Young Writers Society

Hey Ninja!

Okay, this may just be me, but you kept on throwing out all these adjectives about how empty or vacuous or whatever. Which is fine! But, you never really gave us any reason why we should really care about you being this way. It's really hard to feel sorry for someone when they say, "I am an awful person" and, when you ask them why they say that, they say, "I am a horrible person." It's kind of a circular train of logic here and it doesn't really let us get into anything deeper. So, this poem would remain rather superficial.

In real life, mind you, sometimes you feel horrible for a person why they say, "I am an awful person." But usually they'll say it in such a way that it gives you immediate empathy. Like, they might burst in tears or whatever. Their words, combined with their actions, are what touch us, finally. In poetry, you cannot sense emotions except from the words. So, you need to make sure that you evoke all these senses as much as you can.

Instead of simply throwing out adjectives, consider describing what happened a little bit more. You talked and said that you are a victim. Okay. Why?

Answering this little question and giving us an insight into your own life will be really helpful. I mean, these adjectives are only good if they give us insight.

Hope this helps!

Imagery

As 'Rina commented, you're using too many adjectives in this poem when sometimes less is more. Firstly, the image you're trying to present is of an empty shell, but when you keep piling all these adjectives on top of one another, it starts to feel like a very full shell indeed.

Secondly, you're not expanding on the image enough. By the end of the first stanza, all the reader knows is that there's a shell and it's blind, naive, trusting, shallow, pretty on the surface but useless and empty and that's only if we've paid very close attention. But what does this string of words tell us? Nothing. We don't know the colour of the shell or where it is. We don't know what the shell's story is or how it came to be this way. We know absolutely nothing that could make us interested in this shell.

Imagery isn't just strings of adjectives. It's metaphors and similes and that's only on the basest level, but it's a good place to start.

So your shell is empty, but why not tie an image to that? Your shell could be as empty as a beggar's bowl or a bucket with a hole. Or it might be empty like a vacuum. But why stop there? Why have only one level to an image when there could be two:

as empty as a bucket with a hole
and impossible to fill.
There's a fire in the village
but I can't carry water.

Okay so just a ten second write up, but you get the idea.

Purpose and Structure

The other point I want to cover is purpose. Why are you writing this poem? What are your themes and what affect do you hope to have on your audience?

At the moment the first two stanzas flounder with the image of an empty shell and then the third makes a vague attack on society. There's not enough to support this though. What about society are you attacking? Their bad taste in clothing, their unhealthy diets? It isn't clear enough! I'm going to take a guess and say it's something along the lines of destroying the natural world.

What you need to do, is introduce your overall theme right in the first stanza. Set up the image of the shell but make sure you tie it to something. What does this shell represent? Gives us clues, something to point us in the right direction.

Then the second stanza should expand on this and take us deeper in. It should introduce the issue if you haven't already: what is wrong for this shell? Why should we feel bad for the shell?

Finally the third stanza should be the final piece of the puzzle and it should lay the metaphor out fully completed and there shouldn't be a need to say 'you're society and you've done bad things!' because it should be clear from the shell's story. The reader should be able to realise this for themself and decide whether they feel bad or not. You telling them directly that they should be ashamed is only going to annoy them; people don't like to be preached at.

Overall

The poem's too repetetive for my liking and its content is too vague for me to give much comment. You've got a great basic idea with the personification of the shell, but that isn't enough to carry the full poem. What I'd suggest is that you should concentrate first on what the shell's story is and work on the individual voice. Treat this as you would a monologue or any other piece of dialogue. This is your shell telling a story and you need to give her/ him a voice of their own and make us care about them!

Hope this helps,

Heather xxx