The house on Laurel Hill was the place where I discovered what it meant to love where I was.
This was the place where all my anxiety went to lay down its head on Christmas Eve.
It's where the 11 year old me went to remember what she had lost when she was 5 years old.
Where she remembered how to love the fact that she lost it because it felt so much better each and every time she got it back.
This house is where I learned to lose for the rest of my life.
This is where the houses stood upright and the neighbors waved hello and everything didn't seem as though it would crumble when you laid your palm on the surface of it.
Laurel Hill was made of glass, offering me a peek from anywhere I was. This house was only the spokesperson for a place where the faces were friendly and there was still a lap offering you a seat.
This is where the lap held less of you each time you revisited.
Here is where the judgement is replaced by praise and your reality is better than the picture that dance around your brain while your unconscious.
This is where all the secrets can be tucked in a suitcase. They are never out of laughs in the house on Laurel Hill and the refrigerator is overflowing with love.
The tears are made of sugar, I could cry all day.
There is always a place to sit there and always someone to sit with. Although it may not be the face you expected. The house on Laurel Hill will always exist. Even when everyone has moved away.
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125,005 Literary Works • 672,804 Reviews
The house on Laurel Hill is a childhood home. It might not even be real... merely constructed from memories that become more cozy and more October-tinted every year. But it's a dream worth preserving, worth dwelling on each year, if only for its potential to keep one grounded in sanity and to keep one believing in the happier things of life.
Some of us are lucky enough to have our own actual Laurel Hills to come back to every year. Regardless of Laurel Hill's actual or imagined existence, you evoke (and invoke) it very well through your vivid poetry.
I relate with the idea you've constructed here, because as a young adult finding my way into the path I want to lead for the next several decades, I am only learning now what it feels like to love where I am, to find and follow the serenity, to distinguish money-making from working, and to ignore the vampires who haven't yet reached this plane, and who seek to bleed me dry in a vain attempt to quench their bottomless thirst.
But I feel I'm missing a deeper layer in this poem. The speaker references a traumatic event in which the girl lost "something" at the age of five years old. Due to the age, I'm guessing this "something" is not "innocence about the goodness or simplicity of the world". Did the girl lose a parent or a friend at age 5? Does Laurel Hill provide the family that helps her get through the dark times? Hmmmnnnnn, judging by the line "because it felt so much better each and every time she got it back", I guess the loss wasn't the death of a person.
I really like this line: "everything didn't seem as though it would crumble when you laid your palm on the surface of it." For a long time, especially during my teens, I felt this way about social interactions with my peers. To a lesser extent, I feel this way now, in certain adult social environments. Your description of Laurel Hill reminds me of how I feel when I go home to visit my family, and the Fail Field around me just vanishes like smoke. Everything becomes so much simpler, and the people so much kinder and more understanding.
While I adore your poem and its subject matter, I do have some minor criticisms/suggestions: replace
"Here is where the judgement is replaced by praise and your reality is better than the picture that dance around your brain while your unconscious."
with
"Here is where the judgement is replaced by praise, and your reality is better than the picture that dances around your brain while you're unconscious."
I do think you could sprinkle in a few commas in choice sentences, in order to break up long sentences, and make the flow of the poem more leisurely. I tend to read long sentences with no breaks faster than those with breaks. This messes with the leisurely, spiritual tone of your poem.
Honestly, in a heart-felt way, read your poem and evaluate where the flow could be slowed in order to achieve a nicer effect. Here are my suggestions; take them or leave them:
"Where she remembered how to love the fact that she lost it, because it felt so much better each and every time she got it back."
"For the rest of my life, this house is where I learned to lose."
"This is where the houses stood upright, and the neighbors waved hello, and everything didn't seem as though it would crumble when you laid your palm on the surface of it."
"Laurel Hill was made of glass, offering me a peek from anywhere I was. This house was only the spokesperson for a place where the faces were friendly, and where there was still a lap offering you a seat."
"This is where the lap held less of you each time you visited."
"Here is where the judgement is replaced by praise, and where reality is better than the haunting picture that fills your mind's eye while you're unconscious."
"They are never short of laughs in the house on Laurel Hill, and the refrigerator is overflowing with love."
"The tears are made of sugar; I could cry all day."
"There is always a place to sit, and always someone to sit with... although the face of your companion may not be the one you expected. For the house on Laurel Hill will always exist, even when everyone has moved away."
Hi again!
So first off, great imagery here. I can't really say much about it, but know it was very well written.
The ending and beginning were also very good. The way it ended hit on a note that really keeps you thinking after your done. The beginning is a good sentence to draw people in.
A few nitpicks:
Numbers should be spelled out, not written in numerical form. It looks a lot nicer.
