Young Writers Society

You write the way I like to read and I am going to approach this stanza(?) by stanza.

i. I like the imagery of the scar, the contrast of frost and fire(works) is particularly effective. I love work with dexis in so “the hills” and the anonymity of the girl is right up my street. I like how you manage to tell a story here, or set one up at least, without really –telling- much at all.

ii. Again with the nice use of dexis. I like the conversational tone (“easy”) makes the piece feel more casual, so the imagery is more impressive I guess.

iii. I’ll admit this is my least favourite stanza, I feel it’s almost out of place with the tone of the rest of the poem. A tad too hot and too much of a filler, without purpose a little bit.

iv. I how intimate we as the reader get to be with the girl here, like the personal details of her thought process are the perfect way to tell us what she is like. And the last lines – from “they’re like embers” to “write it down” are sheer perfection, my favourite of the entire poem.

v. Again this feels a little out of place, maybe the continuation of a previous idea/metaphor/image would tie it better into the poem?

vi. As we get further into the poem I feel like I am saying ‘again’ a lot, because you repeat what you did so well in the first stanzas – the dexis is perfect (“a friend killed himself in her backyard”). And I feel like you wait just long enough to repeat the magic 8-ball line.

vii-ix. Ii feel like these all follow the same themes really. I like the previous stanzas more because I personally like the set-up’s in all things more, when affection becomes equal I lose interest a little. But you kept my attention till the end, so well done  I must mention though “I say this is brushing my teeth with a plot twist” made me smile, I love that off-guard, slightly dulled humour.

As for general critique; I find I do not mind not knowing much at all, though some dislike it, so if anything make what you are telling more obvious, not continually, just occasionally.

Okay, I love this poem so so so much! Do you know that you are fantastic?! I love how this is set out with the Roman numerals to introduce each stanza. So I'm going to try and do a detailed review but I find it hard. I have a lot of good things to say about this though.
1. The first part kind of confused me but I guess that's because I'm tired and brainless, ha ha. But I read it again and it makes sense now. It's written very poetically but also as if it's a story which is very difficult (or at least I think so). You need to make sure you have your capitals in the right place and sort out any other grammar but the words you have written are fabulous, so I guess that's mainly what matters.
2. I see the story explaining itself slowly and I start to understand. I'm guessing the flat iron is referring to the scar on the eye? I like the sort of hatred for that girl.
3. Don't have much to say about this one but it keeps the story going and is funny in a way.
4. I love how this warms up the poem with the fireflies and such. And the gradual love when they hold hands is adorable to me The Monday or Tuesday things is funny because it's a common life question.
5. In this stanza, it seems like a normal life where the days are long and the narrator is humming a song.
6. This one, to me, is kind of confusing. I don't really get why the person killing their self and the alphabet backwards thing is relevant. I like the sort of jealously of the flat-iron girl (who I'm assuming is the girl who threw the flat-iron in the second stanza, yeah?) and the referring to the 8-ball in stanza ii. But I like this one the least.
7. The girl seems to be unsure of what she wants to do with her life, with her losing her job and getting drunk and all that. I find it cute how he wants to stand by her as her friend but I still don't understand why it's five years.
8. Well this girl annoys me. I hate how she's lying about calling him her best friend and saying she loves him. The women selling drugs confuses me though... But then again, I get confused easily.
9. It's sweet as they look through the notes and he writes "I love you muchly" especially because muchly isn't a word.

The poem gradually builds up which I like and is written well. Although there are a few things I don't understand, that's probably because I suck haha.

I love this poem so much though and the plot is well thought out. I'm sorry that I'm not too good at reviewing but I hope this helps.

Keep writing
~The World

First of all, I adore this structure. Clear and decisive paragraphs rather than stanzas, but with all the same force. My mind immediately flew to You Are Jeff which is, by far, my favourite Siken poem.

Sometimes, I think you don't realize how fantastic a poet you are. I read this four times through just to let it linger enough that it wouldn't feel as constraining. As heavy as it made my chest feel, but it was, and with all the same power as 'Suppose the heart has two heads'. I couldn't get around how similar, and yet completely different this was to that piece, and how you managed this so well, with clarity and metaphors that stung in a way I couldn't imagine writing, let alone feeling firsthand.

I've come to appreciate this prosaic style, more than I can really ever admit. Mostly due to the fact that you take something, and you weave it, and you state it so brazenly and yet you state nothing, and how, though it seems much simpler than a more metaphorical bit, you manage to say more in a few stanza's about what love really even is then a novel of any format, let alone a short story, which this is not.

And, of course, I don't mean love as in the romantic sense. But the lingering pain of love that one lets control you. That constant guilt of knowing exactly what you want and yet the avoidance of it for every other reason, and there are so many reasons here. So much guilt, and not on the narrators own feelings, which are quite straightforward, but of the story itself. How love is not the end all be all, and how it is surely not the answer to our greatest fears.

