Young Writers Society

You have some good imagery going on in this poem, both with actual images (“caked in splattered whites and yellows of old Halloween tricks”) and the way your line breaks relate to the poem. My two favorite spots are these.

Paint peels on the outside, muted colors interrupted
By vibrant tags sprayed across a cracked background

Those that do pass through,
keep their appearance brief

In the first, I like that the word “interrupted” is in a line that is, itself, interrupted by a line break. In the second, I like that this stanza about “brief” interactions is only two lines long. If I hadn’t heard you read this, I would suggest to take a pause both before and after that stanza so listening audience members get the same feeling from listening to that stanza that I did from reading—but since I did hear it, I know you did it, so well done there.

The consonant sounds are pretty good—I paid close attention to them on my last read-through and felt good about the consonant sounds in words like “splintered,” “locked,” “littered,” and “caking.” “Door sprinkled in sinking depressions” was a particularly good line for sound. Overall I feel like this could use more in the way of sound, however. It does depend how you perform, though. I don’t know if your actual performance differed from what I heard on your audio clip, but that sounded more like a straightforward reading.

So on the assumption that the audio clip is the same way you’d perform this live, I’d suggest modulating your pace so that it’s not so steady the whole time. In particular, when I read it aloud, I chose to speed up at these points.

By vibrant tags sprayed across a cracked background
Door sprinkled in sinking depressions,
the knob left covered in dust
I can count the people I trust without a full hand

Staying silent when they slink out
as I turn away
-
-
End up seeing more of their shadow than their face
Left wondering what about mine strikes such fear through
Intimidating children that pass casually,
sparking a challenge in a rare few
Not to restore,
but to pry through.
the doors I kept locked,
And boast about the damage they brought

One reason was to put some emphasis on rhyming words, like “dust” and “trust”—those two in particular are an interesting rhyme because “trust” doesn’t come at the end of its line. So I sped up to bring these two words closer together and then gave “trust” a bit of a punch.

(Plus the “interruption” that occurs right before this part stands out more when the rest of the words string together. Similarly, the “brief” stanza seems brief by comparison if the next two lines run into the stanza after that.)

The other reason I liked speeding up some parts was that running through some words gives the poem a feeling of urgency and frustration and anger at being so alone and disheveled and feared. I feel like that fits the tone of the poem.

Finally, three of your word choices bothered me.

Which creak in boons, at the shake of the wind

I’m not sure what you meant here, as “boons” means “gains,” “advantages,” or “blessings.” I guess I could see “creaks in boons” if you used it to mean something like “invites boons” but you used the specific sound that’s made rather than the more generic “invites.” Is that was what meant here? If not, I’d consider another word.

Left wondering what about mine strikes such fear through

“Through” didn’t make sense to me, especially since the next line doesn’t seem like a continuation of this one. Additionally, since “though” would make sense, I wondered if it was a typo…but then I listened to your reading, so I guess it’s not.

And boast about the damage they brought
-
Oblivious to the damage they deal

This doesn’t confuse me, but you use the word “damage” twice in close proximity, which sounded repetitious but not enough to be the on-purpose-poetic kind of repetitious. You might want to consider using a synonym for one of these.

Well, I hope that helped! I don’t write as much poetry as I used to, so I don’t review it at all. I enjoyed this, anyhow.