Young Writers Society

Hey!
This is another of my attempts at poetry.
Just a little note if you're reviewing this, please review the poem and then look into the spoiler and leave a comment about that if you wish. Please and Thank you.
Also, I have intertwined two different subjects such that each alternating line corresponds to one subject - The boy and the plant.

~ ~ ~

The skin, lacklustre, is stretched taut
Green turning yellow, the leaves bend
No shadow falls on the boy, none see him.
Its own shadow is the same everyday.
Dry winds, hungry for glistening beads,
rock it. A prayer sent to Indra: Please, Lord.

He’s been waiting a long time for this.
Root hairs gently beckon the trio.
His mouth envelops the soft flesh.
Tracheids and vessels work their way
to pacify the parietal cells. He smiles.
Choloroplasts stir; it’s time for work.
Triphosphates are released. Energy surges,
coursing through every tissue. This magic
helps him look forward to another day.

~ ~ ~

Nice. Well, eventually. I've always hated poetry, but that's just because it never fails to make me feel stupid, until I looked at the spoiler thing in your message I was under the assumption that this poem was about a worm eating a dead body. Ahh...

Still, I really liked it, as I usually do after the 4th or 5th read through. I can tell a fair amount of thoughts gone into each and every word. Huh, also finding it near impossible to critique seeing as I can shape the poems meaning into anything I want it to be. Oh well, this should at least inflate your head a little, even if it doesn't help you improve in any way.
+1 poetry newbie who liked your post.

Since this is so short, I believe I shall do a line-by-line. Comments in blue.

The skin, lackluster, is stretched taut
Green turning yellow, they bow down Who are "they"?
No shadow falls on him, no mercy. Where did "him" come from?
Its own shadow is the same everyday. What is "it"?
Dry winds, hungry for glistening beads, Beads of what?
rock it. A prayer sent to Indra: Please, Lord. Rock what?

This stanza was very disjointed. You introduced a lot of things, but so vaguely that I was left wondering where the heck most of it came from. About the only connection I saw in this stanza was that of the "him" in stanza three being the one praying. The "it" that the rest of the stanza seems to be about is so formless that most of the stanza reads as gibberish.

What is "it"? Refer to it as something more concrete and less vague than a mere pronoun. Describe it to us and show how it connects to "him".

He’s been waiting a long time for this. "This" is another vague pronoun.
Root hairs gently beckon the trio. What trio? Is this trio the "they" of the first stanza?
His mouth envelops the soft flesh. And my mind was sent diving into the gutter. What flesh?
Tracheids and vessels work their way
to pacify the parietal cells. He smiles. There is a plant in here somewhere. I have no clue how it ties into the rest of the poem, but I do know there is a plant in here somewhere.
Choloroplasts stir; it’s time for work.
Triphosphates are released. Energy surges, I'm pretty sure only one phosphate at a time is released from ATP during cellular respiration.
coursing through every tissue. This magic
helps him look forward to another day. The guy is the plant? Or is he just marvelling at cellular respiration?

And my head hurts. At least you had a concrete (if technical) hinting of plant metabolism. That's about the only thing that makes sense in this entire poem. I have no clue how this second stanza links to the first. With a stretch, I could suppose that, on the plant-side, the first stanza talks about a drought, while the second is about rains revitalizing said plants. No clue how "he" comes into things unless he's some farmer/scientist marvelling at how the dying plants revive with just a little water. And that flesh line... I'm hoping that it's pericarp for if it isn't, then I have no clue what it could be and my highly caffienated brain is acutely hearing the call of the gutter... Moving on.

Overall, this poem struck me as extremely vague, which made it disjointed and confusing. About the only concrete things you have are a "him" praying to a god for mercy and plant cellular respiration, and even then, the latter image is only accessible to someone familiar with biology. What are you trying to say with this? What are the main ideas? Why am I reviewing this when I already have a headache? Answer those questions. Except the last one. The answer to the last one is "because I like you and think this poem could actually be pretty good if only it made more sense."

And upon reading the spoiler: alternating ideas by line = confusing. That is all. Though, in all seriousness, I am now even more confused than before with how I'm wondering which line goes with what idea...

@_@

My poor head.

Thank God for Science?

