo i was just reading threw some poetry and I just finished reading this and like i was going to go to bed cause i have a test tomorrow and after i read this i can't even sleep!!!!! it's soo freaking and creepy and like i close my eyes and i can't stop thinking about like zombies biting my tounge hahahahahahahaha

i liked it

FOLLOW ME I FOLLOW BAC!!!!!!!!!