Young Writers Society

5:00;
alarm rings
one, twice, three times
series of beeps and blasts
a pattern, still recognizable
in the just-woke-up daze.

102;
numbers flash
too much, too much
rubbing sleep from red eyes
slipping on ratty sneakers
out the door.

20
minutes slowly pass
feet pounding, steady beat
constant, accurate
two miles, ten minutes each
collapse on rickety chair.

¼
cut it up, exact
shaking fingers, peel carefully
round up, just to be safe
20 calories,
spit out seeds.

1 centimeter
dot of blood, wiping sleeve
brush tickling ankles and knees
clawing the dirt, grasping,
gasping, for third time this week-
no, fourth? fifth?
Fuzzy head
hair in filth.

I liked this. Some lines were a little confusing, and I think that this line in particular...

Silver wrote:20
minutes slowly pass
feet pounding, steady beat
constant, accurate
two miles, ten minutes each
collapse on rickety chair.

"Collapse on rickety chair."

It just didn't quite flow in such a way that is nicely read aloud. I would suggest changing that line, and maybe making other parts a little more clear as to what was happening. I had no idea what went on during the entire last stanza. At first I thought maybe the narrator was cutting their self, and then went on to read about dirty and clawing at the ground. It just didn't make much sense to me. But overall, the piece was definitely an interesting read.

Hey Silver! Dogs here with your review today! This is a very good piece of poetry and I really enjoyed reading it. I really love your original style of formatting that you used to write this with the time and the minutes and the amount of whatever. That was very clever so props to you on that!

But really quickly I do have a few nit picks:

"102;
numbers flash
too much, too much..."

I'm a little confused here. What is the 102 and what dose it represent? Is that seconds, or just random numbers?

"Each collapse on rickety chair"

Pshhhh grammar, who needs grammar? Grammar is lameeeeee. But in this case I feel like you might want to add in some more grammar like say "each collapse on a rickety chair" or "on the rickety chair" ect. There are many other, better ways to write this line in my opinion.

Now the last stanza. Great closing, leaves the reader with some questions and confusion and leaves your character confused and not quite sure what is really going on in her life, so props to you on that one!

Really thats all I have to say. Keep up the good work!!!


TuckEr EllsworTh

Hello there!

What I felt most with this piece is that it seems to be very disconnected. You have a nice premise for it, with the numbers, but I feel like some of the time what you're writing doesn't necessarily further the poem or connect to the central theme of it. I'm obviously not saying that every line has to explicitly say 'ANOREXIC', but each line of your poem should have a purpose. Whether this purpose is to illustrate a point, create an emotion or feed back to the main theme, it should have one. At the moment, I like what you're trying to do with the poem but I think you need to tighten it up a lot so that every line is though about.

5:00;
alarm rings
one, twice, three times
series of beeps and blasts
a pattern, still recognizable
in the just-woke-up daze.

This stanza was one of the better ones. I don't think it's perfect, but it's clear. What I would say is that, like a lot of your poem, there's no real emotion coming through here. The last two lines have a potential for you to show the reader something of the nature of your narrator, yet personally I'm feeling nothing. You can play around with it a little more, try to see how interesting you can make it.

In general, your poem has an interesting premise and some parts of it are very good. I think you need to look through it, decide which lines you genuinely think are interesting and build upon those.

Hope this helps,

Amy

Thank you, all! The disconnection is intentional, to symbolize kind a Cartesian duality where the anoretic doesn't necessarily feel a big connection to her own body, and the monotony of following the same pattern every day, so perhaps the anoretic isn't really paying attention. I may have overdone it a little, though.

Every stanza is supposed to scream 'anorexic' except for the first and the last in that I didn't describe it well enough. I think every line does too, but I could be wrong about that. Each stanza is supposed to paint a picture of a stereotypical anorexic scenario (except the first), except that this scenario is more rational if this makes any sense.

Emotion... hm, I guess if you could relate to it it would be very emotional but a good poem should allow everyone to relate to it and feel it (also if this makes any sense) so thanks, I will try to fix that a bit.

In the last stanza, it's supposed to illustrate her purging in the bushes and fainting. Did I give enough clues to this, or was it just completely confusing?

Um, the 102 refers to a scale. I should put a unit of measurement on it. Thanks.

Shhhiiinnnny....oh, hello, Silver! Just want to say I noticed your fine luster today!

The other thing I wanted to say is that I was quite satisfied with your work. I simply love the abstract idea of numbers and I love the way you made a notice how most of them appear in our lives. For example, 20 minutes, we don't actually notice we mention "20 minutes" in our nonchalant conversations, and yet we do. You seem to redirect people to a whole idealism of the importance of numbers not only numerals.

Also, I liked how you changed one tone from each stanza. it made it more clearer and more human like. Though, I think I didn't quite get this part:

two miles, ten minutes each
collapse on rickety chair.

and this:

Fuzzy head
hair in filth.

I think you should check up on that. Keep in mind that this is a reader's opinion and so I don't know most of the background in this work. But I DO like it. In fact I love it!

Hoping to see more of your ore, oh, um, I mean your work,
Al

I like the idea of the poem but some of it was hard to understand,

102;
numbers flash
too much, too much
rubbing sleep from red eyes
slipping on ratty sneakers
out the door.

I didn't really understand this line, now it might just be me but the meaning of this line isn't there
I also didn't see the ending of the entire poem, it doesn't seem like it should end there, other than that though I like the poem.