z

Young Writers Society


E - Everyone

After the weekend:

by tinny


That Monday morning
the topic of discussion was the
way his heart had broken.

They were desperate to know about the girl
in Grenwich who'd left him in pieces,
about the flowers he’d taken three days
before on that train and left tucked between
the wooden slats of a bench in the station;

here lies
in memorium


The dark moons around his eyes and the
slowness of his smile and the smoothness
of his chin. They all wanted to know
about the girl in Grenwich that had broken
his heart and all I could think about
were those whiskers, lying on the floor
forgotten,
only to be swept away.


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Thu Jun 05, 2014 8:42 pm
Awriter says...



Was it an animal?




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Thu Jun 05, 2014 2:54 am
Crunch wrote a review...



Wanna try help me get better at poetry, YWS?


Well, I'll do my best. :wink:

Index:
1. Grammar/Spelling
2. Word Flow
3. Consistency Check
4. Content Review

(I haven't reviewed many freeverse poems before, since I mostly enjoy helping people with the meter and rhyme of structured poetry. Still, I believe it's time I branched out. Take this with a grain of salt, however - I'm a bit rusty.)

1. Grammar/Spelling
This is always the easiest part of the review.
...
Aaaand done. No objective errors that I could see, so good job there.

2. Word Flow

Overall, the flow is very smooth and uninterrupted throughout the piece.

The only concern I have is the second to last line. During my read-through, this part was jolting because I couldn't figure out if you wanted a pause between 'floor' and 'forgotten'. The absence of a comma would suggest not. However, the separation between the lines forces me to put separation between the words, regardless of punctuation.

If you want the reader to place a pause there, I would put a comma after "floor". If not, I would divide the stanza differently in order to put the two words in the same line, just to avoid confusion.

Otherwise, the piece is flawless in this regard.

3. Consistency Check

The Consistency Check is a search for words that don't match with the tone of the poem. However, I don't believe your piece has any significant outliers.

Perhaps you should consider replacing 'tucked' with a synonym (slipped between, placed between), since 'tucked' has a positive connotation, one that includes comfort. This clashes with the situation, since the context (leaving flowers for a girl that broke his heart) is negative. However, it's only a minor concern, so do what you think is best.

4. Content Review

Most of the content makes perfect sense. However, there are a couple of things I was unclear on until halfway through writing this. (Of course, omitting information for the reader to infer or speculate on is a stylistic choice. I have a couple concerns, but if you want to leave it this way, that's fine.)

At first, I thought the girl hadn't shown up at the station and that's why the guy's heart was broken. I knew that 'here lies/in memorium' meant that someone had died, but I assumed that it was a metaphor for the state of their relationship. Of course, that might just be me thinking that, but I only understood that the girl was dead once something finally clicked.

I think that misconception was fueled mostly by the inclusion of "the girl who had broken his heart". In theory, it isn't a bad idea to contrast the triviality of their supposed 'breakup' compared to the gravity of the girl's death. However, in practice, it was a bit confusing for me, since I assumed that the guy's friends were right in thinking the girl had dumped him.

However, that's my own assumption. If others don't see it as a problem, it's probably nothing.

My second concern is with the last stanza.
The dark moons around his eyes and the
slowness of his smile and the smoothness
of his chin.

Of course, in freeverse, grammar doesn't matter. However, the first sentence was a bit jolting, since it would be considered a fragment in prose.

Also, the narrator is concerned with the fact that he shaved, and I'm not quite sure why. Are the last three lines depicting a metaphor? Because I don't see the connection. Again (I should add this disclaimer to everything I say), that might just be me. However, it seems to be kind of random compared to the rest of the content.

This piece is very emotional, although its meaning is a bit buried. A single read-through wouldn't let someone fully grasp the true message, but I enjoy picking apart literature and discovering all the hidden nuances, so it's not an objectively good or bad thing.

Conclusion:

Overall, I really enjoyed reading this poem. The message strikes me right in the chest every time I read the passage about the flowers. The station is the first place that the guy met the girl, isn't it? I like the fact you left that to the reader to infer - it gives it a nice 'full-circle' feel without directly saying it.

Like any art form, you will improve your ability with practice and observation of other works. Basically, keep reading and writing this kind of poetry and you can't go wrong.

Thanks for taking the time to read,
-Crunch




tinny says...


Painfully belated, but thanks for the review, Crunch!



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Wed Jun 04, 2014 8:46 pm
GreenLight24 says...



