Young Writers Society

Hello!

Specifics

1. You've tackled the formatting well and it's a very subtle sonnet, not really roaring in your face but getting the job done all the same.

2. I feel you need to use stronger language. There's no phrase at the end of this that stands out to me or goes away with me and there should be at least something to take away from a poem, even if it's only a thought or idea. I struggled to find that in this and I think part of my issue is that your language is very common place and if there were just a few more unusual pairings or phrases slipped in there, you'd have a lot more power.

3. I'm not sure about the repetition of trace in stanza one. On the one side it pulls me back into the poem just when I was slipping out, but I'm not sure that it's in a good sense because it bothered me. It left me thinking about the word instead of following it to the next line. On a second reading I thought it worked well, but usually it's the first that counts so I'll leave that observation with you.

4. The changed in tense at the end of the first stanza is confusing. The boxes are to be filled and yet the last word suggests she has already moved. This would also be the perfect chance for a more abstract image, right at the end of the first stanza when the reader isn't expecting it because your lines have all been so logical and straight forward to follow. And I do feel you need something like that. Start thinking on the next level: what does this move symbolise or what might symbolise this move? What would help us understand the relationship between these two people? Are they like a wishbone, two paths initially joined and then curving outward? Give us something physical or something abstract that we can apply to them so that we can know and connect with them on another level.

5. The only part I really like about the second section, other than the lovely tone you've built throughout, is the observation that the distance between them is longer than the drive down. Apart from that, I found it very lacking in substance or new information. Stanza one tells us that she's helping her grandmother move and it tells us that there's some distance between them, or at least suggests there is because the tone is downcast and solemn. But this second stanza doesn't seem to add in any new elements. It doesn't explain why this distance is here or give us a sense of what might happen after the move or because of it.

Overall

I think this needs more content and more power behind the words and it doesn't have to be loud and flashy as that would ruin the really good, casual, smooth tone you've got going. What you need is something subtle but interesting. I want to see you use this casual tone to your advantage to trip up the reader and to sneak in a few surprise attacks.

I'm struggling to explain myself somewhat so I'm going to use an example:

Remember hiding under your bed
and finding yourself;
the yoyo that skirted
out of your hand;
a pound the tooth fairy left
after you stopped believing.

Here the poet uses a similar simplicity of language as the base, but there are a few unusual things coiled into that which is what gives it a punch. There's the abstract but also physical value of finding yourself and then there's some childhood connotations on the belief in the tooth fairy. It's nothing very out there but it's just enough to get the reader's thoughts turning around on another level as well as the physical value of the poem and cements that element of memory. Which is something I'd like to see more in this piece. Moving house is about what you leave behind as well as what you take forward. The focus on the relationship between the two is too narrow and I'd like more of the grandmother's character in flashes of items that are being taken or left.

Hopefully this gives you a few ideas. Best of luck!

Heather xx

Walker here, as requested.

I like the tone of this. The way the theme is lonesome and not overplayed when it comes to the melodrama of it all. Themes like these can get very overbearing when it comes to the raw emotion of it all, and I fear many chance to let it get the best of them. In this case, the simplicity of silence as a symbol for realization seems an apt enough way of explaining pain itself without really having to explain pain as a whole, and in explicit detail.

So for that, thumbs up.

Now, when it came to the poem itself, I found I got trapped in how unsubtle the entirety of it all was. Not necessarily the tone, which was lovely by any means, but the diction and style of imagery. It's plaintive, and obvious. Straightforward in a way that poetry shouldn't really be. When you read a poem and you feel a poem, the poem itself should leave you questioning but also affected. Reading this didn't really affect me. It sort of toyed with my need to feel some certain amount of pity for the undesirable situation, but I didn't feel the words the way I felt for the narrator, and the narrator had, in no way, connected with me.

Which is a difficult thing to do, and I only say it because thats really the next step for you. Not merely creating a situation, seeing as poetry is only a small fraction of the poet's intent. A poem is not meant to be understood in the way prose is. Not processed as one immediate layer of emotion with one fragment of a story to follow. It should be facets, interweaving, whether that be through metaphor itself, or strings of emotion through emotional imagery. Pathetic fallacy, for instance (weather), or personification. All those hated words in English class that no one ever wanted to listen to because it had absolutely nothing to do with the feel of a poem.

But it is so ridiculously necessary for a strong poem. Without poetic device, even in a free-versed poem, you have very little that makes this any different then a well spaced paragraph.

Not saying, of course, this is bad. It's actually rather good. The lines are clear, the imagery straight-forward and intense. You get what you want across, but you left out the aesthetics in the meantime, which is a big part of creating the most necessary part of a poem.

And thats the ache.

Have you ever read a really good poem and sat there afterwards just feeling it in the pit of your stomach? Like something clicked in the back of your head and you just knew there was nothing quite like it? Thats the ache, and when you create it, you're a poet. Simple as that.

I want to see you create more ache. You have the start. There's a slight burning aftertaste, but I, as a reader, want a burst. Create that burst.

You're good. I bet you, with a little practice, you'll be great in no time.
~ Walker