Young Writers Society

Part 1:

Good Evening
My name is Roger Blake,
Im a casualty of a critical mistake
Identified as clinically insane
Sectioned, constricted and detained
The last thing I can recollect is
I was being restrained
My mind boggled in such a twist
As i noticed my fellow inmates had slashes across their wrists.

My assurance in the medical assistants hesitated
As I was forced to take
numerous amounts of medication
I've herd they segregated
selective mental patients
One time I caught a look of the room where they’d take them
As I remained patient to watch
my fellow friends get taken

The reasons on why they were taken remain undisclosed
Rumours had it they gave A thousands volts straight to there frontal lobes
They were justified as medical tests
However it was evident that defenceless people
were Being sentenced to their deaths
My thoughts on a escape involved tape wrapped around
my face until my spirit took me
away from this sinister place.

As I Spent night and day
racking my brain to find a way to the light, but still breached by darkness
I remember where I lost my temper
Feeling anchored, with conversations with a psycho
As I scremed is this one sick joke?
Next thing I knew a doctor threw me out a shattered window

I Remember when i Awoke later
in my bed, as my mind cleared
A pain in my side sparking the idea
Of reaching a freedom which looked so close but felt so far
As I look for my espace my eyes forced me to my blood soaked vest
My Heart pounding inside my chest
I Managed to slice my restraints
As i fell down beside my bed
Stood up, and ripped of the wires stuck on my flesh
Climbed the winding vent
entangled in numerous cob webs
I Exited down a flight of steps
Ditched my hospital gown so the K9's won’t recognise the scent
Felt the cold wind on my face
Blinded by the moonlight As I completed my mental prison escape.



Part 2:
His name was Doctor Blake institutionalised and scrutinised
For committing the most Bizarre crimes
Torturing patients numerous times
Till one escaped and brought
the truth to the light
He lost his mind but kept it a top secret
He invented unnecessary methods
of shock treatment for his so called patients
He had no waiting list, just a line full of victims which he killed for his thirst
He was a slave to his hunger, living a reality full of his dreams
As he showed his appreciation By tying them up while inserting
spikes under their skin

His Eyes void of emotion
When caught and questioned on why he did it
he just said the voices had spoken
He was insane, locked in a cell
Amnesia in control of No knowledge of self
Day to day he’d scream about the crimes
Like he didn’t do them,
While Swimming in the depths of depression
Isolated, living on the edge of aggression
We Never got a confession
Just a sample of emotion during a routine group therapy session
When asked “are you scared of the past?”
He flew up by the window threw his chair through the glass
Demented look in his face
Guards took him away while they strapped him to bed fully restrained
However they didn’t bother drugging him up
The next morning they walked in
and saw him covered in blood
They Should’ve known from the different behaviour patterns
That this was a suicide waiting to happen
His life fractioned because of the flooded emotions
while cutting his veins was the fatal transaction
As we recollect his evil deeds
There we see the jagged body of a twisted
murderer that couldn't flee the scene.

Okay, first some little things:

First of all, I liked the rhyming - there were few, if any spots, that felt forced or awkward, and rather than having a perfectly set ABAB/AABB/iambic pentameter/whatever, you rhymed...subtly, which kept the poem from getting a singsong feel (thank goodness. Singsong would greatly detract from the seriousness of the poem.) So good job there.

Also, you did a good job getting us into the head of the mental patient in the first part and giving us an understanding of what was really going on with the doctor in the second part: Mental patient whose not as crazy as they think he is, who sees what's happening; twisted doctor who belongs in a ward himself.

There were multiple spelling mistakes or typos, so I'm going to try to find them and correct them for you; then you can just go through and fix them:

Part 1, Stanza 1:
Im - I'm
i - I

Stanza 2:
herd - heard (herd is a herd of animals)

Stanza 3:
A thousands - a thousand
defenceless - defenseless (unless the c spelling is British, but if it's not then it's just wrong)
were Being - were being
on a escape - on an escape

Stanza 4:
I Spent - I spent
scremed - screamed

Stanza 5
I Remember when i Awoke - I remember when I awoke
espace - escape
blood soaked - blood-soaked
My Heart - my heart
I Managed - I managed
i - I
ripped of - ripped off
I Exited - I exited
K9's - K9s
moonlight As I - moonlight as I

Part 2, Stanza 1:
most Bizarre - most bizarre
Till - til (till is a farming term, when you till the land - til is a shortened form of until)
so called - so-called
appreciation By - appreciation by

Stanza 2:
His Eyes - His eyes
of No - of no
While Swimming - while swimming
They Should’ve - they should've
fractioned - fractured

Whew! Okay, so that part's done. So now, getting into the deeper stuff.

First of all, I'm a little confused as to the narrator - I mean, in Part 1 it's obviously - WAIT!!! Okay, I just went back over this and realized the patient from Part 1 and the doctor from Part 2 both have the last name Blake, which I guess I should really have paid attention to in the first place - which, given the situation of the poem, COULD mean they are the same person (since the doctor, at least, is insane)...but then again, since the first person seemed more sane than the doctor and also escaped, maybe they're just related. Or something. Maybe you could clear that up through the writing.

Anyway, as I was starting to say before that...in Part 1 the narrator is clearly the mental patient, but in Part 2 a "we" is mentioned, and I'm not at all sure who "we" are.

