Young Writers Society

Wow, beautiful imagery and fluid writing; this poem was fantastic! You did a great job of showing the dark side of an amazing place. I really like your style of writing, I could feel the rhythm of the poem very well in most spots.

You should work on the different sentence lengths though, some of them were very wordy when they didn't need to be. For instance:

“An older man refuse to leave his bench on a bus stop even though the newspaper over his head is now running ink down his face."

It felt as if you didn't put much effort into the rhythm of this line, like you just wrote a sentence and part of it didn't fit so it ended up on the next line. Maybe you could break it up, for example:

“An old man refuses to leave his bench at a bus stop,
even though the newspaper over his head
is now running ink down his face."

There were very many lines that should also be broken down, and one more in particular:

The zoo is closing, and large Cuban families are mumbling old, Spanish profanities under their breaths as they are evicted."

Might sound better as:

The zoo is closing,
And large Cuban families are mumbling old
Spanish profanities under their breath
as they are evicted.

You should edit again, but overall it was a great poem. I especially liked the last stanza where you wrote: “in my concrete jungle." That shows that despite its flaws, this is your home and you love it.


Just keep writing-
Killyouwithwords

This is a very interesting poem that is very literal and captures the sense well. Overall I say that the whole piece is a job well done.

Outside birds are hiding in their nests.
Floridian crocodiles are peeking their big eyes up through swampy water.
Turtles are hiding under the dock.
Cars are zooming on the highway, ignoring all but the radio.

and drag it’s heavy fingers through mounds of seaweed and garbage.

Hi KittyBee,

I think you have an interesting poem here, it's obvious you have strong feelings for Florida and the way you've written this shows you want to expound of every aspect of the place. That said, I think you have more than one poem here. I say that because you have a lot of images and they all deserve to be spoken about and explained, but there are too many of them at the moment to look at each one in the way they deserve. You list a lot of the descriptions and then throw in some true imagery so I think I feel a back and forth tug between them.

"The ocean is angry." for example, is a much better image than the turtle under the dock, because you can feel that, the grey sea pounding forward. I would love to see more of this kind of description, and ones like the old man with ink down his face. Because they are the kind of thing I think this poem wants to say. Even though the cars and turtle and stuff are important to a story I think this poem is mostly about the storm. I love the image of the beggars, but again think they might fit in that other poem, the one which is about the cosmopolitan Florida, not about the stormed out Florida - you might think they're the same creature, but for me (as someone who has never been to Florida) this poem suggests that there are two sides. To clear it up, you'd need to condense some of that imagery, consider which ones are the most important and use those to begin with. I think you could easily use a lot of this poem for one or two more poems on top of the main one.

I really do like this image of Florida you give, but it needs to be tighter in imagery and meaning for me, at least. You're going in totally the right direction, but I think this poem needs to be broken up.

Thanks for posting. If you have any questions, queries or just want to chat, hit me up.

- Penguin.

Take with salt; mind with care.

The window is cold with tropical rain.
The leaves of palm trees are scratching at its glass.

Outside birds are hiding in their nests.
Floridian crocodiles are peeking their big eyes up through swampy water.
Turtles are hiding under the dock.
Cars are zooming on the highway, ignoring all but the radio.

The ocean is angry.
It’s sending grey waves with tints of green to crash against pale sand
and drag it’s heavy fingers through mounds of seaweed and garbage.
Cigarette butts are drowning.

Heavy winds are sending the pine needles soaring like Seminole spears through the air.

Everybody’s suburban driveway is flooded with a stream of dirty rainwater.

Ducks have begun to swim in the small lakes that were once people’s front yards.

Miami apartment owners are cursing the sun right now.
And a man behind the register of a gas station is hoping that those thugs keep their distance.
The Zoo is closing, and large Cuban families are mumbling old, Spanish profanities under their breaths as they are evicted.
Beggars on the high way wave signs up into the sky with their grey, long sleeve shirts that say

“Will work for food”

“Trabajará para la comida”

Fishermen are winding in their catches, and quickly searching for some shore some where.
A Haitian woman loses signal from a phone call to her younger brother.
She starts crying.
An old man refuses to leave his bench on the bus stop even though the newspaper over his head is now running ink down his face.
The bus is turning through puddles to get to him.

When it rains here, in my oceanic concrete jungle,
everybody freezes
and with every fast pacing drop
another hair of sanity falls onto a cosmopolitan floor.