Young Writers Society

She knew why
leaving was the only
option she had left.

Her father's drugs,
scattered in the
dismal house
where marijuana
was just as common
as food.
In fact,
it was even more common.

Her mother's lust
had made her
come home broken
too often.
It was that lust
for flesh
hot and sweaty
that kept the
bill-collector
at bay.

Enough was enough.

She knew life
on the rough streets.
She could avoid it,
at least until
she found a better place
to call home-sweet-home.

The sky was just
beginning to turn
soft blue--
like forget-me-nots.
She knew it was time to rest.

She lay under
a highway overpass,
cold concrete biting
hungrily into her skin.

It was warmer then any hug
her parents had given her.

Dawn broke
and she closed her eyes
on a new day.

~

Shred please! I know it's full of contradictions.

I really like your poem. It's quite powerful.

"Her mother's lust
had made her
come home broken
too often. "
This almost sounds...hm. Well, as if the "her" is referring the the speaker. I've read it a few times and it just always looks that way to me at first. When I glance back, I can see what you meant, but for some reason, I can't get it the first time. Maybe I'm just weird like that.

"for flesh
hot and sweaty "
That almost seems redundant.

"Enough was enough. "
That, however, is awesome.

"She could avoid it, "
It doesn't really seem like she's avoiding that life to me...just that she can deal with it. What did you mean by that line?

"The sky was just
beginning to turn
soft blue-- "
Lovely imagery, but there's not much transition between the last stanza and this.

"cold conctret biting "
typo.

Overall, I'd say it was a fantastic poem--your description is beautiful and the story is very sad. Great job!

Rosey Unicorn wrote:She knew why
leaving was the only
option she had left.

Why such awkward line breaks? It's ugly and constantly reminds the reader that he's reading a poem and not immersed in one. There's no flow at all, and yes, even in a piece that's supposed to be about such a jarring and grating experience, the poem has to work within it's parameters. These line breaks are just pretentious, please re-do them.

Her father's drugs,
scattered in the
dismal house
where marijuana
was just as common
as food.
In fact,
it was even more common.

You overdid the "twist" value. Marijuana being as common as food is a dry simile at best and doesn't induce any sort of real visceral reader response, but it's tolerable because it serves it's purpose of creating some sort of image - however vague and foggy.

The second part, though, is unbearable because you've already exhausted your supply of shock value. Why exactly are you telling us that it's more common? Are you expecting the reader to be...more surprised? No. It does not do anything and needs to be taken out. Replace it with whatever you want; anything is better than what you currently have there.

Her mother's lust
had made her
come home broken
too often.
It was that lust
for flesh
hot and sweaty
that kept the
bill-collector
at bay.

"Lust = hot and sweaty" has to be one of the most boring and cliched as one can get when describing lust/flesh. Get rid of it, come up with a description that you came up with without having to reference eons of tired pop culture.

Enough was enough.

Another useless cliche; take it out. If enough is truly enough, you don't need to tell that to us. It should be palpable from the content and structure of the poem.

She knew life
on the rough streets.
She could avoid it,
at least until
she found a better place
to call home-sweet-home.

The sky was just
beginning to turn
soft blue--
like forget-me-nots.
She knew it was time to rest.

This has no imagery in it whatsoever save for a half-attempt at throwing in some description with a one liner about flowers. So include some imagery. I can't really comment on anything else in this section because there's nothing to comment on. It's just you talking on a podium to an audience, which does not a good poem make. Imagery will recitify some of this.

She lay under
a highway overpass,
cold concrete biting
hungrily into her skin.

Biting hungrily? Why else would something bite? Come up with a better adjective.

It was warmer then any hug
her parents had given her.

Again you are overblowing the "surprise" factor that's supposed to get the reader to raise their eyebrows. This sounds like the punch line of a joke that's intentionally not supposed to be funny. This is not good quality for a poem and does not fit at all. Take it out, don't even replace it in my opinion. Let the other stanzas speak for themselves.

Dawn broke
and she closed her eyes
on a new day.

She slept at dawn. Your point? I suppose you could say that this represents her throwing away a blossoming life to go live on the streets but that would be in painful contrast to the storytelling aspect of the poem you have so far. If you want to combine the two, do so smoothly without having it broken into chunks of stanzas, each with a different style.

