Warning: This work has been rated 18+ for violence.
Kkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk
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139,457 Literary Works • 672,565 Reviews
D*******!
Speechless.
Hello, Aaraju. I'll do my very best to give you a constructive poetry review!
This a poem with a very strong, provocative theme and I commend you for being able to write about it. I think it's also very important because it addresses men who have been sexually assaulted, which is a topic not discussed too often. I think it's really important to get this message out more.
I think that you took a good route in choosing to essentially narrate the horrible event, because it seems that even the subject of the poem is himself distant from the rape. I'm not entirely sure if I'm being as clear as possible with trying to convey my point, but there is something almost matter-of-fact about this poem which is so powerful and jarring. I do agree with alliyah that using some more metaphors might help as well. I think they would bolster even more the strength of the poem.
I struggled with some wording with your poem. I understand that you tried very hard to make it work to a specific meter, but this was sometimes at the expense of the poetry itself. The awkward wording just felt a little forced, and I would encourage you to explore how you can manipulate your words a little more, your form a little more, to something that is more conducive to the poem and its message.
There is something so raw about this poem, and it takes a lot to write something like this. Well done.
Lavvie
Thank you so much for your review. I am new to poetry and I don't really know how to write poems. But I will keep what you said, in mind.
Hi Aaraju! Here as requested to review you poem.
So, first off this poem has some really heavy content that I think you handle that really well in the piece. I think there are some areas that could be worked on to improve the piece though.
Flow and Phrasing
In some places the flow of the sentences and lines gets a bit strange.
In this sentence for instance: "While I feel so helpless, so hurt every second of my life,
As I see him, flashes back that entire night." it sounds like you're trying to say too many things at once, and as a reader I lose track of where the sentence is going. I would suggest making the sentence shorter (with one subject) or breaking it into multiple sentences.
This would be one alternative: "I feel so helpless, so hurt every second of my life. // The entire night flashes back in an instant when I see him."
There were a few more places like that, that I'll point out for you.
Here: "In the silence of the midnight all I could hear was the footsteps of two" -> no need for "the" before the word "midnight".
In these two lines: "I walked to him with a cup of soup as he stood with a stare so frightening //
I handed it to him but he grabbed my body 'stead and I started trembling "
I don't think you need to say that the stare was "frightening" and I'm not sure why it's "stead" rather than "instead". Try to eliminate words that are unnecessary to moving the narrative along or words that don't add to tone or description. Sometimes people say poetry is the best words said in the right order. And I think that's a good way to put it. Try to take out the words that aren't yet "the best" and try reading your piece aloud to improve the flow of the piece. You have a good start, but here and there we have unneeded redundancy or wordiness.
The same issue happens again in this line: "it was all so threatening" -- the description you give already establishes the threat, so there's no need to say it again. This takes away from your description.
Overall Impressions/Theme
I think the theme here is really strong, I interpreted this piece as intending to use a specific moment to draw attention to how survivors of assault might feel especially when they are male, and others might not think of them as victims. A very worthy theme indeed to draw attention to these survivors, and also the lasting harm that sexual assault causes. I thought it was a good choice not to go too graphic into details here, because really I think the emotional pull is a really strong focus here. I think your descriptions certainly will draw the reader into feeling sorrow and fear for the speaker in the piece.
My only suggestion for improving upon the theme would be to not just rely on emotional and physical descriptions, but maybe add in some metaphors or more figurative language as well to bring the piece to the next level. Some added figurative language would let the reader linger on each moment of the piece a little longer, and I think would help it leave a more lasting impression than just bluntly going through the events of the approach and attack.
Well done on this piece, and I look forward to reading more of your work in the future! Please let me know if you have any questions or comments about my review!
Best,
~alliyah
I had edited this poem before you posted this review but you have reviewd the earlier one. Why is that so?
Ahh, I do see you've made some edits. I made my comments on Flow/Phrasing with the old copy, saved my review then came back to it to evaluate the theme. Sometimes I like to come back to a work to process it after I've made comments about grammar and what-not. It seems you must have already made edits between when I first started writing the review and when I finished. My apologies. Sorry about that! I do like the edits you've made though which relates to my comment about the "night flashing back".
Oh okay. Thank you so much for the review. I am new to poetry. Do you have any tips for me for writing poems,
No problem! My biggest tip would be to keep writing, just like most things -- practice makes writing easier. The more you write, the more ideas you have to work with, and the more you get to experiment and find your own style. Another tip would be in order to write good poetry, you should read good poetry -- there's a lot of neat modern stuff out there in addition to more classic poets. On YWS we have good resources for poets as well that you can check out:
Poetry Tutorials Let me know if you're ever in need of an extra review - I'd be happy to help.
Thank you so much for your tips. I really appreciate it.
Hey there Aaraju! Thanks for sharing your poem!
I second myjaspercat on all of the grammar related things, first and foremost.
One particular thing that I noticed while reading this is that for one thing, I didn't expect it to go down the path of the narrator being raped. It caught me by surprise. I thought you did that well. Initially, I felt the rape scene was a bit rushed, but after reading it over I think it is alright. If this is a true story, I fully respect your creative decisions, so if some of the stuff I am saying doesn't exactly fit how it happened, then that's totally fine.
Anyway, some of your descriptions were less on emotion and more on outward appearance (not all), but I think maybe this poem would benefit from some more emotions from the narrator. I didn't quite get the sense of the narrator being broken and helpless even though you said it.
Also wanted to mention the last line. I know last lines often tie everything together or leave readers with a message. Were you trying to bring awareness of the fact that male rape/abuse is often under-reported? Just curious if you feel comfortable sharing.
Overall, I enjoyed the poem, but I think it might be more intense if the reader is really immersed in the situations, as well as fixing all of the grammar stuff.
Hope you have a nice day/night!
~iamanaspiringwriter
Hey there Aaraju,
Myjaspercat here to review your poem.
Line-by-Line/Nit-Pick
Overall
So, before I get on with the rest of my review, I wanted to say something. If this is based off of true events then I am deeply sorry for whoever it is that had to go through this. ( I don't know if it was you or not and I don't want to assume as to not offend anyone.) Anyway, no that that is out of the way, let's get on with the rest of the review...
The first thing I wanted to mention was the formatting of your poem. Now I understand that sometimes people choose to leave every word at the beginning of lines capitalized however it can become very jarring to your reader. Especially here where you obviously have distinguished lines. So, unless it is absolutely necessary to your readers to have every line capitalized, I would suggest only capitalizing those that are the beginning of sentences. Just like you would do in prose.
Also, along with capitalization, this has to do with the formatting of the poem. You do have punctuation, however it kind of lacks a bit. Most of your punctuation falls in the middle of your lines, while you have very few in at the ends. So far, your second and third stanza reads like one large run-on sentence, which isn't good. Make sure to add all at that ending punctuation so your readers know when one idea ends and another begins. --I added some places where I feel punctuation might be useful--
Second, I noticed you use coordinating conjunctions a lot.
Incase you didn't know: COORDINATING CONJUNCTIONS (FANBOYS)
for, and, nor, but, or, yet, so
Coordinating conjunctions join equals to one another:
words to words, phrases to phrases, clauses to clauses
While the places you do have them aren't grammatically incorrect, I personally feel that there are just too many. Maybe playing around with the wording/phrasing of your lines would help a bit.
Other then that, I think the line by line cover is all. If you have any question please feel free to ask. Good luck and continue writing.
Thank you so much for taking your precious time and reviewing my poem. You have given me every detail about what should be corrected. I have changed most of the things you wanted me to change. Thank you very much. I really appreciate it.
Of course, I'm just glad to be able to help