Young Writers Society

Hello Dreamwalker!

Aley here.

I actually like how you have the poem broken up into more stanzas than lines. I think it lends well to the more stream-of-consciousness flow of the poem rather than breaking it up in lines that might hide some of the connections and disrupt some of the flow.

Overall in the actual piece I didn't see much wrong. I don't like the confusion between "You've always liked the road a little bit more than..." because you go on to talk about how the person isn't on the road, they're in the water, or the forest. If they liked the road a little bit more, than shouldn't they stay on the road? This is sort of a conundrum to me, but I can see how it works. I would suggest editing it to consolidate words, for instance "a little bit more than" can just be "slightly more than" or "more than" and you cut out several words in each section.

You also have tried to do that whole, this and that thing where you use the same exact words to describe two different things. "Consumed and consuming," and "far enough or farther" are hard to judge. In a way the first one works. You've already been consumed by the forest, and it's still consuming you. That's possible. The second one is a little more confusing. Saying that you've gone far enough means that you can reached the end. You have somewhere that is an end, and you can reach it quickly, the problem is that it's also telling you to go farther. This contradicts "far enough" so it would be best to reword "far enough." You could also remove it.

"telling you to step farther, but farther is thicker, denser, stronger."
Note that I also changed a punctuation mark. The reason for that is because "but" starting a sentence needs to have a second part, "But the wind was howling, I could hear the chants of people in it." this is because the second part of that sentence actually can go first. "I could hear the chants of people in it, but the wind was howling." This sort of flip flop is acceptable in English. Just leaving a hanging "but" or hanging conjunction means that you've segmented off something to a fragment.

The description in segment one isn't really that clear. I'll do this in segments. The segments will be on the dock, over the dock, and in the water.

Basically on the dock we have a couple things that are bothering me. First, docks don't usually have water close enough to suck you in. They're made to keep you out and tie off boats, most of the time, so they don't really stay shallow. When the lake is overflowing, sure, they sometimes get a bit wet and the water gets close, but it's not really a time you'd want to get in the lake, so you wouldn't be out on the dock.

The other thing that bothers me about on the dock is "the current couldn't pull you through the cracks." the reason this bothers me is because what it suggests is that somewhere else, cracks are thick enough to do that. Honestly, it's a strange way to say it, and while this is poetry, it's a little confusing to put the two in the same sentence with the negative like that. I'd rather see what you could find that would make it a "could" or "wanted to" rather than "couldn't."

As the second part, sort of between on the dock and in the water, I really like what you did with the description. It's accurate. That's about right for any dock although stagnate rot is a little less specific than I'd expect you to be with fish guts and steel canoes, which don't smell by the way, not in my experience, not while on a dock. The problem I have is the transition because I don't understand how you can't breathe after talking about layers of skin and sun and stuff.

So transitions between the two parts is a little awkward, because sinking indicates that you're in the water, that you have somewhere you can sink to, like the bottom, but we never got off the dock. Still, we're in the "black murky depths" and while you try to add "of a desperate body" I think honestly it would be better just to leave it as we're in the water. We're in the black murky depths, among the seaweed suddenly. It's a nice image, sinking into the water, and the water trying to escape the edges of it's confines, but we need some transition because you weren't letting the water touch you in the first part, and now it's over our heads.

You stay in a negative tone through most of this. "Can't" "not" "won't" "never" "nothing" "No one" these words all indicate a negative light that you're putting on the whole situation. I'm not sure if it was intentional or just how you tend to converse, but it is something interesting to look at. A good challenge might be to try to change everything from a negative to a positive, and I don't mean make the poem happy, just, say something it does instead of doesn't do. "far enough away that the current trying to reach you fell short." or "Here oppressed in stagnate rot and fish guts and steel canoes that felt like brands of hot sun searing through layers of skin, you were unreachable."

But let's move on to the second section. There is another case here of the negative making things confusing. "the trees are friends that won't slip you a pill..." This is confusing because it means that you do have a friend that would slip you a pill, but we don't know who that is. You don't mention pills anywhere else so it's sort of like dropping history that we have no other reference for. I'd suggest maybe changing the line, or adding more to it so that we know that this is how we got from the lake to the forest.

I don't really like how little this section is compared to the others. You talk about it very briefly, and summarize it up in "but farther is thicker, denser, stronger" instead of showing us. I don't really see the how this is love.

I'd like you to expand on how it feels like going home.

In the third section, I think you've done things pretty well. Mostly I'd suggest editing out what you can. Slim it down so that you're not repeating yourself. Also this whole truth idea is sort of overrated. If all he wants is what he gets, then I don't see why he cares for getting anything more from her.

I really like how you ended this.

SO IN SUMMARY I'm going to suggest that you work on beefing out the second section a bit more, and changing things from negatives to positives just to get some variety in this. Instead of saying what it can't do, say what it's trying to do, and failing at, or what it can only try to do. Hopefully this will make the poem a bit less confusing about allusions to histories we don't know.

-Aley

Love or the truth, huh? A very gray concept, and one you played very well might I add. One is connected to your heart, and the other to your brain. Choose ose one you regret the other. Choose both or neither and you lose them both eventually. Then again it depends on your past, whether or not you've been told lie after lie and questioned yourself to the point of oblivion, or your content with the information you've been given. The "Road" may be a lonely path, but it's probably the path most taken. After all if someone's even debating it that means that it's anchored to your heart as well. I especially like the line where you wrote "you could never sink deep enough, but here you could pretend that sinking is what you want." This is the line that proves despite getting what they wanted the person the narrator is referring to feels regret they don't want to feel. So to stop that, they attempt to immerse themselves deeper into the truth. They go so far, only subconsciously realizing that after a while they're alone.