Overall:

Speaking of the storytelling aspect - that's all you have. "She did this, and then she did that, and now she's doing this! The end." How is that supposed to interest a reader or relate to him at all? Why do we care about this poem if all it has is a story? Without editing, this is basically a short story hastily divided into stanzas that, do not seem to have much of a meaning past the fact that poetry generally has stanzas.

Since you wanted an honest opinion, here it is. Throw this away. It does not have much literary value or content value to it, as spoken about above, and is an overglorified diary entry. Use this as a template for what not to do in the future, and work on something else to submit to the contest.

Hope that helped.

It is a good poem about existing problem. It made me feel all feelings of main character, for whom street became her home. I thought, that such people as that parents must read it to understend, what they do. I didn't see rhyme there, but may be, it is not important?
I wish you success in writing
Antonina.

Hey there! I'm finally here.

Okay, so I read this and I found it a good story. ^_^ However, it doesn't seem...poetic. I'll go over some points. I'll try not to repeat anything Galerius said, but if I do, I'll try to elaborate or explain it more. ^^

Line breaks are tricky. No one really knows when and where to put a line break. However, I've heard somewhere that they're best placed after nouns, adjectives/adverbs, or verbs. Maybe that will help a little when going through this. As Galerius said before me, the line breaks were a bit distracting as I read; so hopefully I helped a little bit in that area.

To make this more poetic than prose-y, try to describe her feelings more. In fact, talk about how she feels more than what's going on. This is a show-don't-tell thing, but give me a lot more show. Like, more show than tell.

Her father's drugs,
scattered in the
dismal house
where marijuana
was just as common
as food.
In fact,
it was even more common.

Her mother's lust
had made her
come home broken
too often.
It was that lust
for flesh
hot and sweaty
that kept the
bill-collector
at bay.

This is a lot of tell. So this does explain why she's running away, but can't you make it shorter? This is a long tangent that can be said in only a few lines.

Papa intoxicated,
reeking of undesirable
fumes.

The mother I had,
destroyed from her
desires.

Much shorter than what you had, no? This would make your poem more smooth and readable. Try to use different words. Grab a thesaurus and check to make sure the word you're going to use doesn't have a better, non-overused alternative. Your poem can sometimes benefit from the extra page turn.

Now at the end, when she's laying herself to sleep and stuff--that's taken a long time. If this poem ends up being only, like, three stanzas, so be it. Some of the best poetry out there are only a stanza or two! I feel you try to hard to make this long. We don't need to see her go to sleep really. I don't see the meaning behind that? Probably to face a new day or something, but it seems out of place. Just ending at her running away is enough. I personally like it when the source of the title is the ending, like the reader sees the girl running away, hence the title Runaway. ^^

So. Basically, try to shorten this a bit, improving it all the while. We don't want to bore our readers. This is a good idea, it just needs quite a bit of work. Try to invite new ideas in, and then you can tie it all together at the end with her running away. Don't take too long describing it though, or this just turns into a few sentences of prose.

Hope I helped some. You know how to contact me if you have questions. ^^

Keep writing!

Jabber, the One and Only!

Rosey! June here!

Mwaha, something fun to review!

*lays scissors, harshness, and red pen on the table. The red pen shows in black, though*

She knew why

leaving was the only

option she had left.

So, I would definitely throw some punctuation in here, because as the audience looks over this, it's kind of hard to grasp the gist of what's going on here. A semi colon for the first line would look good, but I'm just a bit worried that that may ruin your intended effect?

Her father's drugs,

scattered in the

dismal house

where marijuana

was just as common

as food.

In fact,

it was even more common.

I would remove the underlined part, because it's just a confirmation of the previous line, only adding an ounce of information, and we're like, "We just heard this!"

So! Remedy? You could... uh, possibly do something like "Equally, if not more common than food."

Little touch-ups like that build the poem, surrounding all the good stuff.


(I'd also pay attention to what Jabber pointed out, too)



- - -

One of the main things when editing/revising/doing anything to poetry that you want to look out for is too much words-- too much flowery words, and too much deadwood.

Deadwood is the bad stuff. All of those extra words that don't deliver anything new to us.

And flowery is too much pretty words where a normal word can suffice.


What you really want/need to do is pay attention to your sentence. If you had a string of words that said "shiny like gold in sunlight" (I hope no one ever uses such a cheesy line!) you could easily replace that for golden. Just trim your words down; it helps.


I do like the poem, though. Nice job, Rosaic! Keep it up!


June