Awww. Such a beautiful and tragic poem. Great job! I love it! :D




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Wed Jun 04, 2014 6:13 pm
Morrigan says...



Nice imagery! I would leave a review, but everything I wanted to say was already said! You definitely got a like out of me.




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Wed Jun 04, 2014 5:21 pm
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Audy wrote a review...



Tinny! <3

It feels like my brain went into the direction of thinking it went back to the flowers there at the end that were forgotten/swept away, like I wanted to think 'whiskers' was like a type of flower, but I couldn't find anything on that, so literal whiskers, then?

This sort of makes me question back my reading: as I was first reading through it, I liked how the first stanza pulled me right into the "conversation" of these two people who've broken up, and I can feel the curiosity in this line "They were desperate to know about the girl". I would echo another reviewer that the second stanza really has this "photograph" effect there with the imagery. The only thing I'd have for suggestions to that is to cut some of those needless prepositions, like there's a lot of "betweens, ofs, in, before" I almost want to keep it super plain/streamlined. Do we really need to know about the three days?

They were desperate to know about the girl
in Grenwich who'd left him in pieces,
about the flowers he’d taken three days
before on that train and
left tucked between
the wooden slats of a bench in the station (on a station bench)


When I first read this about the detail that his chin is so smooth, I just took it for matter-of-fact. Just an image of a guy with smooth chin and dark moons, but after that ending, I'm starting to think the image is the after effect. Perhaps after the flower incident, he shaved, and then I want to know why is that image important. I think there's space in the poem for that, not necessarily to have it spelled out, but it's just such a contrasting image, smooth chin is mostly a good thing, whereas whiskery chins are like rugged/lazy (at least in general surface terms) So, if this is a positive result of the break-up, why is the tone at the end so forlorn?

Definitely missing some pieces here. But overall enjoyed the imagery and the weaving in effect of the details :)

~ as always, Audy




tinny says...


Audy!

Your points highlight the areas of poetry that I struggle with, especially when in comparison to prose. I'm used to having the luxury of a little more space to explain and flesh out the details, it's finding the balance between telling too much and being too cryptic. I can see here I've fallen too far towards the latter!

The tone was forlorn because I love beards. The loss of one always saddens me.

Thanks for the review, it's always appreciated.



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Wed Jun 04, 2014 4:58 pm
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Aley wrote a review...



Hi tinny,

Nice to meet you.

You actually don't need that much help in terms of writing poetry it seems. This is a good poem. You have taken something that's ordinary and made it unique by addressing it as a series of images that we can relate to. So basically I'm going to point out what you could still improve and what you've done well so that you know why I say this is a good poem and you have the blunt "I'm good at this" feeling you should have.

You started this poem out really strong. Not only is it "That" day, but you draw us into the discussion as a part of the spectators asking questions and that's a very good hook to have. You have good structure for the lines with just a few nitpicks.

Line breaks! This is something that a lot of people have more trouble with than you do. I like the majority of your line breaks but try to leave important words at the end instead of the beginning of phrases. Seeing as you've been on here since 2006, have 4 stars and 186 reviews of your own, I'm going to just loosely say don't break up phrases and you'll probably know what I mean. If you're not sure, then I'll give you some examples.

That Monday morning
the topic of discussion was the
way his heart
had broken.

Ok, what we have here is a prime example of what not to do and what to do. When you have a word like the, about, of, and, but, etc. you want to stick those at the beginning of the next line. The reason being is that lines should be treated as unit and if they end in a determiner like the, or a preposition like of, then the unit feels incomplete, because it is. That being said, you have a lot of really good breaks.

"of his chin. They all wanted to know" actually is a pretty interesting statement. They all wanted to know everything about him down to the detail of his chin.
Same thing with "about the girl in Grenwich that had broken" although this one is less complete, it can still be complete enough because we can see it as the girl was what broke, and perhaps part of that is true depending on your view of break ups.

However, if you look at "The dark moons around his eyes and the" we're left with a sense of, "and the" what? This is because The can only be used in English with a noun following it, even if it is eventual with all of the modifiers getting in the middle. The point being, the image of "the dark moon" is overshadowed by the dangling modifier at the end of the line.

Now that you've heard the first part of the critique, I suppose you deserve to know why even with that I really liked this piece. It comes to something really simple, imagery.

about the flowers he’d taken three days
before on that train and left tucked between
the wooden slats of a bench in the station;


This is something I can see, it is something I can smell, and it's something I can understand quite clearly. I can take a picture of that moment. That's what I really love about that segment. You tried to do it again, later, with

were those whiskers, lying on the floor
forgotten,
only to be swept away.


