Young Writers Society

Your lips are tight at the corners,
pursed with silver coins and prepositions.
"I love the way you touch between," you say.
"Between what?" I ask.
But you don't answer.
"Between what?"

I put my fingers against your stomach,
feel the bone woven through layers of flesh;
a net sketched by god
to catch intrusive souls and pull them away,
leave them gasping for air on the deck.

I slip under bone and touch between.
There is something like water there,
but less dense,
more akin to light in a vacuum.

"You're empty," I say
and you nod.
"I love the way you touch between."
"Between us?"
"Yes, I think so."

This isn't a review.

Sorry.

This is me more talking about your style in general, because well, I've been trying to organize my thoughts about it for a while. You have lovely writing, dear. I don't mean in the sense of one person trying to compliment their friend and someone that they respect, but your actual writing is remarkable.

This, as many of your other poems, has a very simplistic tone. Not that it's plain or it belongs in a cave with some slapdash caveman Picasso, but it's just... there. It doesn't force or push or manipulate. It truly is beautiful in that, because so many people are caught up in the drama of writing, the twisting of words and all... that. You don't need that. It's wonderful. This is especially so because you still carry so many different facets of imagery and themes that create all these rounded undertones, without making it some crazy mechanized lotus flower poem. That's a weird metaphor. Like... while the undertones are there, they seem to just fit together like interlacing fingers rather than twist and disappear in the corners. We can see them without losing focus on the actual piece, which is a wonderful thing to accomplish in your writing.


Now, for at least some reviewish things, because I'll feel horrible if I don't incorporate at least some aspect of that.

I think that, if you wanted, you could create an element of pain in being exposed. Right here

"Are you sure you want this?"

you create hesitation. But you don't explain the hesitation, at all. While the gentleness (probably not a word) is lovely in itself, I wonder why that's there.

Also, moving backwards, I found the first line extremely awkward. I know it's kind of a weird one to work with and I think that it's okay in some sense, but if you can find some different way to word that or convey what you want to convey right there, it'd be worth working on.

I would encourage you to spread your arms a bit through tones. As I said before, you have this lovely and simple tone, but I think that while keeping that tone, you could try some experimentation. You have such a strong voice in your writing that it seems to almost film over the actual poem. I'm not sure if this really makes sense, and I'm of course available to talk if you're wondering what the heck I'm talking about, but I just thought I'd mention it.

Lovely as usual, shady.

<3

Shade, it was a pleasure to see this from you last night and your return to writing after not writing anything for a few months. I am remembered why I like the enigma that is your work.

But, why?

Nightshade wrote:Your lips are tight at the corners,
pursed with silver coins and prepositions.

Gut draw in curiosity with your opening line, then the sounds of the second line, I will marry you for that work. Wonderful manipulation of the sound of words.

"I love the way you touch between," you say.
"Between what?" I ask.
But you don't answer.
"Between what?"

Don't dig the over-use of quotation marks. It's making a mess with my eyes and the lines. I think you'd have more impact without them. You could even debate taking a line out of here and using something from the first two lines to strengthen uniformity. Your call though, you tend to be pretty tight.

I put my fingers against your stomach,
feel the bone woven through layers of flesh;
a net sketched by god
to catch intrusive souls and pull them away,
leave them gasping for air on the deck.

Woven flesh, bone underneath, touching a stomach, and a net made by god...catching souls, to keep out unwanted things and not let them get inside of us. So the invaders are left to "gasp for air" and die.

This is unusually emotive and dark for you shade.

"Are you sure you want this?"
I slip under bone and touch between.
There is something like water there,
but less dense,
more akin to light in a vacuum.

I love 3/4's of this stanza. I'll show you why later.

"You're empty," I say
and you nod.
"I love when you touch between."
"Between us?"
"Yes, I think so."

And here what you're trying is the right idea, but again, you're bogged down in quotation marks.


So, while listening to "Teardrop" from Massive Attack, this had a curious effect on me (besides images of Hugh Laurie and Robert Leonard on a bed), I started seeing myself in the poem. I started to wonder if I really liked this connection, and then I decided to try something I tried with you before.

Nightshade wrote:Your lips are tight at the corners,
pursed with silver coins and prepositions.
I love the way you touch between, you say,
between what, I ask.
But you don't answer;
between what

I put fingers against your stomach,
feel bone woven under
between layers of flesh.
A net sketched by god,
catching intrusive souls
and pulling them away; leaving them between
gasps for air and your unseen breath,
I say

Are you sure you want this?
I slip under bone and touch between.
There is something like water there,
but less dense,
more akin to light in a vacuum.

You're empty, I say
and you nod. I love when you touch between.
Between us?
Yes, I think so.

So I rewrote that in a way that I tried to keep it to your words and tone. You run into a transition problem from "flesh" to net with the big wide word of "god" when you ask us to go back to this "between". The final stanza is also a little too heavy on dialogue from the description before, but this was partly an exercise for me to get into your writing again and to see if it helps you in ANY possible way.

Thanks for coming back kid.

I enjoyed reading that however I think you should use less quotation marks, especially in the last stanza. Also I found it flew better in places then other parts, so maybe you work on that?
However, It was a good read and keep it up!

Good God. How have I missed you.

Hi there. So unlike most of your other reviewers so far, I don't think I've ever read any of your poetry. I'm regretting that now; I thought that this was spectacular.

