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Young Writers Society


E - Everyone

The Worry Child

by LizzieH3


They go round and round her head,

Lifeless roses in a graceless garden,

Woeful thoughts in a cursed cradle;

her cursed mind.

--

They dash through her brain,

A wordless library.

A perilous play-room for a reckless child.

A poisoned penitentiary for the innocent girl;

her innocent sanity.

--

Those who don't know,

It's never a matter of will.

Falling into decayed darkness.

--

Those who don't care,

It’s always a matter of will.

Needing a -

--

“Are you okay?”

--

It stops.

They stop.

Just for a moment.

In the cursed cradle.


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Sat Oct 21, 2017 11:42 pm
Kale wrote a review...



Hello there and sorry for the wait. I'm here to review your poem as requested!

First things first, you've got a lot of alliteration going on in this, and as much as I adore alliteration, it felt like there was a bit too much of it for really counter-intuitive reasons, now that I look at the structure of the poem overall.

So let's take the first stanza for example:

They go #00F ">round and round her head,
Lifeless roses in a graceless garden,
A cursed cradle.

The repetition I highlighted in blue acts as alliteration as well, so in this first stanza, we've got three instances of alliteration irregularly spaced but still super close together, which wouldn't necessarily be an issue if the irregularity of the spacing didn't make the instances of alliteration feel so haphazard. Coupled with how vague the images are, and the alliteration feels very obvious, and loud "I am being poetic", rather than fading into the background of the main ideas and subtly enhancing those ideas.

The rest of the poem isn't as heavy on the alliteration, but first impressions really linger, and so each instance of alliteration that follows only adds to the loudness of the already loud alliterativeness.

While cutting down on the alliteration is certainly one way to combat this noise, what I would actually recommend is developing your imagery a bit more, so that the alliterations you employ become less of the focus in favor of the unique take of the subject.

In the case of the first stanza, as I already mentioned, the images are quite vague and nonspecific. Of the images you present, "cursed cradle" has the most potential because there's the hint of contrast and conflict between the concepts of something being cursed and a place where something is born/supposed to be safely kept. As the cursed cradle is repeated in the final line, it's also very clearly a key idea behind this poem, and so developing the contrast and conflict will strengthen the poem even more.

The other fairly important idea was that of the thoughts circling and repeating endlessly (until they don't), but this idea was very much not developed, even though it is referenced in the final stanza as well. And so I think focusing on developing this idea with the cursed cradle, perhaps adding a bit more repetition in structure (rather than word choice), would help strengthen the piece as well.

Right now, structurally, there isn't much in common between stanzas or even lines. There are hints of repetition, such "those who don't", but there aren't enough instances of the repetition for it to really reinforce the repetitious nature of the thoughts being spoken of.

As it stands though, I feel the vagueness of the imagery is the weakest part of this piece, and so I'd recommend exploring the two main images above a bit more, seeing if you can provide more concrete or tangible examples or concepts involving them and their interrelation, and going from there to see if you can reinforce those ideas structurally.




LizzieH3 says...


Thanks this is really helpful x



Kale says...


You're welcome, and I'm glad you found it helpful. :3



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Wed Oct 18, 2017 9:53 pm
alliyah wrote a review...



Hi there! Here as requested to review your poem. :)

So, let's get started!

Meaning/Interpretation
Before I get back to specific feedback I want to cover what I interpreted the meaning of the poem to be. I'm going to connect the title to the first line and assume the "They" is referring to worries that the speaker is experiencing. It sounds like the poem is describing a speaker that is experiencing reocurring worries that keep them stuck in their mind like a prison, all of their thoughts are colored by these worries and it feels like they can't escape. Then the poem goes to describe some of these worries specifically the feeling of "falling" and "needing" -- then the poem explains these worries in the context of the people around the the speaker who say sound like they care (asking "are you okay") when really they don't care. The last two lines are a bit ambiguous because as a reader I'm unsure if the "they" is still referring to the worries or to the people around the speaker. Either way the speaker is continuously caught in this contrasting world of what is reality versus their fears.