But you know this. And you wrote it with clarity, and you played it out like it was some universal truth that one should learn to accept before it hurts them too, whether it be for the love of someone who cannot let oneself love, or how it doesn't matter how much you try and change yourself, nor cut your hair, or let truth be known, it is not in us to give what we are afraid of losing.

Damn, Ty.

There's not much else I can really say. Just that, for what it's worth, this piece hurt in more ways than one. The immediate topic, which I fear I know far too well, and the way you could separate the need to feel how unfair this is from what it even is, so that the reader can feel it for exactly what it is, and not a clouded version of what the poet feels should be felt. You left that open. You made it clear so that, no matter the person, we would all feel something completely different from one another (some based on moral complexities as well, I should think, but that of the ones who are open to love of any form, and those who are afraid that they can't love through losing face).

I appreciate this, and you.
~ Beth

I really, really like this one. I'm not sure why, exactly, I love this and don't like the last one. Maybe it's the feeling from the poetry. (Works radiate feelings towards me, usually. Some things I can't touch because of it.)

This one really tells a story, and I love that. I love the formatting, it's like little bits of time you're letting me look at.

Ah, I think I know why I like this. It's the build-up. I'm a sucker for slow growing romance, and you're letting me see the process--I'm getting tangled up in words here, but I guess the point is that I like the picture this gives me.

I like the repetition of the 8-ball and the women selling drugs; continuity is always fun to see.

I like stanza vi. the least. I don't know what a "flat-iron girl" is or why clones are mentioned, the person being killed seems to have nothing to do with the rest of the poem and comes out of nowhere, and "i can't say my alphabet backwards" seems out of place. It's still very you, but it's not the style you've had throughout the poem. It's scattered and there are so many things squished together, and it just seems out of place for this piece. If you're trying to show that his mind works differently at this point in his life, that things are jumbled, then good job--but I didn't understand that by reading it. It doesn't click for me. That may be fine for you, but I'd go back and try to get the same sort of flow you have in the other stanzas, because it's working.

Aside: he's talking about a girl, yes? So the kissing part of that stanza hit me off-guard. (What I'm old fashioned.) She'd just seemed to be into the narrator, so.... I'll leave it at that. Just an observation.

In vii, it's not clear if the narrator means he's sleeping in the same bed with her or sleeping with her. Maybe it is to you; I don't always see these things.

I like the first and last lines of this stanza very much.

Stanza ix.--is the sad clone the one who kissed her? I didn't even understand that much at first, I had to re-read it several times.

On the whole, I have this to say: A;DLFJA;DFJAD LOVE SO MUCH a;djfad;sfjas;ldjfa

I'll go in order.
i. I really like this one, it speaks the truth and very poetically, I think its brilliant. I think it impacts me though because it has happened to me. I think the 'frosted eye' is maybe a memory? I'm not sure though, I found that bit a bit hard to interpret. And the grammar needs a little touching up to, capitals and such.

ii. Again really descriptive. I can start to see a story unfolding. A tragic love story perhaps. I don't understand the first line though with the flat iron, I don't see what it compares too :S

iii. Quite a funny way you desribe this social part, I've heard people do this, and find it really good how you can introduce such an erratic piece of human behaviour to describe the emotional puzzlement of a person.

iv. The love I was thinking about is confirmed here. The part about the fireflies makes me smile, I reallly like the introduction of them, it warms the poem up, comparing them to the embers emphasises this. And I love the technicl comparison of after midnight whether its monday or tuesday. Another real life puzzlement put into context depending on the person it is defines the day. Awesome

v. This shows a true love, but i see a sadness also, it's almost as if the girl ios very touchy with things, and the narrator. But it shows how much he loves her, and how much more he wants to love her.

vi. I don't quite understand this paragraph. I understand the girl kiss girl contact, and it confirms my suspicionn of the girl as a girl that needs to be impressed for her to care for you back, and at this moment she doesn't seem to care an aweful lot about the narrator. And I'm baffled by the 'I can't say my alphabet backwards'. And then there is the repitition of the final line from 2nd paragraph. I'm puzzled by this one :S

vii. I like this one. I see this 'lover' of his a girl who is confused with life. And losing her job and having noone to tell apart from him shows that he is her only real friend, and he is willing to stand by her. I like the way you use the haircut tp describe the ageing of a person. Another relation to 5 years, which I am still to understand the relevance :S Though I like this one and the meaning it has.

viii. I'm really beginning to dislike this girl you have created, she is a manipulator and is manipulating the narrator. The taking away of the toothbrush shows that. Not quite sure of the 'plot twist' part at the end though.

ix. I like the 'mache fodder' phrase, really good imagery there. I can see that he pities her when there is nothing on the love pile, and so he writes that. But why? And I'm still not understanding the 'no women selling drugs tonight'

Overall I think this is an extremely well thought through plot. There is a lot I don't understand within it, but I'm sure that it means something that I don't see yet.

The description you have used are really something, the way you have described certain things really bring them out.

I hope this is some adequat feedback, and thank you for that thought provoking read, it was quite surreal!!

-Skyy