Young Writers Society

The first strike knocks me down.
I choke, tasting blood as it froths in my mouth--
even the clouds blur together, shuddering as another blow comes
and rattles my bones; I am numb and I feel like I cannot
Feel and this terrifies me more than the pain ever will.

Reconstruct it she hisses as she watches me fall.
In her hands are the necessary tools:
the cleaver, the rope, the ax, the gun;
she beckons me closer.
Take it she whispers.
No, I cannot, and I regret it at once because chemicals
choke me and I fall deeper into the flask
hydrogen fluoride cutting my marrow until
I dissolve and the only part left is the
chunks of my flesh, clinging desperately to the
roots of my hair

Hey Snoink! So, I think you should know that I am absolutely and undeniably terrified to review this. ^^ Just throwing that out there. I'm quaking in fear over here, in fact.

But, alas, I'm going to do it anyway. Aren't you proud of me?

and rattles my bones; I am numb and I feel like I cannot
Feel and this terrifies me more than the pain ever will.

The majority of the poem is punctuated and capitalized exactly as prose would be, with the exception of this one line. The 'F' in 'Feel' is capitalized...why? For emphasis? That might not stick out so much to me if it wasn't the only case of this random capitalization in the poem. But, it is. So I immediately noticed it.

I choke, tasting blood as it froths in my mouth--

Love this line. At first, I was torn between insisting that blood doesn't froth, but I decided against it. Instead, I'll just tell you that the image came across vividly.

I dissolve and the only part left is the
chunks of my flesh, clinging desperately to the

If there are numerous chunks, should 'part' not be plural? It sounds odd in my mind to read something singular (part + is) and then attach it to the plural word 'chunks'. Not entirely sure about that, though. there are most certainly exceptions to this crazy English language that I have not yet learned.

Alright, so. I kept going over this, trying to decipher the meaning behind it. Each time I looked the the poem is a different light-- is the 'she' malicious? Helpful? What exactly is being reconstructed? Your feeling? Are you trying to regain your ability to feel?

But then, I wonder where these strikes are coming from. Are they coming from this 'she' that is mentioned? Or another source entirely? What exactly happens to the narrator? She dissolves, apparently. Does this signify something deeper?

And them, I thought I wasn't taking it literally enough. That, because of the list of tools provided, that the narrator was actually, physically, trying to reconstruct something. The blows were blows of the hammer against wood. The woman was a customer, demanding something to be fixed that were not so easily fixed.

And, so, my point? I think this poem can have a lot of meanings. Perhaps none of the ones that came to my mind are close to the one you were trying to convey, but still, I think the words were ambiguous enough not to be trapped into a single meaning, but clear enough that the readers could make some sense of the poem. In other words, you weren't simply tossing around pretty words to sound insightful or anguished. There was substance behind your woes.

Honestly, the mention of hydrogen fluoride confused me. It felt as if you were trying to tie a more abstract, almost magical poem back down to science and reason with one mention of a chemical compund. Was that your objective? Either way, it didn't seem to fit.

So, I liked it! I think it can be interpreted into many different translations, most of which would make sense and still be poetic. Those are really my only suggestions-- besides, actually, lengthening it. I don't think the two stanzas you gave us were enough to describe the situation. Still! I was glad to see you posted something, despite the fear it instilled in my very soul.

~Evi

SNOINK SUCKS.

Anyway. I get really violent feelings when I read this poem, and nothing more. I don't really take anything away from this short of piece. There were only a few things that left me wondering about, and Evi pointed it out.

Feel and this terrifies me more than the pain ever will.

Obviously, this capital F isn't a typo, because you suck too much to make a type on a tiny poem like this one. So now I'm wondering why you capitalized it. If we take a further glance backwards:

and rattles my bones; I am numb and I feel like I cannot

Feel and this terrifies me more than the pain ever will.

I notice that Feel isn't one of the major words in this sentence. If I read the second sentence normally, "I am numb and I feel like I cannot Feel and this terrifies me more than the pain ever will," Feel isn't one of the words that I would capitalize. So why would you capitalize this random word? Obviously, this poem is about feeling, after all. Feeling pain, feeling abuse. Feeling that we must all reconstruct our lives. Or something like that. I'm not too great on understanding poetry.