I'm not sure if the poem is supposed to be depicting someone who has anxiety, but as I'm reading it, that's sort of the picture I get. It's a good topic that is not covered overly often, but is an important emotion for poets to explore I think.

There are two areas that I think you could work on a bit (and these areas might be useful for looking to future pieces too).

1. Repetition
One area this poem could be improved upon is in the use of repetition. With a poem that describes anxiety or worry, using repetition can be a neat instrumental tool to show how those same worries keep resurfacing or repeating. However, in this piece it felt like much of the repetition became redundant rather than repeating for emphasis or to illustrate emotion.

Here's some areas of redundancy (where there's repetition but no new meaning):
"They go over and over in her head,
Over and over in the poisonedcradle.
The poisoned penitentiary for the innocent girl.
They dash around her mind,
Like a reckless, careless child.
What will they say?
For those who don't know
,"


I color-coded areas where you are saying the same thing twice or more.

Spoiler! :
Basically I'm noticing you say
"fears repeat" -> highlighted in red
"the speaker is a child" -> highlighted in green
"fears are internal => highlighted in blue
"the fears are poison" -> highlighted in black
"the speaker is careless" -> highlighted in orange
"the speaker is unsure" -> highlighted in pink


I think you could say what you're saying in the first 7 lines in a lot more succinct terms. By using the same phrases and ideas multiple times without adding new information you kind of water-down the message and diffuse the interesting new parts. I think the metaphors of both the "mind as a penitentiary" and the idea of a "poisoned candle" are really good, I would suggest delving into those a bit more and trying to cut repetition that's not adding to the message.

In the second half of the poem starting with "It's never a matter of will" you have some really good instances of poetic irony and contradiction where you say one line and then a couple lines later you negate it. This is well done, and I wonder if you could do a little of this in the first half. I think this was probably the strongest aspect of the poem because it forces the reader to say, wait a second why do both those statements make sense if they're in contrast?.

2. Specificity
Moving on to specificity, this is an area that can almost always use improvement (in my pieces included!) but I think you could add a bit more specificity to really connect what you're saying with the reader. Rather than using vaguelly stated worries I would suggest spelling out some more specific/particular/concrete fears that the speaker is facing.

Also you use the words "falling" and "needing" which are both great verbs, but I think they need something following them. -- What specifically is the speaker looking for? How and why are they falling? What is their need? Right now, as a reader there are too many options of what I could fill into those blanks, and I think it'd help if you spelled it out a bit more (even if it was through metaphor or another image).

Lastly I think in the last two lines you should clear up whether the "they" is the worries or the people because that really changes the whole meaning of the poem for me, and it's just not quite clear from the context.

Overall
Overall, I think you've got some great ideas and foundations for this poem with a few areas for improvement. I think this is an important subject and I'm excited to see what else you'll write in the future.

Please let me know if you have any questions about my review.

~alliyah




LizzieH3 says...


Thanks very much for this, it is really helpful, I am just revising it and taking in what you have said.



alliyah says...


You're welcome!



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Wed Oct 18, 2017 9:27 pm
DeerInBacPac says...



Hello, E.E here for a possibly quick review an maybe some utter nonsense! Grim is here as well, drinking hot cocoa. So, lets get started. :D
First thing I notice is that the word "falling" should either have a period after it or a comma. "For those who don't care" should also join this club. At the part "Needing" add "Needing a" it might flow better then. Overall there were no spelling mistakes and few grammars ones so not too shabby. The flow was decent.
Now is when I dissect your poem and see I can get its meaning right! So, in your poem you sure talking about how a girls thoughts are consuming her. Caging her. They will infect her until she falls prey to it completely. All she really wants is someone to ask her if she needs to talk or if everything is alright but none will really listen, truly care.
Overall I loved the poem and it has some depth to it. Plenty will relate to this. I do. Keep up the great work and Happy Halloween! I have to go now, Grim has some dead to care for and I ran out of cocoa for him!




LizzieH3 says...


Thanks so much, this is very helpful and I am really glad you liked it, I didn't know how good it was because it really was just a spillage of my thoughts type thing.



DeerInBacPac says...


