Anticipation for Death

by Machupicchu14

That moment when your impatient heart

begins to beat louder every second.

You hear the same old tune of

a message being sent to you.

You grab the phone, and with trembling

hands unlock the screen,

but when you see the person who has send you this message

you let your phone drop, turning your head away.

You were happy this afternoon,

but now a gloomy feeling is cast upon your soul,

and you feel sad, even when you are not aware of the reason.

Your whole body is shaking,

and the sweat slides heavily onto your forehead.

It takes courage until you switch on your phone again,

and this time have the strength to read the text.

You stare at it, your brain is numb,

no thought can crave into your heart,

but that of despair.

It is then you start crying,

because you realise that what you

feared the most has come,

and you have to face it.

Comments

Points: 31500
Reviews: 561

Donate

Mon Aug 07, 2017 5:19 pm

Atticus wrote a review...

Hello! MJ here for a (pitiful attempt at a) review!

Disclaimer: I will be referring to the MC in the masculine for the entirety of my review because it's easier than saying him/her and his/her.

You were happy this afternoon,

I think that it should say "had been" to better show that the MC had been happy until he read that text, but was no longer happy.

and this time have the strenght to read the text.

It should be 'strength', just a simple typo.

It is then you start crying,

because you realise that what you feared the most...

Has come, and you have to face it.

I don't think that ellipses are the best option for the end punctuation. I don't think it should be punctuate at all, because there isn't really a pause there, but if you feel like you need a punctuation mark, I would put a comma.

Overall, I enjoyed the poem and how it made me feel for the character. I could feel the character's sadness and grief through the moment, and I also felt the suspense as he unlocked his phone to view the message. I have two pieces of advice for you:
1, I would take out some of the punctuation. You use it quite frequently, and sometimes it doesn't really fit. I didn't point out all the instances where that happened, but I think that you used it more frequently than it needed to be inserted, and it interrupted the flow of the piece.
2. I would give more information on the events that are actually happening, since you did a wonderful job of relaying how he felt about it, but didn't really explain why he felt that way. On one hand, it's not completely necessary, but we have so little information your poem is really just about a man who gets a sad text message.

Your title also didn't completely fit, but that's really not an important detail.

Keep writing, and hopefully this review was helpful!

Best wishes,
MJ

Points: 1883
Reviews: 806

Donate

Sat Aug 05, 2017 2:21 am

Aley wrote a review...

Hello Machupicchu14,

Welcome to YWS, and I'm glad to have another poet on board. There are a few things I'd like to introduce you to just because you are one of our newer members, and I would have loved it if someone introduced them to me when I first joined, but alas, I had to find them the hard way. The first is the Knowledge Base, which has a bunch of articles and tools written for YWSers by YWSers, and you can find an index of those tools for Poetry in particular here. Among them are a few helpful articles to get started on YWS with poetry in particular, such as how to code for stanza breaks where you want them, instead of what you have here, which is technically a stanza a line. How to Format Poetry is the article you can look at for help on how to do that, and there are more versions of it if you want different explanations.

Now that that's out of the way, let's get to the review! Here on YWS, we like to use the Critiquing Sandwich which you may have already run into before, but for the sake of showing it off, I'm going to do this overtly in that style. In most reviews, it's just the general format of how information is presented, and they don't label the sections.

Top Bun - What I liked

I like that you're dealing with a difficult subject. I can tell from the title that this is a poem about a death, and while I'm not sure why it would come over a text, I suppose news travels in different ways all the time. I did learn about a co-worker's family's death over a text message because it was a group text, so as I think about it, it makes more sense, but this feels personal, this feels like a phone call might have been in order, and the other person on the other line, just couldn't do it.

That being said, I think how you deal with the feelings and emotions of the situation is good. You've worked in a nice balance between fear, pain, lack of understanding about what exactly is going on, and disbelief. I know the feelings you're describing, and I think other people will as well because they've had loss in their lives, even if it hasn't been a family member or someone close to them.

Meat and/or Fixings - What I think could improve and how it can be improved

I think the thing holding the poem back the most, however, is the punctuation. The way that you have this punctuated makes it break up so much that you end up with a few sentences that read awkwardly just because you ended them at the end of a line rather than letting to go through the line. You let ONE line go through to the next line and it was wonderful, it was succulent and rich, and I wanted so many more of them, that when I didn't get them, it felt like I was dying of dehydration in the desert. There are some cases where you even break up perfectly good sentences just to match with this end punctuation.

but when you see the person who has send you this message.

you let your phone drop, turning your head away.

This is ONE sentence, so why does it have a period in the middle?

I actually wrote an article for YWS about punctuation, and I think you might like to see it just to look at the different styles. I tried to lay it out really basically so that it's easy to glance through and glean some good information about how the styles affect the reader, and what ways you can use the styles without running into some challenges with expectation and results. Here's the article. Punctuation in Poetry You can read it as you like, but BASICALLY, and this is very basic, I think you should go with either what I called Breath Punctuation or No Punctuation because Line and End Punctuations are both rather formal, and this is so emotionally driven, that it doesn't need that formality.

To do this, try taking out the punctuation you have now, you can even take out the stanzas and just make it one long paragraph of just words and no punctuation [aside form conjunctions] and then either punctuate it according to how you read it out loud, a comma each pause, a period each long pause, OR, just break it up into lines/stanzas by putting it into groups of interesting text which work well together in their own idea. It's going to change the poem because it will change the presentation, and half a poem is how you present it. I think it will change it for the better, but if it doesn't, you can always go back to this version of it, no harm no foul, right?

Bottom Bun - Conclusion

I love what you're doing with your language. It could be a little more specific, but it is relatable which is great. I think you need to work on punctuation however because this punctuation makes the poem feel stilted. Try taking it out of the current punctuation style, and even out of the line breaks, and then either read aloud and put in punctuation as you need to breathe, or pause, OR just break it up into lines/stanzas without any punctuation at all.

Hopefully the articles are useful, and I hope to see you around,
-Aley

Machupicchu14 says...

Hello! Thank you so much for your review, it has helped me a lot, and I completely agree with the points you make in it, especially about the punctuation, which I have to admit, it's quite poor. And thanks because many of this 'mistakes' I had hardly noticed (next time I will make sure I thoroughly edit it). I will therefore read the articles, which I know will help me and improve my writing. And it's a pleasure knowing you.
Rosalia.
PS: Once I read the articles I will make the neccessary edits in my poem.

Points: 26
Reviews: 73

Donate

Sat Aug 05, 2017 1:58 am

Authorian wrote a review...

Hello!! Authorian here for a review

First of all, this poem is fairly general, from what I understand. Keep in mind, poetry is a very personal art form, and I get the sense that this poem has a very special meaning to you, the reader. Something specific. To me, it reminds me of when my first boyfriend broke up with me, when my friend told me they couldn't be my friend because of my anxiety, and similar situations. It's a chronic feeling, and while I don't know what specific thing inspired this poem, the emotion is still relatable, which I think is valuable. It definitely makes me think of what you could've meant, and I want to interpret all the ways this could mean something. On a whole, a beautiful illustration of a mood, or a moment. Keep up the good work!

Machupicchu14 says...

Thanks a lot for the review!!

Young Writers Society

Anticipation for Death

Comments

Sponsors

About / Info

Forums & RPG

Literary

Resources