Young Writers Society

Recycled droplets fall upon an empty vessel,
lacking dignity and hope.
like a cocoon whose dreams grew wings
__ ______________________________ and fluttered away,
______________ leaving it behind, hard and empty.
__________ She wipes the blood off her breast
________________________________________from a night of whoredom,
and watches the fat melt off her body
________________________________and down the drain.
_______Salt is dumped down the drain
_________________________________as the word "Mommy"
_______is heard through the door.
A young child receives no answer
____________________________shuffles to bed.
__________ The noise jogs memories.
__________________ "What do you want to be when you grow up?"
__________"I don't know, maybe a doctor or a lawyer."
________________That was before her momma met angels,
___________and daddy met the devil.
_________He told her to never touch his poison,
like he touched her.
_________________________Placing his hands in areas,
_________ she didn't understand.
_______[/color=]Taking away her childhood
[color=#D4D4D4]____________________________ with seven inches of indignity.
She learned it got her what
________________________she wanted,
_____________everything but love.
"I love you," he said as he got closer in inches,
___________[/color=]tearing thought old scars,
[color=#D4D4D4]_________[/color=]and demanding a story.
[color=#D4D4D4]_______________________________ "You are such a freak,
I can't believe I wasted my time
____________________________ on you."
That was her first real touch.
_________________________She painted pretty pictures
on her body,
________________ but the doctors didn't like
the hole in her chest.
__________________They have her a special room
with lots of medication.
________________ Her daddy left her there
_____________________________________ with a gift.
She took it silently,
________________ watching the blood
_________________________________run down her legs.
They made her leave
__________________ after to many birthdays.
Her daddy sent her away,
_____________________ to live with a "nice" man.
Every night
__________she counted the tears
_____________________________ drifting down the drain.
Counting her bones,
_________________always adding
_____________________________to her collection.
Footsteps wake her recollection.
"Kathy, someone is here to see you."
_______________________________ "My baby wants me."
"What baby? Kathy you don't have
_____________________________ a child."
She lifts the toilet seat and begins to fish.
A lifeless body collects in her hand.
______________________________ "She fits in my palm John,
I named her Hope."

Wow. That was kinda sad. I'm not good at poetry reviewing but I am with some stuff so here goes!

She learned it got her waht
she wanted,

This just...doesn't make sense...

"I love you," he said as he got closer in inches,
tearing thought old scars,

That makes me wanna cringe...I hate those kinds of people! Also, tearing thought old scars? I don't quite understand.

after to many birthdays.

Do you mean too? I dunno...
I don't know what else to say, really. So...write on!
~LP

Wow. That was so sad. You're amazing at poetry. I've never reviewed before so yeah. This poem was pretty much perfect to me. I loved it and I can feel your emotion in the words.

Flowerchild,

Oh, ugh, ehrm. I thought I was morbidly graphic, but these images are pretty up there ^_^ I found myself saying: FINALLY someone who can use imagery effectively <3 It's the kind of thing I'm fascinated with. There's definitely this intensity and undiscriminating choice with language - which I love for this kind of thing. It's meant to be shocking and it succeeds in that pretty well.

Grammar-wise though this could use some looking over. I am mostly lenient with that kind of stuff, particularly in poetry, but in this case it was distracting. I wonder about your scratched out note there at the top? What do you mean by not holding? I figured out what you mean, when I copied and pasted some of the lines to quote from, I got the spaces that you wanted to have. In order for it to show up that way, you're going to have to replace the spaces with _ (underscores) or ...'s and then hide them using the same fontcolor as the board: D4D4D4

Well, if I were to look at structure alone, I'd say the pace and the line breaks are alright - but it could use some stanza breaks. This would be the equivalent of turning in an essay without any paragraphs. Try experimenting with stanza breaks to separate your ideas. I don't think the long chunk helps at all, because there are some parts that could CLEARLY use a break and it was obvious, because as I was reading I was thinking to myself the poem kept jumping. It's not necessarily that it kept jumping in a bad way, where I see no relation to the ideas at all, just that it needs a break in thought. You do this with stanzas.

Now onto the poem itself, I thought the story was pretty clear, and some of the images I really enjoyed. I think for improvement, it could use a bit of polishing (mostly grammar) and some clarification of some ideas. It's very hard to express what it is I mean, I'll try to elaborate below - but right now I see you walking around words, walking around meanings, almost as though this poem is a bunch of circles put together. Circles are not necessarily a bad thing, but I think this would have A LOT more impact if it looked like a bunch of individual points - try to narrow down these circles until you get a very pin-point clear jab of image/meaning. Very nit-picky stuff here. In general, I really quite enjoyed this.

