Young Writers Society

ED hath come...

BTW, congratulations on the feature on your poem. I saw a ton of people liked it. (Although I must say, it seemed very, very familiar for some reason... maybe I read it before somewhere.)

Anyway.

Oh what a terrible wonderful
thing it is, always comforting us or leaving us to devastation.

You know, I don't know why you've chosen to go for an "archaic" tone here for this. I find it distracting. To me it seems like you're trying too hard almost. People don't talk like this nowadays. And I'm guessing you don't talk like this either. It's unnatural and feels "stagy." In my opinion, this would be a lot, and I mean a lot, stronger if you were to submerge entirely into a modern style. Right now this reads like Shakespeare, but maybe it would be stronger if read surreally.

Suggested revision:

Emotion.

A terrible wonderful thing, always comforting us or leaving us in devastation.

All I did here was take out a couple of expressions and change the word order to make it seem less... well, old. (Note also, "in devastation." "To devastation" is incorrect.)

Might one escape from this
emotion, you may ask? Never loathe, hate or cry again? But of course
not! For without these sour feelings, joy and love must also must
also leave us. For good things and bad travel in pairs, and it seems
we may not be left with one and not the other.

I don't know why you broke the line after "this..." it makes it read like Beowulf. I would eliminate: "You may ask." "Loathe" (it's basically the same thing as hate.) "But of course not!" "must also (must) (also) leave" "for good..." "we may not be left."

It feels dry and constrained. I'm not trying to dis your personal style or voice or anything here, but it does feel contrived. Free this. Allow your mind to spill over onto the page. This is, after all, a piece about emotion. You need to relate. Convey some sort of emotion.

Ideas for revision:
Can we escape from emotion? Never judge, hate, or cry again?
It would be impossible. Because without those sour feelings, how could we feel comfort, love, joy? Good and bad travel in pairs. How could we identify one without the other?

These are of course, only suggestions.

Now define insanity.

Why? There needs to be a transition here. You were talking about emotion, now you're talking about insanity. You can't say "now let's define." Well, I mean you could, but that's not a very effective (creative, rather) way of connecting one thought to another. There should be a reason why we move to point a to point b. I know you define why you've switched focus in the following paragraph, but there shouldn't be an explanation. It should fit perfectly within the piece itself. Why it exists here should be self-explanatory in and of itself. If it doesn't fit... then there's a problem there.

be an overdose of emotion? Or maybe the result of going far too long
without it.

This is rather weak. If insanity is an affliction of emotion, then you need to describe that more. Mostly; why? and how? Use images to get your meaning across. Right now all of this is very vague and wordy, locked into the white world of the page. Make this come alive. Otherwise, it's a contradiction of subject and execution of that subject.

And I suppose it is. You can
think your way out of any emotion; 'mind over matter!' Although this
is never so simple as it sounds, and some emotions must be faced. So
'grin and bare it.' Take comfort in knowing we all experience it in
turn.

Voice-wise I preferred this section here to the rest of the piece. However, it's extremely choppy and unrefined. You should smooth things out a bit more.

Overall, this is very rough. It seems disconnected and well, awkward. Look for ways to clarify and places where you can make things more fluid. And as I've said before, use more imagery and description.

This was good, but I think it fell short of its potential.

Keep writing!
~ED

Hi polkadottiger2,have a good day!
Talking about emotions is an spacious thought and can be viewed from various aspects. Through the poem, you define emotion as something terrible but wonderful. In the next stanza;

For without these sour feelings, joy and love must also must
also leave us.

Any mistyping etc? You also acknowledge that no one is able to 'free' from emotions.

Now define insanity

Then you suddenly raise the question of insanity. Why in a lot of feeling that exists, poet still choose this emotion?This may be the main subject of the poem? The poet fascinated with this emotion and immediately wanted to talk about it.

I totally like the end! It really impressed on me with that tone sounds harsh but 'not forced' inspire the reader to keep in bold handle these emotions. Overall, very nice poem to read. You are so talented! Keep it up
Kudos,cheers.