Young Writers Society

All right. I'm going to attempt to review this.

I can tell there's a really good poem somewhere in here, but I'm just not getting it currently, and it's because of one thing: the last line. It just doesn't make sense to me, and since this is such a short poem it's a pretty essential line.

I do have a couple ideas about what this means, so I guess I'll just write them down here and give my suggestions for each.

Our shadows still hide
in Hiroshima
behind anyone who will adopt
their fear,

1. What I gleaned from these lines is that the shadows of the dead (the shadows could also represent the fear of our own dark nature) hide behind people who use the trauma of Hiroshima/the fear that it will happen again as a point in political discussions, a way to raise emotion and get people to agree with them. However, I simply cannot see how the last line would fit in with that, unless you were saying that during the political discussions they "raise" the opinion that Hiroshima somehow wasn't important or isn't relevant anymore. It just doesn't click for me, though.

2. Unless maybe "our shadows" refer to the darker side of human nature, and they hide behind people who claim that humankind has conquered their darker side.

But then why use Hiroshima as an example? To be quite frank, Hiroshima was seventy years ago. There are a lot of more recent events that could be classified as atrocities and used to prove that we haven't conquered our darker side.

3. Honestly, I think what you are trying to say is that Hiroshima is still important, that its repercussions continue, and that the shadows hide behind those that say it's not important anymore. It's a way of showing that those wounds are still there, and honestly I quite like that message. It's definitely powerful. Again, the only problem is that I can't quite understand the message, largely because of the last line. It would also be nice to know what you mean by "their fear." I'd also like to know exactly who the shadows are - the shadows of the people who died in Hiroshima?


What I recommend is to stick to the short and sweet form you've got here, because concise poems like this are very powerful if you've done them right. However, go through with your meaning in mind and try to make it a little clearer, while still sticking with the concise, chilling imagery you've already got.

I wish I could have been a little more helpful, but since I'm not sure what you're trying to say I didn't know how to give you advice. If you do decide to revise this a bit, I wish you the best of luck.

Hello Chips!

Although this poem is short, it makes a point and makes you think. Well done. Of course, I would suggest you make it longer and include some imagery, but I think that would defeat the purpose of this concise poem you have created.

and raise it to no longer exist.

This is the one line that is a bit confusing to me- generally, I would match "raze" to "no longer exist" because you burn something to the ground and nothing is there anymore. Howeve, because this is so short, I can't get a good idea of what you're going for here. "Raise" has a few slightly different definitions, so I'm not sure where you were going with that either.

Anyway, you did a good job with this for something of its length. Maybe I'll read some more of your poetry!

-Falco