That would be a more concise and more intertwined title while staying with the same themes ^^

The skin, lackluster, is stretched taut
Green turning yellow, they bow down [There's a lot to be intrigued by here nd I feel drawn in to the words but at the same time, it's hard to picture anything. There's skin. It's green but fading to yellow or turning to yellow. Someone or something is bowing. My firt thought is a field of corn? Green stalks and yellow corn? Let's see if that image is concreted or if I'm completely wrong XD Either way, you should aim for more clarity. Poetry isn't always about being as metaphrical as you can, sometimes the simplest of lines are the best.]
No shadow falls on him, no mercy. [Now there's a him? There are too many unexplained groups at work here. Having one mystery character is fine but too many and it will only create confusion. If him is God as I presume it might be, write Him instead.]
Its own shadow is the same everyday.
Dry winds, hungry for glistening beads, [ still have the field in my head but I'm more and more uncertain of it. Every line should add clarity, not take it away.]
rock it. A prayer sent to Indra: Please, Lord. [Not sure about the first two words but the rest of this line? My favourite so far. It's clear, it's straight forward but at the same time it tells you a lot and the sound of it is very final, very compelling.]

He’s been waiting a long time for this.
Root hairs gently beckon the trio. [The trio. Possibly God, the Holy Spirit and Jesus? The first time I read this I had no idea but in consideration with your other title, I think so? Maybe name it the trinity instead. That has more religious connotations.]
His mouth envelops the soft flesh.
Tracheids and vessels work their way
to pacify the parietal cells. He smiles.
Choloroplasts stir; it’s time for work.
Triphosphates are released. Energy surges, [Some gret science magery here but so many unfamiliar words. I'm not very sciency, just a standard, average girl so this goes over my head. It would be better if you worked on mirroring the events of the first stanza. If I knew what those were, I'd advise you how to ]
coursing through every tissue. This magic
helps him look forward to another day.

It's a good attempt, much, much better than any of my first but I think you have a case of trying to fly before you can run.There's too much here that's uncertain and too many questions left in the reader's head. The best of poetry starts with simple, cemented, solid ideas that the reader can understand and relate to. Here is a slant of light. And then the lines take to the air and jump from there to higher places with elusions and clever wording. This slant of light is a way of feeling, it is actually an emotion.

What I'm saying is have you read Emily Dickinson? Here's the first stanza of one of her poems:

There's a certain slant of light,
On Winter afternoons,
That oppresses, like the heft,
of Cathedral tunes.

It seems very simple doesn't it? We've all seen the slants sh's talkin about, how they'll strike through the trees and there's something very lack-luster about them. But then, the rest of the poem goes on to make it clear this isn't the thing she's really talking about. I'd suggest you look up the rest of the poem, just search the first line. It's a really good example ofa poem that starts off running and then takes to the sky.

What yours does is it's already in the sky, flying around but it's outofreach for us. We didn't see it take off, didn't follow its flight so now we only have a vague idea of what's going on.

It's a good start though. The ideas are there, I like the contrast of science and religion, the suggestion that science is a sort of magic, it's all intereting stuff. But maybe you could make it more coherent?

Thanks for the read! Feel free to ask questions/ show me another version

Heather xxxx

Try putting the boy more into the poem. Right now, the leaves seems to have a bigger part than he does. It would be nice to see the leaves do more than just shadow him... if that makes sense.

Also, see if you can trim out any words. I think in this case it would be better to have the leanest, meanest poem you could have.

So I read your little intro first, and thus I wasn't super confused when it came to knowing about the two intertwined topics and the alternating lines. However, when I went and tried to read the alternating lines (just so I could see clearer what was being talked about) I found that it was still very difficult to follow the poem. Every single line was so disjointed from the others, which made for choppy reading and an over all discombobulated feel. I almost feel like you yourself were confused when it came to actually writing the poem. I really like the idea of intertwining the two topics, but I feel like if you found ways to connect the two, it would flow better and make for easier reading. This is a good start! Definitely keep it up.

So I read your little intro first, and thus I wasn't super confused when it came to knowing about the two intertwined topics and the alternating lines. However, when I went and tried to read the alternating lines (just so I could see clearer what was being talked about) I found that it was still very difficult to follow the poem. Every single line was so disjointed from the others, which made for choppy reading and an over all discombobulated feel. I almost feel like you yourself were confused when it came to actually writing the poem. I really like the idea of intertwining the two topics, but I feel like if you found ways to connect the two, it would flow better and make for easier reading. This is a good start! Definitely keep it up.