Young Writers Society

this is something different that you have presented over here. it is quite interesting and i like your use of words. your poem just came alive and its very vivid and real.
i have very few flaws to nitpick , howsoever i would suggest a few so that you do even better next time-
" get a handle"- the word handle is drawing the strongly built language a bit low. try other phrases or words. i suggest you use - " trying to get hold", or " trying to realize", you have good a good stock so think over it and i am sure you would come up with something appropriate.
" only bad people say bad words"- why are your thoughts regarded as bad here. and if you really wanted to spit them out but you couldn't have gathered enough courage to do so, then are you considering yourself as this ''bad''?
" i am not suicidal"- i can see a ray here at the end but i am unable to make out whether you mean it in a positive sense, or you just choose to live in depression. perhaps an answer to my question would be very helpful.
i like your style of writing, the use of brackets is quite smart.
keep writing and i would like to review them
Rituparna

Spark!

So I could read this entire poem without the parantheticals and still retain all of the poem's meaning. I think that form-wise, the stuff in paranthesis do look pretty, it sort of balances the poem out, but the stuff inside it doesn't do much. When you say "drank bleach" there's no other picture in mind other than drinking it straight from the bottle, so it's not really needed. The "isn't that what you tell me?" is a needless question to ask a reader, because we don't know whether that's what he tells the speaker or not. The "only bad people say bad words" is already expressed in the poem's constant contrasting of clean and dirty elements. The only unhappy people kill themselves I like better as an ending line than "I'm not suicidal" but I'd say choose one or the other and not both, because say it once, say it right. Right?

Let's go back to the clean/dirty motif, I love the idea. It's the guilt before the pleasure or something, I forget how it goes - that struggle of trying to do right when that inner voice of the speaker feels and sees only the trauma of dark thoughts and deeds and guilt. I like this inner struggle, but I think the element that this piece is missing is the why? Why is the speaker so tantalized by this guy's words? I think being able to show that part will allow us more room to empathize with the speaker's struggles. That is, if my interpretation of some toxic sort of relationship is the correct interpretation xD I kind of imagine a toxic relationship that the speaker cannot get out of and still tries hard to cling to. But we have to understand the clinging, or at least sympathize with it in order to connect us a bit closer to the struggle, otherwise it's like telling your whole life's story to a stranger - we're not close enough to care. Maybe doesn't have to be a relationship, it could just as well be a fantasy/ idolization.

Those are my thoughts. I can talk this out more any time. Lemme know if any of this helps.

~ as always, Audy

Hello! Tigerlilly here for a review!

This was a great poem, and it held lots of meaning. I really hope you don't feel this way or do these things, because there are always people out there who care for you, whether you see it or not. I love how you always have the denial, and off to the side you have the reasons for your denial, almost as if you don't want to believe what you have become. Its just a wonderful flow, which makes it a great read.
If I had to find something to critique, I would have to pick the grammar. I am sorry, but I am a true grammar Nazi. I feel like you should have punctuation at the end of each particular sentence, and capitalize where the sentences begin, or even at the beginning of each line. However these are my opinions, and like I said, I'm just a grammar Nazi.
I really love this poem. Its very deep, and I really enjoyed it. I look forward to reading more of your work, and great job!
(By the way, I don't think you are all that bad at poetry, and you are definitely not stupid!)

Hi LadySpark,

I am generally loathe to critique poems such as this because I think they mean a lot to the person who wrote them and there is something positive in the therapeutic nature of writing poetry. But to the reader I think this fails because you are navel-gazing.

This deals with the narrator and does not go beyond that: it does not talk about or deal with anything greater than that. You have degenerated into self-absorption and it means your poem offers nothing to the external reader. Every poet starts by writing poems like this. It is the easiest way to express yourself. But if you want to get to the point where your poems are enjoyed by others, you have to turn away from simple navel-gazing and gaze elsewhere, with wider lenses and bigger eyes. Of course, poetry comes from within so in a way this can feel like odd advice. What I suggest is to use your feelings from within to always drive your poetry but write it in a way that can include the reader, too. There is value in gazing inside ourselves - the great William Faulkner himself said the only thing worth writing about is the "problems of the human heart in conflict with itself." But what I think Faulkner wanted was not just the narrator's heart, but the great conflicts of everyone's hearts, to be written about.

What readers of poetry want is to hear your words express the interior truths of small lives, not simply the interior truth of YOUR life. They want to be able to nod and smile and feel the truths you have revealed, rather than look at your poem from outside the glass: they want to be inside, too. I think the great sadness of contemporary poetry is that so much is written about the self, about the narrator, about their navel, and no-one else's. I want to see you try something bolder and more experimental and BIGGER.

Try it: you might surprise yourself.

Hi! Great work! Superb poem! Love the format used! Especially when it comes to the words in bracket

Ooh...and good work with the spelling!

Just thinking it would be better off as horror, dramatic!

Great work!