I mentioned it, but I should make it a point that I didn't take anything away from this poem. It wasn't anything absolutely amazing. It has a simple message, and that's about it.

Oh, yeah. And violent images.

Sooooooooo.

Yeah.

-Jared

The "f" is capitalized to deliberately make you stumble on the word.

This is really, really good.
But I'm not quite sure I get what it means.
Your writing style is amazing.
I'm going to read more of your work now!

Alright to be honest this was really good despite what some of the others might have said but they were right about some of the things in your work..

But i loved it. You are an amazing writer. And i am going to be honest i think that with your creativity and your exact detail, You could probably make it some where as a writer or as a poet.

You have great structure in your writing. And by the tone of your writing you sound confident in what you are writing and you have a great way of emphasizing the tone in this.

I am hoping to see more from you ok and good luck.

Holy guacamole dude, that's far from ehhhh, that's some awesome stuff. I love death stuff.

Hi
Great poem with lovely violent images but needs some simplification.

Honestly,here is something that I could really not understand:

Have the amazingly well constructed horrific images been added just for fun?

What really was the lesson learned?Only thing talked about was excruciating pain(unless that was the lesson intended).

Could this be made simpler for amateur writers to understand?

If the whole purpose of the poem was supposed to be unconventional and a little vague than the poem is really great.

Oh, very graphic, very amazing.
There is a lot of anger and strength in this piece, the event is captured very well
There are a couple of things that could be improved, though.
This could be more lyrical, add some more adjectives and descriptions.
This focuses on playing out a scene, I recommend saying why this is happening, or use a flash back effect.
Why do you want to make us stumble on a word? As I said this piece is very graphic and making it go smothley would help it.
I sense that there is a lot of frustration in this piece, was that intentional or am I imagining things?
I think that you should describe the setting more, to add another layer.
You could turn this into a short story. Just an idea.
You might want to turn this into a series.
Does the person actually die, It's unclear.
Beside that I think you done a brilliant job.
Keep writing like you mean it

Vera

Nice.Honestly,this put a gruesome little picture in my head but thats a good thing.

The first words that popped into my head when I finished reading this were "ew" and "oh my god." I thought this was terrible and great, and greatly terrible. It made me nauseous, which means that it was a wonderfully dark poem. It scared the heck out of me, and I loved it. I think you definitely got the feel you might have wanted, and the description was good, too.

Um, so, I guess it's a good poem. +_+

-Nutty

Yikes,kind of a sick one if you ask me. I have but one question: Have you ever been had a "Lesson in Dying"? It was well written though, looking forward to your next piece!

Tyler

Hey, so obviously you use imagery well here. There are a few technical points I thought might be helpful to point out, though. Mostly, the two stanzas feel disjointed, there's little flow from the first to the second, they almost feel like they could be different poems. Two different good poems, but still two poems. Some parts can be a bit confusing, mostly in what does the character need to reconstruct, it's not clear, and how does the character go from being unable to drink the chemicals to drinking them. Basically, I think you could make this a great poem if you left less backstory to your reader and clarified a few points.

ps- "axe" not "ax"

=]

I didn't know you wrote poetry, Snoink.
If the point of this poem was to make me feel a) terrified, b) violent and c) violently terrified, you did the perfect job. As too taking things away from the poem, well, I don't think you necessarily need to take anything away but the feeling that you just read a good piece of poetry.

Snoink wrote:shuddering as another blow comes
and rattles my bones; I am numb and I feel like I cannot
Feel and this terrifies me more than the pain ever will.

I LOVE THESE LINES. When you read them out loud you can feel the pace speeding up and slowing down in certain parts so it creates a sort of synchopatic half-rhyme and oh.... amazing.
Yeah, you spelled a word wrong and you didn't write poetry that wanted to make us save the Amzon rainforest but dang! That wazzz good.
pure pleasure to review
*bows*

Wait! Typo? Where???

And yeah... I write poetry sometimes. XD