Things To Tell A Teenager

Hello LadyAstella,

Well, its something sort of funny that you, being 14, are giving advice for the whole teenage years that extend up to 19.

Let's go pointwise.
ONE!
It is during the teenage period that one needs to realize that no one is perfect and that there is actually nothing such as absolute 'good'.
TWO!
Ohk this is something I will partially agree with. You should express yourself but
1) that should not be limited to clothes and
2) you need to learn to respect others.
THREE!
You do not have skills good enough to flaunt at such an age. It's the time when you should actually develop your skills.
FOUR!
As I said, you need to realize that no one is perfect (that includes you as well). In order to get a better support mechanism, you need to be a part of a better support mechanism for others as well.
FINALLY!
I agree with being real and true to yourself because that is what that will matter the most.

At last, a piece of advice from my side to the teenager who wrote this. It's this age that makes people egocentric, in fact, egomaniac and it is during this age that this world will burden you with its thoughts so do some meditation, that will really help.
And yeah, my intention is not to offend.
Have a good day.
Keep calm and enjoy your teenage years.

Fuck

Hi LadyAstella! First, I really love the message you are trying to get across. Although the teenage years are supposed to be the "spotlight of life," for most they aren't because of being held back by most of these items. This hit home for me in a lot of ways and I really connected with it. Second, I would remove at least some of the cursing. It takes the focus off of the message and more onto the actual words. I wouldn't take all of it out. Some of it is needed but don't use it excessively. And lastly, I would elaborate on the four points a little more using more imagery and examples (I loved the 1, 5 people, 50 people. It helped to make the message clearer and easier to understanding). Please remember these are just my opinions. I loved this! I can't wait to read more from you!

-Hermione2001

Hey LadyAstella! Interesting piece here, I really like when people go for the motivational speech category - I think it's interesting and can be very empowering.

So, while I'm normally not a huge fan of all-caps in poetry or anywhere else. I felt like it actually worked in here, since I think you were really trying to indicate the speaker was yelling these descriptions. And the swearing, capitals, and over-use of exclamation marks all made it more dramatic and exciting. I certainly felt like I could hear the speaker screaming this as I was reading. And that's pretty good for poetic voice actually!

Now I will say, like Brumal indicated, there's a down-side to using so much profanity and not sticking to grammatical conventions - and that is that it's going to kind of intimidate and alienate some readers. Some folks just don't like swearing, and this might turn them off.

However, another consideration is that if being 'true to yourself' is using your own language and grammatical rules for you/the speaker. Then I totally approve, because it's good when form mirrors content. Or when the content of the piece actually does what it's saying it will do. To try to self-edit and hinder your expression, when that's something you tell readers not to do would be hypocritical. So I guess all I'm saying on that ultimately, is that there are negatives and positives to your formatting/language choices.

I like that your speech/poem was fairly short and in a cleanly numbered list. You'd think this would be obvious, but people's attention spans are so short with any sort of informational piece, that it's really essential if you want your message to get across to be as succinct as possible. And I didn't feel like you were redundant in any way, but really got to the point.

One aspect of suggestion that I'll give you is I think there could be some personal examples or stories. How has this advice helped you? How have you applied it to your life? A motivational speech is like any other speech intended to convince the readers of an opinion - it needs evidence! And sometimes good evidence can come from personal antidotes or examples. This would even help the piece have more of an emotional connection with the readers.

Overall, I thought the advice was alright, but I'd like to see you warrant it out a bit more.

Hope this helped, enjoy your day!

~alliyah

Salutations!

I don't usually review poetry, so I hope this review will be useful to you! I looked up some information on poetry in any case (just so I don't sound completely ignorant). This is free verse, luckily, so interpretation ought to be more useful than technical analysis.


As a random note before I begin, I think it's nice that you show such care for your reader's reaction to the poem. The age and language lables ought to be enough, but it's sweet that you err on the side of caution on a site for young writers. As a mod, thanks!

Hmm, not quite what I was expecting! I'd personally say this is more a work belonging to the "Other" category than poetry, but hey, I'm not a poet, so I can't say what poetry is and isn't. You say it's a poem, so it is! Having said that, I think it could use some refinement. Now, I don't mean that in a bad way, but because your poem is free verse and employs profanity, I'd expect this to be impactful and empowering. That's definitely for what you were aiming. However... it feels underwhelming and mostly just vulgar.

See, curses are simply words that allow us another way in which to express ourselves, usually by shocking the target audience. Your message has good intent behind it, but because it's not as polished as it could be, it seems mostly (apologies for the stereotype, but it's just for the sake of comparison) like a foul-mouthed teenager shouting to other teenagers that they should rebel against society's expectations and do whatever they want. Technically, that's exactly what you did, but if you want it to inspire people, it needs to be more than that.

Firstly, I recommend using proper punctuation throughout the work. It's a little sloppy, with commas often going missing, two words being fused into one, one word being split into two, and sentences becoming run-on. You could argue you made these errors deliberately, but when Martin Luther King Jr delivered his "I have a dream" speech, he ensured his message was coherent by adhering to the rules of the language. Here, if everything flowed smoothly, readers would focus more on the message, and less on the presentation.

The all-caps adds to the crudeness, and because of the previously mentioned points, it only comes across as immature, rather than encouraging. As with the swears, it also feels like you're using it for no reason besides wanting to draw attention, which in itself is... Well, it achieves the opposite effect from what you'd want. Also, multiple exclamation marks are generally a no-no for the same reason.

I must insist that I understand perfectly what you mean: our self-esteem, self-expression, passion, and identity are all defining features of our lives, and we mustn't allow society to take those away from us. I fully agree! But rebellion for the sake of it is what gives teenagers a poor reputation in the first place. I say all of these things must be defended, but in a civilised way. You don't earn respect by being disrespectful, and you don't get treated like an adult by acting like a child. Perhaps you could incorporate such ideas into your message? It's just a suggestion - do what you like.

Finally, you need a reason for the teenage reader to care about your poem. Why must they feel these things you describe? How will it alter the way they view the world? Ultimately, you need to find a way to affect the reader, and there are many ways you can do this in writing. Use imagery, analogies, sentence length, figures of speech, all the tools at your disposal to reach into the human mind and move it. This "poem" doesn't do any of that, frankly, and it's a pity, because you have the energy to make that possible.


I recommend starting by polishing the format and technical presentation of the work, just so that you get a grasp on making a poem as visually striking as possible. After that, I'd then consider how you will make the text more than just words - you need to make it powerful. Channel your passion!

~ Hunter