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Young Writers Society



Things Change.

by Weymouth


I always hated real conversations.

They always end up in an awkward silence

As both people try to think of what to say.

Instant messaging for me any day.


At least that’s what I used to think.


Now there’s nothing I despise more

Than a phone vibration or a message sound.

It’s the pure symbol of a dying friendship,

And I couldn’t lose you. Not now.


There’s nothing I would rather do more

Than to just talk to you in person.

My face opposite yours,

Just so I can look into your eyes.


I know this friendship will end badly

So save yourself. Just please go.

I would rather hurt myself than hurt you.

But I’ve already done that.

In eight neat lines.

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193 Reviews

Points: 408
Reviews: 193

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Sun May 25, 2014 1:42 pm
Niraco wrote a review...



Hello there! I hope you're having a happy review. Which is why I am here! Let's get started in the review shall we?

I always hated real conversations.

They always end up in an awkward silence


As an opening line, I liked this. It was your word choice which really drew me in.'Hated real conversations,' is such a strange opening line that I couldn't help but be intrigued.

Instant messaging for me any day.


I love the humor in this line. Many people will be able to relate to this fairly easily. Since instant messaging is very popular and the 'internet generation' is growing in population.

Now there’s nothing I despise more

Than a phone vibration or a message sound.

It’s the pure symbol of a dying friendship,

And I couldn’t lose you. Not now.


This stanza is the best in the whole poem - not to say that the others aren't good. It's just that this poem will really hit a lot of people close to home. I myself have had a lot of friendships shattered due to sociol networking and would rather just talk face to face.

But I’ve already done that.

In eight neat lines.


It's a rather sad ending. Espically when a relationship can be destroyed in a matter of eight lines. It makes me wonder about the sistuation the poet is going through. Why is the friendship broken? These questions flood my mind when I read the poem.

It was very enjoyable - albeit sad - but the bitterness in the poem was very useful in drawing emotion from the reader. Great job!




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806 Reviews

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Sun May 25, 2014 1:34 am
Aley wrote a review...



Hello Weymouth,

This is Aley to give you a review. I think this is our first interaction.

I think this poem really has some nice qualities to it. You've kept it personal, and although that means there's a chance of navel gazing you seem to have kept it broad enough that it is not the case. I like how you have a turn in this poem between the start and the finish. That's well executed.

I have a few articles that may be able to help you with some basic things here on YWS. I'm not sure if anyone has shared them with you and I'm really in love with the resource center, so I'm just going to spend a few words to encourage you to read the articles. They really aren't that long or tedious and they're written by people who've gone through everything we've all gone through, we all start somewhere, right? The first article, aside from the one I hyperlinked on navel gazing is on structuring things on YWS. How to format your poetry on YWS It should help you so you don't have to keep using the underscores for line breaks, and you can make real stanzas. I've recently discovered you can also write your poems in a Message and copy it from there to get the formatting right just by copy-paste.
Next is one I wrote on capitalization in poetry. Capitalization in Poetry I think this may help you because you seem to be doing Line Capitalization but I think this poem could be really strong with Sentence Capitalization.
I think you have some choices for some more punctuation too, so I'll just leave this for you. It's set up to automatically go to the commas section. The Great Grammar Compendium

I think that's it for the resources.

I'll explain why I think you've got a chance for commas to invade this work more now. Your first stanza of the poem is a little awkward.

I always hated real conversations.

They always end up in an awkward silence

As both people try to think of what to say.

Instant messaging for me any day.

If we take this back to it's roots:
I always hated real conversations. They always end up in an awkward silence as both people try to think of what to say. Instant messaging for me any day.
and take out the capitalization of course, the last sentence really stands out because it's catchy and something very frequently said like that, but there's always that pause. I think with poetry you can make that feeling with just a simple comma. "Instant messaging for me, any day."
There's also an option for a semi-colon in the second sentence. "They always end up in an awkward silence; both people trying to think of what to say."

These are both optional, of course. You can easily keep it just how you have it.

The third stanza is a little harder to keep without a comma after "Now" because when you read it the first time you read straight through, "Now there's nothing..." rather than "Now," as in the time, the current situation. The first one sort of comes off as "Now listen here, there's nothing..." which isn't really what you were going for. For clarity's sake, you should probably put a comma after Now in order to ensure people pause and understand that Now is being a state of time.

You've got some repetition in this poem that also makes it a little disgruntled. You both start and end that stanza with "Now" which I wouldn't recommend. You also repeat the words "There's nothing I..." and "More" (twice as an end-word) which can be hard to avoid, but this is a poem. We get to be creative with our language. I'll encourage you to work with language and explore other possibilities. Instead of "There's nothing I..." why not use a metaphor. "My hate for it now is like a cat's animosity for a dog..." or "I'd give my limbs for..." Be creative! It could really spunk up this already pretty cool poem.

The last stanza is probably the one I like the least of them all. It's rather snippy. It doesn't really flow because of how broken up it is in the second line. There's not much being said either because your narrator is just making dedications and there's nothing really new going on. Plus I don't really understand where 8 lines comes from. This poem is a lot more than 8 lines.

Other comments <3

I'd suggest you take out the rhyme in the first stanza. Either change Day or Say so that they don't rhyme and make us expect an abcc rhyme scheme for the next several stanzas. Also I'd suggest putting your second stanza either in with the first stanza, or the third stanza.

So in summary, I'd suggest you read the articles I hyperlinked for you. I hope they help you understand how to format things on YWS, the different possibilities you have with capitalizing poetry, and a little more about sentence structure and punctuation so that you can get that down. All in all, your last stanza needs some work. I'd suggest scrapping it and reworking it so that you've got more of an image for us to grab onto at the end of your poem. The third and fourth stanzas could use some work too with creating something unique rather than starting them with "There's nothing I" and then going into empty promises. Try thinking of things that represent it in nature, your life, or just in general and replacing it with that so that it's an image of some sort that will stick with us for a long time.

I hope this helped,
-Aley




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Sun May 25, 2014 12:56 am
cleverclogs wrote a review...



Wow, this is really good! It speaks of lost friendship very well. I love the last stanza, because it shows that you love the friend enough to let them go. That's real love. Friendship ending is hard, but usually for the better, and this poem really conveys that.

One thing I will say is that this could be more poetic. Use more imagery, similes, metaphors, and the like. It's fairly straightforward as it is, but it could be a lot more descriptive. For instance, instead of saying, "Just so I can look into your eyes," say, "Just so I can gaze into your eyes." Simple things like that can turn a good poem into a great poem. :)

I like the contrast between the beginning, where the speaker prefers the internet, and the end, where he/she prefers to speak in person.

Overall, the poem is very melancholy and emotional. Great job, and keep writing!




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Sat May 24, 2014 11:25 pm
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BlackBunny1998 wrote a review...



Hi, I will be writing this as a review, so I hope you don't mind. Don't worry, I'm not doing it for the points. I actually like this poem you have written. I can relate this poem to myself, because there are times when some of my friendships ended. I am actually nervous when it comes to conversations face to face, because you don't really know what to say. I had a friendship with someone, and it didn't really work out very well. Not only that I hurted him, but I hurted myself too. Don't worry about me, I'll be okay. But again, this is a really deep, yet amazing poem. I hope you will keep writing until the very end, Weymouth :)





No, it's not that you didn't succeed. You accomplished a lot, but, if you want to touch people, don't concentrate so much on rhyme and metre. Think more about what you want to say instead of how you're saying it.
— LCDR Geordi La Forge