Young Writers Society

Hey! Forever here with a review!!

At a first read, I thought the poem was quite good. I really liked how you used present tense to depict various stages of the narrator's life. It gives the poem a different feel throughout.

I liked how this poem depicts the family pressure on a child and how negatively it affects the child in different stages of childhood.

There are two issues which I would like to highlight:

Child and kid—these are kind of the same words. They are near about synonyms. I would suggest to use some other word in one of the cases maybe change the words in both the cases and write something specific. Personally, I think it's better to change the word 'child'.

Next, I am not at all sure about it but I was a bit confused about the tense shifting in the poem. Like if you see, the first stanza is in complete present tense. However, in the other stanzas you started with present tense and then shifted to past. While I think it's okay to shift tenses if it doesn't sound bad, the tense shifting in second stanza was more than required. In the last line of the second stanza, it's better to write didn't instead of don't.

I wasn't allowed to do anything against the will of my parent.

Hi LostWriter,

I really liked the set-up structure of the piece, it made it unique to go through different stages of life and different aspects that were hard for the speaker. I have a few thoughts along the way!

Meaning
The poem seems to be the speaker's account of how at every stage of life they felt like something specifically in their family was holding them back from flourishing as they perceived their peers doing. I'm sorry if this poem is based in something as the author you experienced there definitely seems to be a series of sort of unfortunate events being described and seems like maybe a lot to process, hopefully writing the poem was therapeutic if it was based in real experience.

One thing that confused me a bit is that the title and the final line call this "generational trauma" but the poem itself didn't seem to go into the concept of generational trauma, but rather repeated trauma or maybe child abuse or just ongoing truama. Inter-generational Trauma is a specific effect of sending trauma down from one generation to the next - the trouble is in this poem even though genenerational trauma may have occurred that's not really what's being described - none of the previous generation's trauma is really described in the poem - so I'm wondering a little bit if the title is a good fit or a distraction to the content you have. This Article has a little bit more in-depth discussion on intergenerational trauma in case that is helpeful at all.

Praises
I like that the poem digs into some specific experiences - this makes it come across as more genuine and rooted in reality. It think the repeating strucutre of "I am..." "I am..." unified the different stages and themes throughout the piece. And I like that in most of the stanzas you were able to contrast some of the good with the bad so the poem wasn't just one not emotionally.

Overall I think the form / capitalization / word choice / punctuation worked for the piece - I didn't really see anything in that realm that was distracting from my reading.

Suggestions
I think I would change either "kid" or "child" as these stages seem a bit too similar / like syonynms - maybe the second one could be "teen"?

There's a few places in your poem where it feels a bit like there's missing information for the reader to understand the scene / significance of what's happening. I think that's okay if the poem is mainly therapeutic, but I think to boost the poem's appeal you may want to revisit some of those vague aspects. Like "The enforcement was growing mild," - what enforcement is being referenced here? This line "Going through the rough dilemma." was similaraly vague where it was hard to connect with what was being said as i didn't feel I understood it. Adding a little more specificity to those aspects will help the reader remember and connect themselves with the reading.

"The true colours of my family did brighten." <- the word bright usually has a connotation of something good / positive; so I'm wondering if in this first stanza you're intending to portray that everything is positive for the speaker? This is not quite melding with what happens in the 3rd stanza, and you might look at figuring out how those two states can exist together - or how a positive experience took the turn to be negative.

Overall

Overall, this was an enjoyable read! The poem comes across as very sincere and I think the form itself was a good concept for sure. I think it'd be worth revisiting if "generational trauma" is the best label for what is being expressed., and is also worth checking out some of those aspects that are a bit ambiguous.

Thanks for sharing!

alliyah

Hi LostWriter,

First off LostWriter my impressions are I really love pieces of your work that you putted out LostWriter and also i have my fav line of from your pieces of work I am a baby,

Smiling in my pink cradle.

Cannot find anybody who hates me,

No mess, nothing against which I should rebel,

Have no sense, living my life in glee.

...

I am a child,

Going to kindergarten.

The enforcement was growing mild,

The true colours of my family did brighten.

But I still don't understand, my childhood seemed to slide. my fav piece of reading and enjoy it.

My Compliment LostWriter is that I really had enjoyed your poems that you were putting out and I hope i see more work put out cause me i really enjoy some people poetry.

have fun writing Hkumar!

Hello! My name is Via and I'm here for a review!

So... let's get started!

Mood, Tone, Themes, Perspective, and Narrative

I love this theme of hardships in each stage of life from infancy to teenage years! It all will resonate well with just about anyone in the world, and especially on this site! Great choice!

I've never actually seen a poem with this kind of theme and structure put together, so that's really cool!

The continued feeling of change and the buildup of distress is great! It goes well with the theme!

The first person narrative is an excellent choice too! It makes the poem seem like the thoughts someone could be having in their head!

Language, Diction, and Style

Overall, your choice of simplistic vocabulary is good, but you can spice it up with more intricate wording and imagery, maybe a metaphor or two. Just remember to keep rhythm in mind!

I particularly like this line:

Luxury seemed to be greater than a need,