I think you mean "laid" not "later" here. Just a simple typo
This was a good piece,lots of nice imagery as I said before, great work.
Keep up the good stuff!
~Fire
Great job! It started and ended strong. I especially liked the part that said, "The house on Laurel Hill will always exist. Even when everyone has moved away." This page, although short, has a lot of emotion in it. Just a few thing I would change.
1. "Where she remembered how to love the fact that she lost it because it felt so much better each and every time she got it back."
I think this sentence might flow a bit better if it was broken up or simplified just a little bit.
2. "This is where the houses stood upright and the neighbors waved hello and everything didn't seem as though it would crumble when you later your palm on the surface of it."
If you read through this one, the last part about crumbling when you put your palm on the surface didn't really make sense.
Other than that, I didn't really see any errors. I really liked it's descriptions and how the words really put an image into your mind. I can't wait to read more from you!
Hi Hippy!
Thanks for posting! I'm Elinor, and I'm here to give you a review.
Welcome to YWS! I hope you like it here.
I'm interested in this piece, and I think it has a lot of potential, so I'd be curious to see what you do with a revision. It's short and sweet, and has a classic feel to it. But I was confused as to whether or not you wanted this to be a poem, or a story, since this isn't broken up into stanzas. It could work either way- I could even see this being an illustrated children's book.
Just a quick note before I get into the nitty gritty of my review: as a general rule, it's good to spell out numbers. So 5 becomes five, and 11 becomes eleven. It just helps the literary quality of your piece.
There's a lot of good description in regards to what the house on Laurel Hill looks and feels like, and I have a sense that it's significant to the narrator. But I don't know why. I'm confused about who "you" and "she" refers to, and what exactly happened to the narrator. Fleshing this out could help your piece a lot.
Let me know if you have any questions!
Best,
Elinor
I really liked this poem! Very good work!
Hello!
because of all these images here. they're unique, new, and different. They're not things I've heard a thousand times before. That's a very good thing.So, for the start of your poetry career, this poem is pretty solid. I really like what you have going on here, with all the images and memories. I think my favorite part was:
I think you have two kind of big problems with this. Let's go easiest first.
You have a lot of technical issues. A lot was wrong with your grammar. For example:
"The tears are made of sugar, I could cry all day." -- this is two separate sentences. You should separate them by a semi colon, colon, or by a simple period.
"better than the picture that dance around your brain while your unconscious. " -- two mistakes here. First, it should be pictures (plural) rather than picture. Or, if you just want one picture, then dance needs to be dances. Secondly, "your unconscious" should be "you're unconscious" because "your" indicates possessing something, and "you're" is a contraction for "you are." When in doubt, try expanding the contraction and seeing if that makes sense. Alternatively, say "my" in place of "your" to see if that makes sense.
There are quite a few other grammar mistakes. If I just told you all sorts of things you already knew and were rolling your eyes at my explanation, sorry. But you never know who needs tips with grammar, and there's nothing wrong with getting them. Let me know if you need further help in this respect.
Another thing you might want to consider is breaking this up into stanzas. As it is, it is a CHUNK of text. That tends to turn people away. If this was totally not a stylistic choice and you meant it to have stanzas etc. I can tell you how YWS's publishing gizmo works so you can break it up some. Somehow I feel like you meant it to be in this chunk though. And that's fine, it is your choice. I've just noticed that an audience's attention is most likely to be held when a piece is broken up into more manageable bits.
Important thing number two:
I feel like you have a lot of extra words in this, extra things that don't need to be said, along with awkward phrases.
For the extra things, this kind of goes along with putting it into stanzas. People love short things. I don't know what it is, but the shorter, the more likely to hold someone's attention. Now many things can not be properly conveyed in seventeen syllables like in a haiku. Don't feel bad if your poem IS long. Feel good knowing that everything in your poem is essential. Every word moves the poem somewhere, has a purpose.
Now that's really hard to do. Sometimes you have lines and phrases and words you really love. But sometimes you have to do it for the greater good of the poem. Go through and evaluate every single sentence individually to look for words and phrases you don't need or that are confusing your point rather than helping it. Then, go through the whole piece and evaluate the sentences as a whole. I think you should find yourself with at least a slightly shortened poem, if not a really shortened one. And that will help pack your meaning and emotion into a tighter, more effective package.
Another thing you have here is awkward wording. The best strategy I have for you is to read the poem out loud. Read it out loud several times. If how you're wording something in the poem isn't how you'd word something in a casual conversation with someone, it's is almost guaranteed to be awkward. Try reading it out loud to someone else, too. I find it's easier to catch mistakes when there's someone else also listening.
If you need any help with these things or examples of what I think are awkward phrases, just let me know!
Keep writing! You're on the right path!
~fortis