But I don't understand where whiskers came from, because there was no mention of an animal with whiskers in this. Also what floor is this talking about? Are we still in the train station or somewhere else? There are too many variables undefined in this image to really see it, so it falls flat.

There are some that you said which really don't live up to it on a level of imagery at all, but are still easy to fall into. For instance "the way his heart had broken" which is abstract, and a metaphysical thing we cannot really describe in sight, sound, touch, taste, smell, but something that's just out there as it is. Hearts breaking, aside from the physical anomaly of over straining the muscles of our heart and having it tear, is completely a symbolic metaphor. "Dark moons around his eyes" is another metaphor although it is easier to understand because of "bags" under our eyes and "black eyes." The thing is, I don't know which a dark moon would represent.

Overall I'd say if you clarified the last image and made sure it was properly trim [which basically just means ensure you don't have anything that's a preposition without it needing to be, check your determiners and make sure that they are needed], then you'd be ready to enter this places and see if they liked it.

-Aley




tinny says...


Thank you for your kind words, Aley. I haven't written poetry since I was about 13, so it's like stretching a limb that you haven't used for a good decade or so. And thank you for the criticism! I've been placing line-breaks in a purely intuative manner (or what looks good, as in, the physical shape of the poem) so your breakdown in terms of phrasing is much appreciated and makes things much clearer.

The whiskers were supposed to be in reference to facial hair, but I can see that isn't clear at all, ha ha.



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Wed Jun 04, 2014 4:55 pm
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Gravity wrote a review...



This is really good. I do have a few nitpicks, of course. But only a few.

That Monday morning
the topic of discussion was the
way his heart had broken.


I would suggest moving "the" down to the next line. So the last line reads "the way his heart had broken".

Other than that, I didn't see anything wrong. I was just curious about how the title relates to the piece, it doesn't seem like they correlate. I liked the flow of your poem. It wasn't choppy at all and was good to read. I also thought the subject was intriguing about the girl in Grenwich. I'd almost like to know more about her.

Thank you for the lovely poem. As always,
XOXO,
Gravity




tinny says...


It was originally untitled, I wrote it for NaPo, but my experience of YWS was that untitled works tend to collect an awful lot of dust. That was about two years ago though, ha ha. I'll think of something better.

Thank you for the review.



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Wed Jun 04, 2014 4:55 pm
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Rook wrote a review...



Hello!
I'd love to help you get better! :D

So this was pretty wonderful. I loved the beautiful images, and the little details that you narrowed in on. I like hearing the story about the train, and imagining flowers resting between wooden slats. It was all very beautiful!

I think one thing that takes away from this poem is the line breaks. They interrupt the flow of speaking/reading. I think if you read this aloud and only break where you take a pause, or where there's a break in meaning, or just a break in your mind, it would be better.
For example:

the topic of discussion was the
way his heart had broken.

I think that would sound better as:
the topic of discussion
was the way his heart had broken.

Because when you speak, (or at least when I do) your mind is separating that phrase into to parts, the subject and the predicate. Or something like that. There's just a break in thinking.
You shouldn't break the subject/predicate themselves into parts unless there's a reason to, but you can always separate them from each other.

This should be taken into consideration for the rest of the poem too.

Also, did you mean "Greenwich?" I've heard of Greenwich, but that might not have been what you were referring to. It is a proper noun so you get to choose! Yay!

I also didn't understand the "here lies in memorium" part. Did someone die? Was the bench supposed to be a memorial? If it was, I don't think the person would be lying there, under the bench? I mean, that's a bit atypical.

The whiskers were mentioned only twice, but at the end it feels like it was supposed to be the most important detail, and I failed to see why. If there is supposed to be a meaning behind them, please make it more apparent.

Otherwise, I liked this! ^_^
Great job, Keep writing!
~fortis




tinny says...


Fortis! My misspelling of Greenwich is shameful. I've never been below the midlands, can I plead ignorance?

This is based on an exchange I had with a colleage at an old workplace, he came in one morning sans beard and we immediately knew something had happened over the weekend. That was what I'd intended the whiskers to refer to, but I can see now that this was not clear at all.

Thanks for the review!



Rook says...


Oh! That makes a ton of sense.




"Who am I? I'm just a writer. I write things down. I walk through your dreams and invent the future."
— Richard Siken