"I love the way you touch between," you say.
"Between what?" I ask.
But you don't answer.
"Between what?"

I agree with Mustard; the italics don't work for me here. That's more of a stylistic thing than your actual writing, but it just looks a little ugly. Italics would have worked much better, at least for that last line.
But seriously, your first stanza gave me chills.

I put my fingers against your stomach,
feel the bone woven through layers of flesh;
a net sketched by god
to catch intrusive souls and pull them away,
leave them gasping for air on the deck.

Not the first image brought to mind when I think "stomach." Still deciding how I feel about this stanza. On the one hand, I'm not finding much of the nautical imagery elsewhere in your poem, but then this stanza piles it on so it stands out. On the other hand, this made me think, and your diction is to die for.

I slip under bone and touch between.
There is something like water there,
but less dense,
more akin to light in a vacuum.

That last line actually made me catch my breath. I love the contrast between bone and vacuum.

"You're empty," I say
and you nod.
"I love when you touch between."
"Between us?"
"Yes, I think so."

Again, not loving the quotation marks. That aside, I think the "I love when you touch between" line should read the same as in your first stanza; as in, it should be "I love the way you touch between" again. This would make the poem more parallel, bringing it full circle.
Also, I don't like that word "empty" right here... It just doesn't seem to fit for me.

Hopefully this review makes at least some sense and actually helps you.

You had me captured from the start in this piece of yours. I really enjoyed it and I was extremely curious about it. The only thing "off" about it it seemed was the fact that it didn't flow nicely. I have a bit of trouble sometimes getting my poems to have a good flow. I really did love your poem, though, really nice work. I hope to read more from you!

I feel as though I should applaud, or possibly bow to your mighty awesomeness. Okay, a little dramatic, but this poem is honestly amazing. And this is a terrible review, because I have nothing to critique. I just thought you should be aware of this poem's awesomeness, just in case you weren't aware already.
Keep writing,
StoryWeaver

Forgive me, I'm not much of a poet, but I do love reading it and interpreting it. This isn't much of a review, more a comment. I thought this piece was very beautiful. I liked your flowing style and the way you used the language to paint pictures. All in all a very gorgeous piece
Thank you for writing this!
Luxe

In all honesty, I loved this. Your style, your punctuation, your semantics. It was all so beautiful. I really wish that I would have written a poem like this. It was lovely to read and slipped off the tongue just like a poem should.

Sorry for the non-review, I'm being impatient today and I just wanted to let you know that this was really nice. I'm going to read some of your other work and be very jealous of it..

Hayley.

Shady, my Shady!

To begin with, I didn’t want to review this piece, but darnit, Shady, you reeled me in without even asking. I think the reason I need to touch on this is the mixture of philosophical bonding between the narrator and girlface and subtly sensual gestures throughout. Slight nuances that make the lyricism more enticing, but also give room to a misinterpretation, I think.

But the strongest contrast in this poem is between the two dialogue stanzas and the two poetic, descriptive stanzas. Something of a bell curve—you can expect most people to love your poetry in stanzas two and three in a four-stanza poem—and the two dialogue stanzas bring about the divide between the people who won’t get your poetry, falling off in the first stanza, and those who want to pick it apart by the bones, digging into the top layer of the last stanza.

So it interested me, the layout, and I want to gush over your images for a moment. They’re original, captivating—all the things that I used to groan about in poetry on YWS—and they flow perfectly. In stanza two, I’m not sure how I feel about the use of “on the deck”—it pulls the skin of the image back into a seaside place, and that’s certainly not what you wanted because the soul/net images are so tight; there’s no chance throwing in the salty brine was intentional. Plus, it makes me think of fish, which made the next stanza funny. Anyway.

You slip under her bones and touch between and find a beautiful image that I dwelled on for ages. Just. God.

But she’s empty. So stanza 3 and 4.1 is essentially the key to this poem to me. And knowing you personally confirms this touch of interpretation, so I like to think I hit the high side of the bell curve here, and it makes the images very sad. So you’ve contextualized yourself, which is utterly godly in poetry.

I want to throw back to stanza one for a moment. Silver coins and prepositions don’t quite fit with the remainder of the poem, I think. It’s that normal disconnect due to the evolution of a poem while writing. The first lines are easy to neglect one way or another, and it happens. But spend some time with them. If they have significance that I’m missing, then more power to you. But even with the context of the remainder of the poem, they didn’t quite connect with me.

I hope this helps, or at least entertained you. Talk to me soon.

With my 200th review,

-Lumi

At first I wasn't sure exactly how I felt about this poem and then I realized that I actually quite like it. Although a few people say that you should take out the quotations, I think you should keep them. I am a really big fan of talking in poems and I found this poem to be one of the poems that illustrates a conversation in a poem. I especially liked this last stanza beginning with "You're empty," I say. It was a great way to end the poem and it answered the question we were all dying to know which was "Between what?" Anyway, I thought you did a really good job and I can't wait to read more of your work. Keep up the good work, my friend.

Ok this will be really short. First of all, I really loved this work! This was quite fantastic! The second thing that I have to say is that I love your style in this piece. I loved the repetition and the way it flowed so freely and smoothly. I also loved the dialogue you had and how you used QUOTATIONS! Most people are afraid to use commas, periods, quotations etc in their poetry but honestly it makes it a whole lot easier to read! Thank you for being one of the brave few to use them! Once again this was awesomely amazing and crazy good! Keep writing! BRAVO