Young Writers Society

April 7: At first I wasn't sure, the flow felt a little rough and I couldn't feel the emotion but towards the end, you have a very strong rhythm, the irregular rhyme starts to work really well and the emotion comes through perfectly. I'd suggest you take another look at the beginning though I don't have any specific suggestions. Actually, the stanza starting 'I can see that my mother' doesn't seem to fit so maybe remove that one? I love the part about the inappropriate hospital documentary and the end is very good.

Thanks Kit. I'll take another look at it. I'm not sure I remembered my poem on Tuesday...that seems to be the first day this year that I haven't done one...it's been a hard week. If I find it I'll put it up but I'm not sure I wrote one. I have Wednesday's and Thursday's, both of which were typed into my phone at the end of long days, so that will just tell you what sort of quality these are...

WEDNESDAY APRIL 9TH

I'm a speck now
that the tears have flowed out,
that the coffin is gone,
and the T.V talks back,
and my head says
throb, throb
and your absence drips down
like the shades of the past.

THURSDAY APRIL 10TH

Sometimes silent strength
takes a-hold on battered hearts
and leaves fingerprints.

April 9:

andthe t.v talks back,

Should be 'and the' and maybe 'T.V' rather than 't.v'. Also, I'd suggest removing the speech marks from around throb, throb and placing that in italics instead. I think that you have a good concept here but with more time and effort, the imagery and language could be stronger. Love the last two lines though!

April 10:

takes a-hold on battered hearts

You know I don't like short poems. and yet, this one is really good. The simplicity of it works well, the flow is perfect and that last line fits snugly.

Thanks Kit. You don't like short poems? Heehee. I was wondering why my stuff had gotten so long over the last few months!

FRIDAY APRIL 11th

I decided to be a capricorn.
I filed away
all my Scorpio highs and lows.
It was not the day
to crumble like plaster,
or brandish plastic smiles.

And I stood
between shaking columns,
I braved the podium
and spoke in my
unshaken voice,
and returned to my seat
and listened

to tears falling from Heaven,
where they can't reside.

And she didn't cry, she
whose insides were scooped
out and fed to the flames,
and so neither did I.

When the coffin lay
like that of Snow White
at an elegant height
we sat and we prayed
and then we walked away

and no one looked back.

Lol. I'll try harder in the future not to influence your writing

April 11: The last line is lovely and the irregular rhyme works beautifully. I think you could add a little more imagery, maybe make it clearer why being a capricorn is so great. The idea is very original though and I love the hints of story behind it and the sense of 'false strength' that the persona is emmitting. I think it could start better and it could be more dramatic but in general, it's very nice.

Please don't! Your influence rocks. A rather pathetic offering from yesterday, I'm afraid...note to self...try not to leave poetry writing until midnight!

SATURDAY APRIL 12TH

Like coming home.
The book we sign's
our steady call
to those inside,
telling them
that we've arrived.

Greeted much
like prodigals
no mention of
how long we stayed
away this time.

And these women are
my grandmothers,
telling me
they're glad I came,
happily
saying me name.

We always do
dine seperately
and still it feels
like family.

April 12: I'm going to be brutally honest and say that I really don't like this one, Jas. The rhythm is very jerky if not non-existant and the theme is unclear, the language simple. However, there's something about the last stanza that I like. I'd suggest that you take that one, embellish it with some more imagery and then work outwards from there.

Thanks Kit. I'll dismantle it at some stage. Here's yesterday's;

I Don't Understand The Meaning Of Rain

*submitting* By the way, if you'd like to see any of the ones I've taken away just pm me and I can send them to you.

April 13:

But now I'm back under my own gey sky

I think this should be grey, yes? This poem is interesting and I love the title and the start is wonderful but I think it grew a little vague towards the middle. Good use of metaphors but could use some tidying up though I can't seem to think of any specific changes. Sorry!

Thanks Kit.

Monday April 14th 2008

I think I'll fill my head
with Austen, amateurs, Irish verbs,
aproaching exams,
fresh-ink stale grades, and

how we rushed across the cobbles
to the heavy door,
so we could
grope down the back of sofas
and
push newspapers aside
to find
a magazine.

I'll twist my words into
his "x, x, x", and the
icon of the snail which I
drop into my speech,

and maybe then,
sweet predecesor,
predeceaser,
maybe then
I can sink into
a goldfish bowl
and circle, circle, circle,
forgetting everything
that I've just seen,
or haven't seen.

Yup, there goes the last of my sanity...

Tuesday April 15th

I am cat-curled and melting
into thirsting blades of grass,
my palm newly speckled
with half-moons and cs;
other fingers braided with yours,
my eyes shut.

And still the cricket will not die;
players in white, all purer than I even
contemplate aspiring to be,
bend to the ratty rule-book and
spectators must comply, even
if just mere imposters, pouncing on
the sunny spot.

And I think that I'll shrivel
like the pursed lips of Denial
if the sun does not stop
taunting me-
"Take my heat,
Take
my
heat."

Wednesday

Wine and Name Dropping

I can feel the wine
seeping to the soles of my feet.
My head's...
magnolia? Mahogany?
Well, full of rich velvet,
bobbing
on a nectar sea.

And I'm still reeling from
drinking in the shade
cast by literary
giants,
my unwritten fingerprints
overlapping on the glass
which soon will sit
amongst their own.

Heaney sat a row
in front of me,
over six wood seats.
spectator like me,
friend of
Longely at the podium,

come drop another
name in here
and bring me down
but promise not
to bring me down.

WEDNESDAY (EXTRA POEM)

There Is No Sex In This Country

There is no sex in this country.
Children whiz from the sky
after marriage manacles
are clamped down upon
lily skin. No such thing
as "live in sin."

There is no sex in this country.
I remembered that today
when some old woman glared at me and he,
shouting "this is a public street!"
and I had only found one kiss,
nestled in the crevasse I caressed
with the tip of a near-cactussed tongue.
(Let me be, let me be young.)

There is no sex in this country,
I'll say it again.
and when you see the too-young girls
on a Saturday night

with their too-short skirts,
and their tops too tight,
and their knickers folded
in their drawer,
please be assured
it's the whole seen
and nothing further
will be seen.

There is no sex
in this country.

THURSDAY

Time is slowly eviscerating
my every dram of substance-
I let my hours scatter down
by grass-banks and ravines
and now they're muddy,
bruised,
and not my own.

I tried to call
them back to me, using my sternest
"come back!" voice, so I could
scrub their dirty faces clean.
But they will not come back to me.

They play at soily-finger war,
grit lodged between their yellowed teeth,
never bothering to speak
after all my talk of elocution.
Now I'm certain no solution will ever come
to play again.

And now my hour-eggs
have rolled away, and, wrapped in the
stench of decay,
I'm far too void
to still feel sick,

and now the clock
snarls
TICKTICKTICK,
hands spinning under
devil strings.

Here's Friday's disaster;

Frozen, ink-stained,
near asleep
with my insides shifted,
sense face down
and my
Times New Roman drought
causing me to lie
on the couch
with the magic box turning
my mind to hot mush
and my panic to "boil."

Saturday;

*Note- "An Speir Bhean" (pronounced On Spare Van) literally means "The Sky Woman" -it gets pretty lost in translation. But, in Irish poetry centuries ago, the Speir Bhean came, usually in a dream or a vision, to the poet, and spoke of her plight-her lover had left her, she had no one to help her in her troubles, etc. The Speir Bhean was the personification of Ireland. At this time poets were very poor as their patrons couldn't afford to keep them any more. There's a little more to it than this, but my memory is sketchy. The poets were sometimes sleeping in graveyards as they had nowhere else to go.

AN SPEIR BHEAN

I knew nothing. Youth
is an arrogant age.
Beauty and insight
are not the same-
but you try telling
the beautiful that.

Another graveyard walk
before the day was set
enough to make my footing
solid, clear.
Another poet with a
headstone bedhead
and a pocket-hole.

They all thought
I was a vision-
disorientated after sleep,
or maybe
I really was that beautiful.
(These poets tend
to exaggerate things)
and I let them.

So much easier then
to spoon-feed honeyed hope
into starving mouths
until their minds stuck.

And they took up their quills;
"set us free, set us free",
(Though of course, with
greater poetry),
and left the guts of
my young men inflamed,

too few hyacinths
to hide the graves.

Here's another from last night (Ann Dean is very inspirational!);

Standing on a Glacier

I've taken this down as I'm submitting it somewhere but pm me if you'd like to read it.

Sunday

Submission Process

Hollow clunk
in the pit of the post-box,
ravenous stomach
never quite filled,
and constant, forced
bulimic projections,
with another's hand
thrust down the throat.

Little morsels
of my soul
polished and squirming
and stuffed inside
black suits and white cases
before
being cast off to
Oblivion.
Sweet Jonah surely
understands their plight.

And up they come again
to sit on cool, hard wood
and meet appraising eyes,
condemning eyes.
What other
frightening eyes
lie in my head?

And they wait, as in
the dentist's waiting room
before they're summoned in
and sent away
(too much plaque and tooth decay)
in brown paper cattle vans,
pocket-money paid,

and back to me
where they can breathe
and be almost
good enough for me.

MONDAY

Eyes snap open.
Aching chest.
This time
I'm sure it's not heartbreak
or sympathy pangs,
storming across in
formation,
then resting
by my heart
to set up tent,
stakes through the muscles.

I won't eat
junk food tommorow.
I honestly
will swim this week.

I shut my eyes,
night-time delusions,
certainly nothing.

If I lie a certain way the pain
almost stops.

But mortality hangs
around my neck,
like a noose,
like a weight.

And maybe it's
the warning sign
which you ignored
time after time.

TUESDAY

Chafes a little
at my wrist.
8 hours ago
I was on the grass,
fragmenting and reforming
into a glowing whole,
but maybe they should keep
a closer eye on me.

My mind's already
taking turns
sharply through
unwritten lands
(the letters aren't
before my palms,
or eyes, or mind,
or any part of me).

False morals are dying
on my laden shelf.
If you let me
take three steps
I promise I'll
come back to you.

Why then is the end
out of view?