No problem Lizzie! Just being honest.



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Wed Oct 18, 2017 9:15 pm
zaminami wrote a review...



Hello LizzieH3! Welcome to YWS! Kara here for a (hopefully) quick review!

love when you joined here's your review as requested!

Give me your soul.

With that aside, I'm not the best at poetry but here we go!

Bold = grammar and flow issues.
Italics = suggestions and overall
Strikethrough = remove
Underline = krazy Kara komments.

Spoiler! :
They go over and over in her head,

Over and over in the poisoned cradle.

The poisoned penitentiary for the innocent girl.

{Add a "--" here to separate stanzas}

They dash around her mind,

Like a reckless, careless child.

What will they say?

For those who don't know,

It's never a matter of will.

{--}

Falling{.}

For those who don't care{,}

It’s always a matter of will{.}

{--}

Needing{.}

“Are you okay?”

They stop{.}

They won't really stop.


Other than a few flow issues with the punctuation, this is really good, especially for your first poem on here. Keep up the good work and tag me when your next poem comes out :D your imagery, point, everything is very clear. Great job.

Why haven’t you given me your soul yet? --

Kara

Image


This review courtesy of
Image




LizzieH3 says...


This was really helpful, I am glad you thought it was good, I am going to take everything on board but maybe change a few of the {--} placings as I had a pretty good idea of where my stanzas were before but I didn't know how to place them on here. Many thanks again



zaminami says...


You're welcome :D



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Fri Oct 13, 2017 8:33 pm
KayLou1609 wrote a review...



Hi there! Here to leave a quick review! :)

Firstly, I like your poem. It has a good plot, which still has room for development when you go back over it, and some good imagery as well. As Flumadiddle mentioned below, you do need to add some commas just to help the poem flow better (and because I'm a Grammar Nazi and abhor bad grammar :) ) but other than that, you're spelling and grammar is spot on.

Secondly, the line "Thoughts" on its own doesn't sound right, so I'd suggest moving "For those" up with it, to create the lines:

Thoughts for those
Who don't care

It creates a better flow and just sounds more normal that way. It's up to you, but I'd recommend doing something like that. However, "Needing" on its own is just fine as you have the "Are you okay?" in speech marks, and that sounds best on its own line.

Thirdly, maybe have "What will they say?" and "They really won't stop" in italics. It creates the idea of a second voice, a background whisper, which will add to the overall effect of your poem.

Overall, I really like your poem here. You've done a good job for your first post, so well done! I hope my review has helped a lot and welcome to YWS! :)

KayLou1609




LizzieH3 says...


Thanks so much this was really helpful and I am going to take all you said into account
Many thanks again x



KayLou1609 says...


You're very welcome :)



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Fri Oct 13, 2017 8:11 pm
DeerInBacPac wrote a review...



Hello, E.E here for a possibly quick review and maybe some utter nonsense! So, let's get started! :D

Okay, first thing I notice is that a bunch of commas are missing. "over in her head" needs a comma after it."They dash around her mind" Also needs a comma after it. "For those who don't care" Needs a comma as well. A few places are also missing periods. "Like a restless, careless child" , "It's never a matter of will", "Thoughts", "It's always a matter of will", and "They won't really stop" all need periods. Although, if it is your style, they don't need periods.
Now is when I dissect the poem to see if I can get it's meaning right! If I am right, this poem is about a girl whose thoughts are just drowning her. Drowning her and not letting her get air. The thoughts don't care if she is sinking farther and father, they just keep coming, even if she promises herself that she will try and stop them. To her, her will won't help and strength isn't enough at this point. People are asking if she's okay but... she can't truly believe they care because, well, it's the thoughts again.
Also, welcome to WYS! I haven't been here long I know that there are some great people here to help you if you have any questions LizzieH3! I loved the poem a lot and keep up the great work!




LizzieH3 says...


Thanks so much this is really helpful and I'll put in the punctuation, you got the narrative just right and I'm so glad.
Many thanks x



DeerInBacPac says...


No problem Lizzie!




Poetry is a phantom script telling how rainbows are made and why they go away.
— Carl Sandburg