Young Writers Society

now i talk to a stone
with engravings of your name

ahh idk why but this description of a tombstone hit hard </3 maybe the word "stone" by itself makes it seem colder & harder

alsooo lemme know if you want me to delete this reply to keep the thread clean

Hey @herbalhour ! Since you asked for a little feedback on untitled 2 I figured I’d sneak in here and say a few things to then let you continue on with your amazing poems! Also, if some of this is lowercased, then I'm both on my phone and my laptop xD

For exploring one’s self, such as one’s identities, one's beliefs, and one's realities, there's a special kind of reflection that occurs. Sometimes, people don't want to truly face their being/self/themselves for various reasons that are all understandable. Here, you are very brave in breaking down your identities and baring your soul to not just yourself but also the reader.

I would like to recommend you to look at a "I am" Poem structure in case this is something you might like having a structure to base a future poem off of, or if it's interesting to you to kind of go through your life and what you think stands out. I've done similar tasks in various classes over the years, and it's always fun! Especially to see if something has changed from a few months ago.

Another thing I would suggest to try to harness formatting/various ways of highlighting lines to a very specific reason. In the starting stanza, we are met with a list of identities, and then kind of your own evaluation of those identities in parentheses. With something so personal, I won't critique specific word use/your own ideas, but your wordings here are sometimes still very figurative and visual, while some are more practical and straight-forward. It's up to you in constructing poems as to whether you'd like to maintain a steady line between both of these content styles, or using what works for you in that given time, which is all very valid.

Since every other new stanza had a transition line between them, I would say to have one line between the first and second stanza to change to the next idea being discussed. For the second stanza, I thought it worked really well between the visual of a "checklist / box check sheet" and you discussing in different terms how you are conflicted between different sides of yourself, and how the world treats you. And, I really like the acknowledgment that "living" and "surviving" are entirely different concepts. The third stanza also gives a strong visual of a mirror breaking, of fighting the forced belief that "men must be strong" and withstand everything, when that is not a healthy idea or helps people to gain strength in difficult circumstances. The use of "blood" is effective here since it brings to mind both the old sayings of "blood defines you" as well as the blood in our bodies that keep us alive.

Stanza four and five seem to relate with each other as well, as this forms a kind of criticism of not just the country you live in but the world as a whole, the society as a whole in which everyone can seem to turn against injustices from happening, even though they are, in fact, happening every single day. "My words are fine to be choked out" brings a strong visual and relates well with the description of "gloom" in the sky to also reflect how you/the world is feeling. I also truly appreciate you pointing out some hypocrisy in the lines of ignoring when others are truly, truly in need, while saying that they'd be happy to help out when needed. Well, it is needed. It's been needed.

And, now, for the last stanza, I can really relate to this idea of even with all of this knowledge, all of this self-evaluation, one might still not know who they are. What a good ending.

As a side note -- herb, I know you as a really nice, helpful, welcoming, funny user on YWS who's super talented! And I think you're doing such good things and are so involved on this site that I really admire your energy!

- keystrings c: