Young Writers Society

06

If you would keep your child safe and sane
give it up to the wolves while it is small:
with them it will not know of sin or stain.

Rub mud on it, and leave it in the rain,
and stuff your ears against its plaintive bawl,
if you would keep your child safe and sane.

When you are gone, then the leader may deign
to take it to the den, like dogs do dolls.
With them it will not know of sin or stain:

they'll teach it silence and hunger and pain.
Though this thought be bitter, swallow the gall,
if you would keep your child safe and sane,

and recall that its mind will know no chain
of words; and it won't fall. Not while it crawls
with them. It will not know of sin or stain.

Or else they may decide not to disdain
the gift of meat. Accept this. Accept all,
if you would keep your child safe and sane.
(In them, it will not know of sin or stain.)

I think the concept of the latest poem is very interesting. I find the rhyme scheme and repetition work against it however -- I think maybe you would have able to word your lines better if not constrained to this very strict rhyme scheme. Many of your lines fall flat under the interesting concept. Here are some lines I think are really great though:

Rub mud on it, and leave it in the rain,
and stuff your ears against its plaintive bawl,
if you would keep your child safe and sane.

This whole stanza.

they'll teach it silence and hunger and pain.
Though this thought be bitter, swallow the gall,

Cheerio.

<3 Clo

07

My mouth. A constellation of pain.
Orion's belt in bloody stars.
The discomfort of a yawn unfinished
bubbling in the roof of it and
did you know it is impossible

im-pos-si-ble (I must be careful now not to slur)

to slide gently into sleep on a wave of warm sound
with lockjaw, literal lockjaw,
the range of their bone hinge
shortened by stupid little rubber bands
like the chains on a drawbridge.

A hygienist with latex gloves
which did not fit her hands and gave her fingertips yellow hoods:
she placed them there, on my mother's orders
to change the shape of my smile,
to bring the staggered stubborn teeth
back into line, like laying stones
for the foundation of a wall around my tongue.

She had a small tattoo of a scorpion
on the inside of her wrist, done in blue ink;
its head and abdomen were covered with yellow latex,
a glimpse of halved dark curves where the plastic
stuck transparently to the skin,
but the tail, ah, the tail, the segments of soft pale skin
and the stinging end, I held onto that,
when the light grew too bright and the ache
of growing beautiful too shearing-sharp
in my red gums.

LOVER. I like this poem because it's about something kind of simple (unless I missed it completely), but it really gives a different tone to it. It's like the narrator is systematically going through this pain, being careful to keep calm and restricted. One part that stuck out to me as unnecessary was this phrase:

but the tail, ah, the tail, the segments of soft pale skin

Especially the 'ah, the tail', part. It just seemed like an attempt to add some tone where you didn't even need to. ^_^ I appreciated the description of the hygienist, but I would like to see some return to the themes at the beginning. It ends a little abruptly. ^_^

-Hannah-

This. Is. Flipping. Amazing.

Such a powerful, and lyrical description of getting braces - you make it come to life before my eyes, oh, oh, oh -

My mouth. A constellation of pain.
Orion's belt in bloody stars.

This is THE PERFECT first line. Comparing pain to a constellation of stars, spread out, each pinprick of light ripping your mouth apart - so imaginative - I just cannot get over your figures of speech, so new, so uncliche, so goddamn perfect. Do you have braces, by any chance?

to slide gently into sleep on a wave of warm sound
with lockjaw, literal lockjaw,
the range of their bone hinge
shortened by stupid little rubber bands
like the chains on a drawbridge.

This, too - my eyes just 'slur' over it as I read - the words melt together so perfectly - such a delicious combination of words: 'slide...gently...sleep...wave...warm...sound' And then, the masterpiece breaker, the word 'stupid' jarring us into reality, bringing to vividness the pain that was described only poetically before.

The third main stanza was not particularly inventive, but it does a good job of bringing us round into sharp and glaring reality (which you perfectly tip-toed over in the first and second stanzas - this was THE approach to something as real as this).

In the fourth stanza, you focus on something entirely different, and interesting - her tattoo - I think, to symbolise the pain people go through to get the right 'look.' Not exactly a brilliant way of approaching the topic - you were maybe not as eloquent as in the other stanzas, but...well, you know me, and I like it all.

Just a note though: I have braces, and have had them for some time. The pain you describe is unimaginable in the poem; my braces hurt only a little when I got them on - I'll give you a poem of my own to describe that, using your language: 'Like glowing stars/white in the pinpricks of trembling pain/ now loosened from the sky and peeling / out the blue wallpaper slightly / where they have been shaken from their roots.' That's it. I couldn't eat for two days as my teeth were shaken out, but I didn't feel like they were a metal cage around my teeth - they were surprisingly easy to get used to. I felt fine on the third day, and ever since. They do not hurt; I actually cannot feel them much. There is no excruciating pain at all - it is not that 'I have gotten used to it' - it is that 'it is NOT THERE.' Just sth to be aware of when writing the poem - great for scaring non-braced people, and a good laugh for us who have braces, but perhaps not so factually correct.

(Or maybe it's my superb dentist, a high pain tolerance (highly unlikely), and the beautiful tiny brackets I have, a third smaller than the former ones, coupled with the no-need-for-tightening-dynamic-movement-system.)

Oh, yeah, I'm adding to this post a day later now: I figured out what was weird about that tattoo thing. It's disjointed with the rest of the poem. Sort of falling off the main point.

08

Make your way through the woods
with your hands held to your ribs,
with the hot breath of a hunting dog
condensing on the skin of your heels,
slick like the blood that trickles
down the soft inside of your thigh.

You are what you are. Thin scaly branches
the fingers of silicon-gray dragons
twined up in your hair, opening your scalp.

When you lie down you will die.

The internal injuries will kill you
and the dog, who you loved when you
were still a person of three dimensions,
the dog will eat your sloughing flesh
although first it will try,

and fail,

to catch the birds who will land on your back.

...

10

She was incapable of dealing with dandelions;
she loved them unrequitedly and tried to spread them
all about the lawn, while they dried slow, stubborn as old dogs,
refusing to break and multiply.

I did what I could. To help. I held them milimeters
from her open mouth, doing my best not to roll the stems
between thumb and forefinger because she claimed
that the rasp of small callouses scraping plantskin
made concentration difficult. And in the silence
gathered around my motionless hand, she would blow,
little furry bursts of warm air on my knuckles,
and blow, the weed shivering in my delicate grip but shedding
not a single floret, no soft point detaching from the starry globe
to float off like the light in the night which is really
an airplane headed north with the wind under its wings.
Together we went through dandelions enough to carpet
a ruined ballroom in grey: they were the currency of summer,
and in winter those we saved consoled our cold bodies,
tucked into our clothes, though browned around the edges
and rattling if shook.

She loved them.
But she never learned.

Yeah, haven't stopped by these forums much lately, but I should have, because these newest poems are really nice. I love you. I'm sorry I haven't replied to your PM yet, but I will.

Firstly, 08. It was intriguing. It made me wonder, because I still have no idea why this person was running or what the silver branches were, and if I should, I feel stupid, but it's still interesting. Also, I don't know if you meant this, but I pictured that the dog was running with the person the whole way and I think that's because of the 'close' words you used, they seemed more literal than anything else.

The internal injuries will kill you
and the dog, who you loved when you
were still a person of three dimensions,
the dog will eat your sloughing flesh
although first it will try,

and fail,

to catch the birds who will land on your back.

This ending was at first really exposition-y, but then it was wonderful. The ending, beginning with 'the dog will eat', is absolutely creepy and amazing, but the front end has a few confusing parts. First of all, I thought the injuries ... oh. Haha, I thought the breath was compared to blood. No, it was actually blood. For some reason I thought the injuries were on the person's head where the scalp thing was. Fff, but still, here's where I got confused about the dog. Was the dog hunting the person or was it hunting with the person? See, using the word hunting was powerful and made me think he/she was being chased, but now I'm not even sure. I'm confused, is all, but the ending image was beautifully eerie.

09.

founded on a screaming match in Mandarin

Founded for me brings image of who first built the building rather than who lives on the bottom. Perhaps say 'balanced' or 'based' on instead? But this section was beautiful and clever.

I emptied the bin into the larger bin,

This line was weird, but the rest of the poem was quiet and detached, the feeling of listening in on the noises around you, or the feeling of being alone in the night, near civilization but not in it. Nice, love.

10.

This was beautiful. This was gorgeous, and it rang true to me: someone who wants something to happen so badly, but it just won't listen to her. I guess for me it related to what we've been talking about. The only line that was awkward was this:

Together we went through dandelions enough to carpet
a ruined ballroom in grey, or to fill the lint-traps
of a thousand humming dryers

I'd rather you picked one or the other or perhaps made them related, because this makes my mind jump through time and space and I was just flowing along with you until this. xP

I love you. These are so pretty.

I am incapable of commenting on many poems at once, so I'll start with #10 and see what happens. (Plus, I'm at work. Boring Monday, but gotta keep up images).

#10:
Really great overall. "She was incapable of dealing with dandelions" Perfect first line. Charming, suiting, and immensely interesting.

...but shedding
not a single floret, not one spindly spiderleg seed,
no soft point detaching itself from the starry globe
to float off

I think having three statements here kind of beats it dead. And since the second one doesn't necessarily contribute to the continuation of the scene, I would say that's my least favorite.

Together we went through dandelions enough to carpet
a ruined ballroom in grey, or to fill the lint-traps
of a thousand humming dryers:

I agree with Hannah, there is a bit of jump in time and space. Mostly with the dryers, part, though. The ruined ballroom image works for me because it's the idea of desolation and the beginning of the end and a return to a natural state. But the dryers sticks out like a sore thumb because the imagery isn't neither natural nor peaceful (nor very beautiful, but I suppose that's subjective).

But, I really dig #10.

11

You are the girl with your name
wrapped loosely around your shoulders,
like the shawl of your grandmother's mother:
too large and too well-made to fit
your puzzlepiece parts (the knobs of bone
slotted roughly into their wells
and empty space where the machine cut them
from cardboard without due care);
the syllables hang off your jutting joints
almost elegant in their excess, rich folds
of satin-sound too much for your poor frame,
but also lovely in their own right,

even if, sometimes, I wish I were a seamstress
skilled enough to take in the unnecessary yards,
to pare away the letters until you were wearing a word
I could pronounce even in the depths of a kiss.

12

My father used to tuck his feet under the dog
for warmth: his legs would move like the legs of a tourist,
about to walk in snow shoes for the first time.
A shuffle in his heels and a curl in his toes,
the better to ease them under soft slack bellyskin
with its a haze of pale fur. I sat in his lap
and wobbled every time he slid forward another inch,
scraping his tailbone against the wood seat, and wished
he would buy slippers
or raw heat.

I am in love with the 11th poem - immediately, it strikes me with that gripping first line, so sweet in its simplicity. A charming image:

You are the girl with your name
wrapped loosely around your shoulders

But I'm not sure that I understood what you meant there, even at the end - although that made me want to reread it all the more.

(the knobs of bone
slotted roughly into their wells
and empty space where the machine cut them
from cardboard without due care);

Again, this SOUNDS nice, but I had no idea what it meant, and although I could come up with some kind of an image in my head, it was rather fragmented all the same.

the syllables hang off your jutting joints
almost elegant in their excess, rich folds
of satin-sound too much for your poor frame

And this part, I cannot fault at all. Every line flows beautifully well - perhaps the second is a little contrived - but the first is a winner, for sure.

April 12: I didn't enjoy this one as much - perhaps the brilliance of the previous one was a little too much - but I can say that I liked the ending, and not the beginning. The beginning seems a little too...literal (yeah, even with that simile 'like the legs of a tourist' - but I thought this was a bit awkward; change it).

In these three lines:

A shuffle in his heels and a curl in his toes,
the better to ease them under soft slack bellyskin
with its a haze of pale fur.

Somehow, in these, I didn't feel you said all that much different from in the very first line, and the description is not...enchanting, like it usually is in your poems. It seems a little one-dimensional, actually.

I sat in his lap
and wobbled every time he slid forward another inch,
scraping his tailbone against the wood seat, and wished
he would buy slippers
or raw heat.

But THAT was a fabulous ending - I liked your 'voice' peeping out there, and although the description still seems a little flat here, it's made all-the-more appealing by that clear, child-like annoyance evident in the last three lines.

I really didn't feel like doing a proper poem, so... half-assed rewrite of something from two years ago, you can has it.

13

I have seen flawless marriages.
My own parents had such,

before they finished up
the paperwork of the divorce
(the bloodwork
ongoing). Because
they were at odds. Always.
The one an exact inversion
of the other.
Just similar enough
to maintain symmetry
about love's separating line.

He was absolute zero
the secret place where
nothing moves except
bodyless light.
And she burned at a degree
of Kelvin with more zeroes
hanging off the end than I
could have counted in a lifetime.

Touch either
and the nerves
will not understand
the stimulus they receive
until after they have already
short-circuited from the pain
of the ends of things.
They were meant
to cancel out.

(Me, I like
lukewarm

but then I am dilute.

The aftermath.)

14

This failing light dries into translucent husks of red:
one for each ripening silhouet,
the flat dark shapes sealed into sunpeels.

Strange fruit.

And the earth has scalped the sun
and eaten its head and hung
the shining scalp on its black belt.

(From juice we come to blood.)