Young Writers Society

This is just a really random thing I wrote- you might not believe it but it's about being in an exam and the description of my school Hall. hehehe enjoy and critisize!


Between Two Worlds

The soft beams of artificial light hit the room with a dulled thud. Enough to slowly taint you with a new-found tiredness.
The dust drifts lazily through the light, floating down like choked snowflakes.
The constant scratching of pens, the torturing bore of scribbles, sending sanity to Hell.
Rows of youths, silently screaming, deaf cries of fury dying in the air- eyes full of fear, time is ticking onward, one second closer to failure.

And in my head I lock myself away- a different room now coming into light, though it's no better than the first.
Shadows in my mind, pinning me back to one darkness in a white room.
No door...no walls...just!
Eternal nothingness- a tormenting prison.
Still the screams are silent and now there's only one way out. But which room is the worst? Which one will I surrender myself to?

And so I fall...falling...fell...into a world of choking snowflakes- the broken feathers of a dead angel- and back to the cruel, harsh heat of a man-made light.

This isn't quite in the format of a poem but it's got some really vivid description so I think I'm right in saying it's poetic prose. Even so I think you should try to split some of your longer lines, if only to try and make it that little bit easier to follow.

As for the actual piece of writing, it's very good and almost anyone can relate to the torture of sitting silently and staring around the exam hall. A good tip to keep yourself sane is to try counting how many people are in there with you.

Your punctuation in this piece is generally good though even more alike to that of a story. Elipses are certainly rare in poetry, as are dashes to some degree. I suppose I'd just rather you chose one form or the other and this is so close to being a short story...

Either way it's good though so well done with this piece.

No doubt, it was hott. keep it up-loved the idea.

Firstly: Please break up the lines, such monstrously long lines don’t suit a poem and are an eyesore.
And in these lines: “No door...no walls...just!
Eternal nothingness- a tormenting prison.”
Shouldn’t the exclamation mark be at the end of ‘Eternal nothingness’?

Now about the poem’s matter: you started well, with the artificial light, pens scribbling and all, but you have dragged the scene too much.
I really can’t imagine the connection between exams and “the sanity to Hell”, neither I find any sense in “a world of choking snowflakes- the broken feathers of a dead angel”.
I mean, how can one compare an exam hall and exams itself to “tormenting prision”s? Aren’t you exaggerating the whole thing and putting too much sophistication? And how about a proper ending? I couldn’t find that either.

About the style of writing: I have already told bout the long lines. Besides that, this poem doesn’t have what it should—a definite pattern. It’s more of heavy-sounding isolated sentences put together. Also, the words/phrases like ‘deaf cries of fury’, ‘Eternal nothingness;’ and ‘harsh heat of a man-made light’ might sound pretty good and are quite impact-making when you read them at a glance, but only on the surface, there’s really no sense or depth in the in the way you’ve used them.

Sorry for being harsh, but you really need to brush up poetry writing techniques. You should read many poems and find them out.

All the best,
~Sohini.

I appreciate the criticism, and haven't been on the site in a while, so my styles changed a lot. But, Sohini, you seem like a traditionalist. This poem was never meant to have structure- it adds to the symbolsim. And sometimes I just prefer free-verse.

The point about the exclamation mark. No it's where it is for a reason. It's not 'just eternal nothingness'...it's just 'just'. It's making a point that there it nothing really to it, nothing particular, then it goes on to the description.

The meaning of the poem isn't about the exam hall itself, it's about the feeling of entrapment, suspense and confusement. I have trouble in exams, and often go into my head a lot- mentally I get torn apart.

I think there is depth to those words/phrases. The impact might make that unclear, but it's more description in those lines than an explanation. The choked snowflakes refer to the vast amoutns of dust that seemed to linger in the air.

I'll happily agree the ending is unclear. I was trying to show the idea of realisation- knowing that whether you;re in your head or not, you;re still sitting there in an exam hall balancing your entire future on a score out of whatever.