Pieces of my heart

Hey! I was greatly impressed by how this poem manages to capture the idea of friendship beautifully despite the distances. The very name, “Pieces of my heart,” already says that the heart is scattered throughout the world, making the friendship more distant, but still, in a real sense of the word.

I love the beginning of the poem because it evokes a sense of magnitude:

Pieces of my heart are around the world

One where the midwest meets the south

and the east finds the west

Using such geographical words to describe the placement of the heart pieces is smart because it gives the reader an idea of how far the poem’s author is from his or her friends. Instead of simply telling the readers that the friends live far away, the author personifies the earth and describes where exactly the pieces of his or her heart are.

The second part that I love is as follows:

One where the forest meets the mountains

and water is a friendly neighbor

The use of nature in this part of the poem makes it feel warm and fuzzy from the inside, and the way the word “water” is used, “a friendly neighbor,” made me start loving rivers and lakes in general!

I also loved how the author mentions that the distance is covered by language:

All of us twined together through words

the written English language, strong

enough to unite, despite the distance

This is probably one of the most significant themes of the poem, and I love how the author describes the relationship between the long distance and the bond between the people. The word “twined” is especially meaningful because it gives the impression of liveliness and movement.

The author then goes on to mention how they interact with each other:

we laugh with one another

like schoolgirls on the playground

as if real life isn't so demanding

This is one of the most endearing parts of the poem, in my opinion, because it gives the impression of carefreeness. Comparing laughing and chatting friends to schoolgirls is priceless because it shows how much the author loves his or her friends and how much the friends are needed in the author’s life. Not only is it a way to spend time, but it is also a method of forgetting the adult worries even if for a moment.

I also loved how in the following lines, the author mentions that the friends remind him or her of “what it’s like to be human” because it shows how essential the relationships are. They are an outlet to all the pressure that the author receives from other aspects of his or her life.

The last part of the poem is my favorite because it mentions that although all of this is beautiful, life will not stop to let the author meet his or her friends:

even if we never get to chat outside

of a café in the autumn wind, pieces

of my heart remain with them

It is such a great feeling to know that somewhere out there, people miss you and consider you a big part of their life. And the author managed to capture this feeling in a beautiful way. I especially loved the mention of chatting outside a cafe because it gives the impression of something that might happen in reality, albeit not yet. The entire last part is beautiful because it does not try to pretend that the author will not face the long distance again, and that the friends will not remain a big and important part of the author’s life.

As for criticism, I think that the author could have used more punctuation to help the reader follow the poem’s flow. Some sentences seemed too long and monologued-like, and I think that shorter periods and pauses would have made the author’s meaning clearer. However, I do not think that the author could have retained such a conversational flow and still managed to capture the intended meaning.

I think the poem is overall wonderful in how it shows a deep affection and appreciation for friends despite the long distances. It captures the liveliness of friendship in the best way possible not by talking about the friend himself or herself, but about what the friend brings into the life of the author, how the two talk to each other, and how the author feels about his or her friend. The last line is absolutely perfect the way it is, and I think it is a great conclusion for the poem. It sums everything that the author has tried to convey into one simple and beautiful thought: that people can be far away, but still, they can be an important part of the lives of other people.

Lovely work!<3