So I'm going to go through a few stanzas to further explain what I mean and to point out some of these grammar things. (What's a reviewer for, right?)

Recycled droplets fall upon an empty vessel,
lacking dignity and hope.
like a cocoon who's dreams grew wings
and fluttered away,
leaving it behind, hard and empty.

I love the concept behind this idea. It just needs polishing. Try to narrow your word-choice more - "empty vessel" is very cliche. Dignity, hope, and dreams are too many abstractions in just two lines, so it's almost like you've got this imagery here of a cocoon, but instead of focusing on the sensory qualities of the cocoon, you're watering it down with these abstractions.

She wipes the blood off her breast from a night of whoredom,
and watches the fat melt off her body
and down the drain.
Salt is dumped down the drain
as the word "Mommy"
is heard through the door.
A young child who receives no answer
and? shuffles to bed.

The "down the drain" consecutively one line after another is not my favorite choice. First line is a bit of a mouthful. I do love the imagery in it. Here is a suggestion:

"She wipes the blood off her breast,
a night of whoredom melts the fat
down the drain where salt is dumped
and "Mommy" is heard through the door."

Basically what I am doing is eliminating the unnecessary words from the poem. This is part of what I mean by circling around, there are all these words, words, words - chop off the unneccessary, and try to exchange the passive sentences for active ones. For example, "Salt is dumped' is passive, "Mommy is heard through the door" is passive. It's different then saying, "she dumped the salt -- she heard through the door"

In this particular case, your passive choice is not necessarily inhibiting, because the focus of the sentence shifts when using passive, and the focus here is interesting. BUT go through the entire poem and check out the sentence structure and see if changing certain lines to active voice might help. Grammar is complicated, huh?

Memories are jogged by the noise. <- Passive voice
"What do you want to be when you grow up?"
"I don't know, maybe a doctor or a lawyer."
That was before her momma met angels,
and daddy met the devil. I really do not like the narrator telling us this explicitly :/ Let us feel hatred for him.
He told her to never touch his poison,
like he touched her.

I just want to say one thing: I LOVE the use of poison here. Now that I've said that, the rest of this I feel could be removed and it wouldn't make much difference. The memories of the growing up and such -- meh, I don't know if it's too cliche, or if it's just that it's too weak. Maybe if it were said another way? Or SHOWED or implied through images that she wanted to be a doctor, like maybe describe how she is wearing a stethoscope?

"Kathy, someone is here to see you."
"My baby wants me."
"What baby? Kathy you don't have
a child."
She lifts the toilet seat and begins to fish.
A lifeless body collects in her hand.
"She fits in my palm John,
I named her Hope."

Aw man, this is my favorite part. I feel like it packs so much impact, especially if you compare it back to the first line, where hope had flown away. It's horrifying and disgusting and sad and pitiful all at once. THAT is what painting an image, telling a narrative does. It SHOWS emotions without your needing to add any abstractions. Great job!

~ as always, Audy

Who's - should be whose.
Cut the second down the drain line, it's redundant. Keep it as salt is dumped.
The transition to the family mom/dad is oo abrupt.
Throught- I think you mean through
Have her a special room (add an 'in' between her and a)
To many- too

You have to fix these errors. These throw off readers more than even bland writing. The good news is this aside the wording an errors is an excellent poem. I read so many whiney pain pieces here that it's refreshing to see a dark poem that doesn't rely on cliched imagery or storytelling (even though the molestation bit is rather blah only part that rubbed me wrong). There's raw emotion here but it doesn't feel like it's intentionally raw or deep, it just is. This is a skill very few writers posted and you should be proud. It's mature and well told.

I'd focus on your transitions, the family story and the appearance of this John just feel flat here, like here you go presentation, but I loved the last set of lines.


So good work overall.

Hi Flower!

So, this is definitely an interesting piece! With regards to the format, you might consider coloring the text so it's less obtrusive... still! A very neat time.

The molestation scene is a bit blah, as mikepyro said, so see if you can revamp it. I think one way you can do this is if you make it less about what sexually happens and more about what emotionally happens... or! Maybe make it more like a nightmare? That might make it really interesting! I mean, you have interesting images in this poem, so it's not like it's stagnant, but it does get a little slow during the molestation scene.

Also, some of the things aren't quite clear? It sounds like the dad gave her another man for her... why would this happen? It doesn't quite make sense to me.

Anyway, neat poem!