In some spots I get confused by other things. Like when Roger Blake escapes - okay, first of all, how did he manage to simply "slice" his bonds? Presumably at a working asylum - even if it's a twisted one - they would be able to bind him tightly enough or with a strong enough substance that he would not escape so easily, nor would they leave a knife (or whatever) close enough to him to be able to simply slice through his bondage.

Also, when he ditched his hospital gown so the dogs wouldn't get the scent. To me this seems backwards. He still smells like himself, and if he leaves the hospital gown behind then the dogs can smell that and track him from it. Plus, he is now running around naked. (As far as I know.)

And I could use more detail on who (presumably Roger?) ratted out the doctor and how the doctor was caught, etc.

Now (I know this is getting quite long), let's look at the psychology a bit. First, Roger: I'm not sure what's wrong with him - my guess is, nothing (unless my first guess about Roger and the doctor actually being the same person is correct). Given how twisted this particular mental institution is and the history of mental institutions in general, this is entirely possible. (If you've seen Suckerpunch or Changeling then you know what I'm talking about.)

As far as the doctor goes: You gave him voices, which points to schizophrenia, and then depression. But with the "thirst" you describe, I think he could just be a psychopath or sociopath, which is just as disturbing (lack of emotion, living out fantasies, no remorse, highs and lows, even suicidal thoughts - just no voices). If you do a little research on various psychological disorders that would drive people to murder, you can give your characters even more depth.

Okay, last thing. I probably should've put this first, but okay. You wrote this as a poem, which is why I put all the other stuff first. But the main thing I was thinking as I read this was how great it could be as a story. Obviously it's your piece, so if you want it as a poem and think a narrative poem is the best way to tell it, that's fine. But I know if it were me, I'd make it a story, and I think it has a lot of potential and options if done as a story. You could go more in-depth with both characters (or the one character, if they are, in fact, the same person) and their mental issues, into more detail with exactly what happened, etc. You could switch back and forth between POVs with the two characters (...or the two personalities of the one character, as it might be). You can have more in the way of scenes/dialogue/etc rather than simply saying what happened. I could even see this expanding into a novel, if you're feeling that ambitious.

But as I said, this is your decision. It's just a suggestion I had for you to think about.

Whether you keep this as a poem or convert it to a story, I hope this has helped!

~Blue

Hey Abid!

This poem doesn't really seem like a poem on first impressions since it has such a prose-y type of delivery and structure. The story has been laid out in two parts. And I'm not sure why you wanted to do that, but I am sure the poem would have been just as well without having it dissected into two different segments since it's easy to understand that the first part was of the first-person narrative and the second part was of third person. Nevertheless, you've done a great job conveying the agony of the narrator during his time in torture.

The main idea and the subject are intriguing yet don't command any great level of understanding that flies past the head. It's all pretty decent and understandable to me and the way you've kept each scenario as being daunting and eerie makes for an exciting read. You're poem rhymes. And a poem with rhyme just shows how far you're willing to stretch your creative prowess as a writer and deliver for us a poem with rhythm, flow and great plot. So great job!

Now, there are a few uncertainties that plague this poem's plight. Most of them common, simple ones that might just need a little brushing off to improve the piece.

As i noticed my fellow inmates had slashes across their wrists.

Rumours had it they gave A thousands volts straight to there frontal lobes

Next thing I knew a doctor threw me out a shattered window

Lines such as these are quite big. They aren't really easy to digest since the reader has to go through them in one go and it thus becomes too hard to swallow and makes the matter rather difficult to understand because of the unstoppable rushing in of words. Most of these lines always have a corresponding rhyming line to them and that is soon forgotten about since the sheer length of these lines oversees any hope of being remembered that they actually do rhyme. Thus flow is disrupted and the piece becomes a chore to read.
I suggest that you dissect lines like this or word them in such a manner that the length need not be compromised. There's plenty of room for improvement when it comes to issues such as this. Minor issue, though issues non-the-less.

I did also quite honestly feel that the rhyme was letting up. There weren't any landmark points in the poem where I could go ahead and say that 'this part was my favourite'. The lengthy lines and also rhyming scheme contribute to that factor.Your rhyming often occurs in a continuous pattern. And the once the end of that continuity is reached, there's blandness in the rest of the stanza that remains. So keep a steady rhyming scheme and make sure that it's well spaced and evened out so that there's enough of rhyme everywhere. And make sure that the syllable counts of each corresponding rhyming line match. That's one of the most important thing to consider where rhyme is concerned.

The language here was good and sharp. A few spelling mistakes and errors caught my eye though. I'm sure that once you pass this through a spell-check, you'll be able to identify and correct them all.

The last thing I can recollect is

When being a first-person narrator, it's important to know that once you are chronicling the incidents, you've got to use a steady tense. In this case, your tense should be limited to being past since you're the one who's telling the story in the Doctor's eyes. So the above sentence should be written as -

The last thing I could recollect was

Make sure you don't confuse the readers with tense. Just be a bit more attentive to the way you want the story to be told.

This piece is quite good. It's creative and well thought out. It delves into the subjects of insanity and weirdness in a way that can be precisely understood. A little bit of polishing and shine would give this poem the merit it deserves and make it better than it already is. Remember this - Just keep practicing and you'll do great. Keep the ink flowing!

Murtuza