Don't yell - a poem by Juno

Hey there,
I wanted to start off by saying I loved your use of the anaphora "don't yell"! I think it really helped portray the emotions of frustration and such that (I think) you were trying to show. I could quite literally hear the strong voice repeating it as I read your poem, so again I think it was very effective.
I also loved the line, "I had a name." You strongly expressed the degree to which the antagonist in this story was belittling you, the degree to which they didn't see your worth, but without explicitly using the word "belittle" or something similar. And you did this in a lot of other lines too, as poetry often does, expressing a lot in a little amount of words, so wonderful job.
The last line, "I was barely able to know what emotions I felt," really touched my heart and really helps the reader understand all the more how much the yelling and mocking has beat down on the speaker's identity.
Overall, I love this poem and don't have much feedback on things to improve. I hope you are doing well and find people you can trust during difficult times even if you don't talk to them about your struggles!

This was really well done! I think you did a really great job capturing the feeling of injustice and unfairness, in addition to emotional suppression.

I also think that you've got some great imagery in here, for example like rolling dice on a table. You managed to tell a little bit more about your narrator as the story went on. First, we see their frustrations, then we see their struggles. We see that they are a kid. We see the relationships around them. Each line helped to push the story forward and show more. That's really impressive. Thanks for sharing your work!

This is so sad. I love it! Keep writing more, you make a great poet!

Hi there. This seems to be the first thing you've uploaded to this site, and it's quite interesting. This refrain of "don't yell" is constant and imposing, and the bulk of the free verse lased between this repeated phrase is soft and personal. It is clearly digging from some emotional reality, but much of the phrasing is hit or miss. There is something to realism and informality that can work, but at times this poem can feel a bit too much like a litany of connected thoughts, or diary entries. There are times when it works, for example one place where you attempt this is "all little things, ran around in her mind. like rolling dice on a table, but the dice just fall through." This is good, vivid picture and striking concept to connect. The idea of these small thoughts "falling through" gives us connotations of helplessness and tiredness in a being, assumedly you. It works well and is the most effective part of the poem in my opinion. The concept itself is fairly relatable, perhaps not exactly to this same severity or extent, but generally putting myself in your shoes here doesn't plead much. Overall, it is quite decent and enjoyable and I hope to see more from you in the future.

hello!! to start off, i hope that you are well! now, i just have to say this is a great piece that i keep coming to, and i am so shocked by the lack of engagement towards this poem. overall, this is a heartbreaking poem that explores so much deep emotions within a shorter structure of a poem. not even just deep emotion, but the trauma that affects someone in various of ways! this poem's purpose isn't to squeeze out sadness out of a reader as much as it can; it doesn't need 'bigger' words or complex language to craft emotion, but instead it first exists as a vulnerable piece with a certain rhythm that sometimes go in and out as flowy prose and written thoughts. this being an expression of thoughts first before focusing on the structure of prose does make this poem more natural in inciting sadness in a reader, i feel.

the more i read, the more the words feel louder. the usage of the lowercase letters feel like a whisper, yet the softer look of the overall poem doesn't take away how certain lines become louder and shaky. i also found the formatting of this poem interesting considering the start of a stanza having a shorter sentence being in bold with it following one thought after. even so with this established formatting, there are specific choices of the poem that does create an emphasis without not coming off as too distracting or forceful (for the sake of inciting emotion). such as how the poem gradually uses "I" (capitalization) as it goes on and the usual formatting being broken with the starter line "yell" in italics and short. which i also just have to just comment: that these are amazing ways of giving emphasis, and i especially appreciate shortness of a line ("yell") being used for emphasis - your decisions come off as subtle and clever, which is great for this piece!

i also take notice to the various ways of how you address yourself. "I" and "you" "her" and at one point, "kid". they all say something about the struggles of perceiving yourself when you're heavily reduced as a human, how one both rejects and internalizes how others perceive them, how one contemplate about needing an escape and lamenting how you can't escape while also reinforcing that lack of escape (for the sake of survival), and this general disturbance related to yelling. while its a smaller detail, it all simply adds to the complexity of how this trauma affects someone in many ways.

there is something to be said about how children are perceived as a child, and while its true, this often results in them being reduced to a dehumanized perception of what a child is. which does feed into a struggle to how much power you perceive yourself to have vs how people perceive what power you have, and how both of these things may blur together due to how people exert their thoughts on your power. like older people feeling justified in yelling at children, and making them have less power at the moment.

many, many, thoughts here are expressed so well. perhaps not in a linear way, and it does in a way that jumps around and blur together, but regardless one is able to *feel* what is being expressed and get the thoughts here. overall, this is heartbreaking, and very complex, and great!! keep writing, but also most of all (again) you are well!!