Young Writers Society

Hey there!

I really enjoyed reading this poem, not least because I have a soft spot for all writing with a sensory bent (by which I mean corporeal imagery), which I thought really fleshed out the message and made it so powerful. There are a few main points I want to draw your attention to, which is how I'm hoping to structure this review.

First of all, I couldn't help noticing the repetition of 'see' throughout the poem (though I do see that you've been offered synonyms, which works!). I'm wondering if that's a deliberate word choice, however -- which is almost a little strange to point out, given that the poem itself is titled 'Hands'. While reading, my mind leapt briefly to a connection between touch and sight, and I wondered if hands could 'see'; this led me to reconsider my initial assumption that the poem was written from a human perspective. Of course, this might be a whole lot of imaginative conjecture, and maybe you didn't mean for that to happen at all, but I just thought I'd point it out for the sake of interest!

Going on from that, there's this section:

The pain I will always see.

As I twitch in emptiness my eyes begin to see.

(Just for a moment, I also want to recognise the bold/italics/strikethrough techniques you've incorporated, which in some cases I think may be a bit distracting to focus on, but in other sections -- particularly the bolded words -- the stress of the sentence falls very neatly on the emphasised word and really adds a nice punch.)

What I'm curious about in these two lines, though, is why you go from pain that the speaker will 'always see' to 'begin[ning] to see', almost as though the speaker couldn't see before. Perhaps they're referring to different kinds of sight, or objects under observation, but I was a little confused when I got there. After reading it over again, I wondered if it could mean that the pain was a very internal, abstract notion to look at, almost like the colours we see behind closed eyelids, while the sight referred to in the second line heralds the physical act of opening one's eyes.

I shred my self and my soul with my eyes.

They are too strong for me, and for that I am paralyzed.

I see my hands as the grasper of pain.

I think this might just be my favourite part: you move from bestowing eyes with the physical strength to 'shred' self and soul, to distancing them from that physical realm once more as they return to observation. Moreover, shredding is an action confined largely to teeth and hands, which made for a hushed sort of violence in the first line. This, juxtaposed against the seemingly docile stillness of hands 'as the grasper of pain' in the third line, felt like a very pleasing lurch between insight into the horrifying turmoil inside a person and their calm facade in the eyes of a bystander. Seeing as I read this poem in the light of an individual torn by their inner demons, I thought this particular part was a very clever microcosm of meaning. (A thought: I'm not sure 'grasper' is a word, but of course you're allowed some artistic license in writing. Also, since you are referring to 'hands', should it then be 'graspers'? This seems very pointless to mention, since personally I think 'grasper' sounds better in the context of the line.)

Which leads me to think that, going back to the idea that hands can see, perhaps the 'they' in the poem are the hands? Since they are 'too strong' and 'fight back', the poetic landscape becomes for me a person watching helplessly as their hands wreak havoc of their own accord, which might be an analogy for emotional damage too -- realising that a person's destructive emotions are irrational and unhelpful, but not knowing how to control them.

If I were to take this concept as my main interpretation of your poem, there are some questions and suggestions I would like to make in the spirit of clarification. Overall, it feels like there's a bit of confusion in the poem regarding its central theme: the speaker is at once 'trying to find [themselves]' and their 'heart', searching but also 'too scared to move'. This then develops into conflict, where the speaker is fighting themselves (or others, or their hands!), fighting themselves and seeming to lament a general discontent and self-loathing.

From a linear perspective, I can definitely see how a person can shift from demonising their environment and trying to find themselves, to realising how they are at the very root of their fears and problems; if that's what you were going for, cool! The message becomes very relatable and grounded, but there are still those semi-contradictions in language that sort of scattered the focus of the poem for me. If not, then I might consider reworking some of the expression, or moving lines around so the trajectory of the poem becomes clearer.

Lastly, I want to finish with this:

I fight to live as I stagger at the pain.

I sit beside me, staring at what I see.

I shake my head at what I made.

I fight to not watch the pain I created.

While the general wisdom lies in the rule of threes, and I myself am a devout believer, I'll make an exception this time. Truthfully, I don't usually enjoy poems with a sentence per line, but this time I really did. I would still encourage you to experiment with the cadence of your poetry, but these four lines really stood out to me. They're simple and similar in sentence structure, short and emphatic, and the way that 'I fight' bookends the section lends a musical circularity to the darkness of the subject.

Thank you for sharing! If you have any questions, feel free to PM me; otherwise, I'm looking forward to reading more of your writing!

-belv

This is a very intense expression of the frustration felt when we try our best and it just isn’t good enough. We realize that the only one to blame for our misery is ourselves. We must defeat that self in order to succeed. My favorite line of many is the last one because it is so very profound.

I am only what I want to be, and I still have a chance to defeat me...

Suggestion

word substitutes to add variety that can be used..

Example:
see, view, behold, contemplate, perceive, stare, ponder, understand
look, search, seek, explore, wander, probe, grope