Young Writers Society

Just as a comment from someone who also struggles with anxiety. And I hope this doesn't sound too harsh - because I do not mean it to be taken too harshly. But I think you need to be more careful on how you phrase descriptions of a mental illness that many many people have - because it could end up alienating readers who do not experience anxiety in the way that you have described.

For instance, although many people with anxiety have depression, not all do (just like not all with depression have anxiety) so you're creating a misconception by titling your poem "anxiety" and saying that anxiety causes depression. I would also be wary in comparing people to animals especially ones with such negative connotations like snakes... There are other nervous animals with less negative connotations that you could use.

It's just really important in literary work, when you try to write for a group of people (like a race, or a class, or a group of people struggling with a certain physical or mental disability) that you be careful what type of words you assign to them and avoid large generalizations. This is important to avoid alienating readers and to connect with potential audiences more authentically. One way to remedy this in your poem would be to revise it to make it clearer that you're speaking about your personal experience or from the point of view of one particular person rather than everyone who lives with anxiety. Making it more personal, or narrative could also make the piece more powerful. Just saying "I can tell you from experience" but speaking very generally isn't enough; making it more narrative or personal will make your piece come alive and give readers something to connect with.

The only spelling mistake that I saw was that "your" should be changed to "you're" in line 7.

I'm not sure if like herbgirl's review said you were trying to write this from a comical angle or not, but I think if you're trying to be ironic or humorous you may want to make it a little clearer or bolder - just so the reader knows you're joking. Either way; you chose a quite ambitious and important topic to write about, so one thing that can help with your writing is to really think about what you want to get across to your audience and make that front and center - especially in poetry where there's generally a small word-count it's good to have a lot of focus in your work so that the reader doesn't miss what you want them to know. One suggestion might even be to narrow your topic. Anxiety is huge and encompasses a lot; could you pick a specific experience or aspect to write about?

Best of luck in your future writing and editing!

~alliyah

Hello! herbgirl here for a review!
This is an interesting poem. Your description of anxiety, though pretty accurate, seemed almost comical, especially since you used words like "big bear hug". I'm not sure if this was your intention, but if so, I applaud you on it. I felt it was fairly well executed.
Now, on to the mean part of the review. Sorry if I ever get a little harsh! So, as I said before, I think you did a very good job approaching anxiety from a humorous point of view. However, it causes the poem to lack depth, which I think is important when addressing a topic as monumental as anxiety. You mention that "it causes depression", but if you really want to get to people's emotions or make a statement, I think you need to change more of the poem, get rid of terms like "Like ever," or any sort of imagery that may seem unprofessional. In my opinion, that applies to the snake mode and bear hugs, sorry. But! This is all just my opinion! If you want the poem to go the other way, if you want to keep it humorous, perhaps you should remove the mention of depression. It's all up to you, but I'm not a huge fan of this in the middle sort of thing you have going on right now.
The other big thing that I noticed that I didn't like was the ending. Your last line says, "This fear... It's called anxiety". Now, I don't like this because your title clearly states what the poem is about, and this final line, which should serve as maybe a climactic conclusion, just kind of states simply what the reader already knows. I would advise you to remove this line and maybe add another line about what might happen if the anxiety gets too much. Something simple, that doesn't fully explain, maybe a metaphor that clearly shows what would happen. Again, completely up to you.
Finally, I just had one little grammar thing in line seven. The "your" should be "you're". Easy fix! Just a little typo!
Anyways, I hope this review was some help. I think this poem could be great with just a little more work. I hope I wasn't too hard on you, also, welcome to the site! If you have anything you need help with, or any questions about the review, feel free to contact me! Good luck!
herbgirl