Young Writers Society

This is good. I love the depth.

You have shown us a person’s internal struggle through this short piece, and their need to protect their loved one. The speaker recognises that they have to deal with their own demons before they can allow the person they love to come close to them. It’s a bitter-sweet poem as the speaker has a deep desire to protect their love from themselves.

And I can’t let you burn.

Its very beautifully put about a person who is suffering internal pain and wants to be let alone because perhaps that person doesn't want to suffer anyone else in anger or because the pain is to strong that it will hurt others by their sympathy. When you said
"It’s simply because this invisible fire

Is too strong for me,

And I can’t let you burn. "

You basically put it in lovely words how the hurt will cause others the same amount of pain if he lets them in to see his misery. I like how implied it in other ways.I can relate to the narrators pain so well. You made everything flow so smoothly and it was easy to understand.

Hey there! Isha here to review.

This poem is, in a word, personal. The emotion conveyed is honest and quite raw (which is good!), and I think that a lot of us can relate to having someone in our lives who we love, but don't want to see marred by what's actually going on in our heads. So you've got raw emotion and relatability down, but there are a couple of things I want to talk to you about:

1) imagery: The imagery used in this poem isn't bad, per se, but it feels amateur and mediocre. There's nothing really original about it, and it could be any other teen-written piece discussing depression and fear. I'm not going to tell you to litter it with metaphor and similes, because imagery definitely doesn't rely on either of those things (they're loads of fun to incorporate, but not always necessary!), but I'd definitely suggest poking around word choice. Try to think of new ways to express the emotion that you want to express, and pain us a picture instead of telling us exactly what's going on. Showing, in poetry, is (usually) far more effective than telling

Also, applying adjectives/adverbs liberally doesn't necessarily count as creative imagery. There's always a unique way to say something; you just have to find it

2) Actually, this is technically still on imagery, but this line in particular:

This burning, consuming tangle of guilt and fear

Is buried far beyond your reach.

THANK YOU!!! This is how I feel right now spot on and to be honest I feel better because this makes sense of it. I loved the way that the writer says s/he is fine but s/he is obviously not. That's the story of many peoples lives everyday and I wish everyone could read this because it helps people understand.. The poem itself was very dramatic and realy clear and the only part that I felt didn't flow was "I couldn’t bear to watch you ignite. " it seemed to make no sense at this part in the poem the first time I read it and the wa you broke your stanzas up was a tad bit confusing but otherwise 5 out of 5here nicely done!


Keep it up, Kat

Heyo, Lily.

Let's start by recapping all of your elements at play here:

Active voice 'you' and active voice 'I'. Screams in my head.
Your delicate ears. Haunting images. Your fragile mind.
Tangle of guilt and fear. Your possible ignition (Fire 1).
Some secrets you'll never know about.
Your loving guidance, help, and fixing my broken heart.
I burn when I'm alone (Fire 2).
I may possibly fall without getting back up, but it's not your fault.
Invisible fire inside of me (Fire 3).

I laid them out for you to see so that you can have a visual aid for my critique when I say that this is very disjointed for a stream-of-consciousness piece. You have one motif that recurs, and that's the fire imagery. Every other image is untied and left to stand alone, but none of them are particularly powerful enough to accomplish that goal. Now, it would be easy to connect them with a bit of weaving, but in doing so, you need to pay attention to your flow. At this point in time, neither your images nor fluidity are impressive, and thus some heavy reconstructive surgery would benefit this piece greatly.

One thing that you'll find that seldom works in poetry is a cathartic poem incorporating both You and I simultaneously without focusing in on one or the other. What you've set up here is a "Get away from me, I'm dangerous." "Get away from me, I'm dangerous." "Get away from me, I'm dangerous." over and over again; in this light, there's no evolution in the speaker, and thus no emotive anchor for the reader, causing the entirety to come off as contrived. Now, there's no denying that these are legitimate emotions and happenings, and even if the screams and haunting images in your head are metaphors, or even if they're literal--or even both--there's a disconnect between writer and reader, and that's a problem.

Take your emotions that you've laid bare for the reader. Find the raw sadness, rage, and devastation that those things stir up inside of you, and that will be your voice. That's important. Now, a poetic practice tells us to take sentiments/emotions/statements and layer them beneath images and references, sights and sounds and tastes of nature and the world, even the incorporeal--and tie them together. There is very little of this happening here--in fact, all of your images are directly tied to the active I. If you were to take a step back and assess these emotions in relation to the world, what images crop up? How could you tie these together to make something greater than "I feel this, I feel this, I feel this"?

Secondly, I'd advise you to try reading the piece aloud, even in a whisper, and find the places where it does not flow. Wherever natural stress or lulls occur, those are the places where you should place your line breaks in free-verse. They're completely optional, if I'm being blatantly honest, so choose for yourself what best makes this piece flow, though at the time of this critique, it does not flow well.

Let me know if you have questions.

Lumi

There's so much great imagery in your poem! Even though it was about someone's inner struggle and their desire not to spread that "flame" onto the one they love (I think), it was beautiful in a strange way. I love your way with words. The only thing I could suggest in such a wonderful poem is that maybe you stress more of the desire for that other person to stay, even if you just can't bear it; but I'm just searching for something to criticize, so don't mind me. I thoroughly enjoyed this poem!