Apart Time

Hello, Chips here with a review!

Good for you for working up the courage to post this poem as it seems quite a personal piece for you. I liked how there was a motion of sadness and love-loss evident here throughout.

"Apart Time

Apart time

but never really together"

I thought the phrase, "Apart Time", was interesting, though repeated a bit too often. You also need a full-stop after, "together".

"Always just pure imagination inside the heart"

This line seemed to be just by itself nothing really referenced it afterwards. The phrasing sounds slightly awkward, perhaps adding the word *from*, after imagination. This line didn't seem to clear to me.

"Almost a year from

the night we last spoke -- barely talked"

I think these lines should be written together as the line break after, "from", looked odd. Instead of dashes after, "spoke", I think a semi colon would fit better.

"As always, you did what you do best

left the question unanswered......"

The ellipses were a bit too many, three is usually the standard. Here, you kind of switched persons you went from first person to second.


"I never stand a place in your heart

never did, never do

never before, and never after"

Here, I thought the word, "never", was repeated way too much. I understand you may have wanted to use it a lot for emphasis but you could have varied your vocabulary a bit more.


"Apart time

meant to calm myself down

helps me to rethink

allows me to rethink"

Here, the repetition of , "rethink" should have been avoided as the words are so close together in the poem.

As an overview, I agree with Hannah below, it seemed like it was more of a diary/journal entry for the reader to vent their emotions and write it in a free way to suit them, not necessarily for a reader to be engaged in.

Overall this has potential, I hope this wasn't too harsh. It had good intentions to help you. Keep writing!

--Chips

First of all. This was really good.

Now where should we start. Ah. Nitpicks.

I saw a couple of things. They are mistakes that I think most people make, so don't feel bad I make these kind of mistakes too!

I never stand a place in your heart
never did, never do, and never after
Apart time.

Hey there, and congratulations on getting up the courage to post this piece on YWS! Hopefully some suggestions and comments that you receive will be helpful to you in editing this piece or when you write new ones!

First of all, I love the main phrase: "Apart Time". Usually, in English we use the phrase "Time Apart", like "let's take some time apart and then regroup" or "I spent so much time apart from my family", etc. Breaking away from the common phrasing and swapping positions brings out new feelings about it; particularly, it draws more attention to the concept of "apart". This is specifically APART time, not any other kind of time.

However, one problem with this poem is that it seemed more like it wanted to be a journal entry about your life instead of a poem about a topic that you care about. The reason I mention this is because usually other people can have a harder time connecting to a piece written as a journal, because a journal is generally used as just a jumping off point -- just memos for the original writer to call up memories. Our memories are much more full -- full of details, full of emotions. So you see the problem is that our readers don't have the same memories, so we need explicit sharing of the emotions and details that we can't recall because we haven't experienced.

So while I know this experience must be painful for you, see if you can't describe WHAT makes it feel that way for you. What hurts you? Can you remember a specific moment as an example? And then get closer. What about that specific moment made you hurt? Get into the nitty gritty details to see WHAT makes you feel this emotion. Even if you don't write all those details, it will help you examine what makes people feel the way they feel, and you can use the information you find to decide which images, sentences, and words to use to make your readers feel the way you want them to!

I hope these suggestions make sense and are helpful!
PM me or reply to this review if you have any questions/comments~
Good luck and always keep writing!

Hannah