Young Writers Society

An emotional carcass of a poem. Needed to be written, for my own sanity. Curse working in a supermarket. Anyway, let me know what you think.

It’s surprising how much dried apricots
can bring to the surface.

Those ten straight hours we spent together,
The shared Doritos and two litre Pepsi,
That zombie movie and every other memory
I struggle to think of,
Fade in comparison, so unimportant when I remember:

Crying in the teacher’s room while she served me
Dried apricots to counter the shock,
Then feebly asking his mum,
“The girl he was with, when they beat him up,
Did she belong to him?”
So pitiful.

The call after school, the “Are you okay?
Why didn’t you say?”
Throwing the phone across the room,
Screaming at how ungrateful he was
And going to work numb.
But more than that:

The days of silence, confusion and fear,
And finally to hear the “I don’t love you,”
It all feels so near
When I see dried apricots
And remember the texture when I look at the pack,
It’s amazing just how many memories
Dried apricots can bring back.

Written on Sunday 1st November, 2009 at 21:40pm.

Wow...that was amazing! I saw the title and was like...this is gonna be weird...but it wasn't! It made me think about all the little things that bring back memories...like dried apricots! It was really well written too. You had great fluency and great emotion. Good job!

Great poem. Nice flow and the words seem to have emotion behind them. I too thought this poem was going to be quite silly; I am glady surprised! Great work.

Wow.
Brilliant. I seriously thought it was going to be silly but then again who would name a poem Dried Apricots if it wasn't actually good.

Hi.
I loved your poem. It sounded like an odd-ball from the title but, when I read it, it was good!
It had me rembering stuff that brought back memories...even though the are common objects, such as in your poem.

The end line though:

And remember the texture when I look at the pack,
It’s amazing just how many memories
Dried apricots can bring back.

Why did you choose to ryhme then? Or was it just the way it happened?

Anyway, now I'm just nit-picking!

Thanks for the read,
Woozey

Here as requested Matt Sorry about how long I took to get around to reviewing this.

Now this was a lovely, quite original poem I really enjoyed. Great job.

Review - wise:

It’s surprising how much dried apricots
can bring to the surface.

Interesting start-off point. The dried apricots itself is an original idea I like the way you start it o

Those ten straight hours we spent together,
The shared Doritos and two litre Pepsi,
That zombie movie and every other memory
I struggle to think of,
Fade in comparison, so unimportant when I remember:

You seem to be posing a problem to my reviewing skill. I can't really find much to help you. It's really just lovely. Maybe change Pepsi to another soda, as it's a little out of place from the rest of the poem.

Crying in the teacher’s room while she served me
Dried apricots to counter the shock,
Then feebly asking his mum,
“The girl he was with, when they beat him up,
Did she belong to him?”
So pitiful.

This stanza isn't as nice as the last one. Also the message in this stanza is unclear, what are you talking about?
Make your message clearer, make it easier for a reader to interpret the poem their own way. As right now we are not sure what you are implying.

The call after school, the “Are you okay?
Why didn’t you say?”
Throwing the phone across the room,
Screaming at how ungrateful he was
And going to work numb.
But more than that:

I'd make : "Are you okay? Why didn't you say?" two separate dialogues. ("Are you okay?" "Why didn't you say?")
I think it would be more effective. This stanza lacks the nice flow you had before. What happened to it? You have to change the sentences around a bit to make it flow nicely.

The days of silence, confusion and fear,
And finally to hear the “I don’t love you,”
It all feels so near
When I see dried apricots
And remember the texture when I look at the pack,
It’s amazing just how many memories
Dried apricots can bring back.

Why the sudden ABA rhyme at the end? You had no rhyme but a nice flow then suddenly a rhyme. You catch up the flow you lost in the previous stanza in the beginning of this stanza.

A little work and it will be a fabulous poem! Good job, really good job.
Let me now if you need another review or anything.

Kamas

if tarentino was a real writer, thats what he would say. thats the title, thats the anger. love, pain, suffering... everything. i can see that phone flying through my mind, crashing into a wall, shattering. i can see in slow-mo the faces of anger contorted in duress, suffering and hate. that was amazing... i loved it. Dried apricots will never be seen the same again...

Very good. At first thought, I had thought this poem would be quite silly. I was wrong. Awesome!

The theme of "dried apricots" really held this poem together. I could tell that this was a heart-felt piece. A little melancholy, yes yet it wasn't intolerable. As already implied, I really appreciated the imagery of the "dried apricots." However, I was little disappointed that you didn't quite use characteristics of "dried apricots" throughout the poem! Overall, I have just realized how much I miss your writing! I need to hang around a bit more.

Yes. I loved what you wrote. So simple and true. Everything that happened in this poem was out of your (the narrator's?) control. Maybe it wasn't the intention, but from accidentally taking a sniff of apricots to being mugged to getting let go by the gf...none of it was your fault, yet our natural response is humiliation. Thanks.

Thank God you've put down the date and time you've written this... haha