Young Writers Society

Hi there! Lim here with your requested review.

General Impressions + interpretation

My first thought when I saw the title was that the poem was going to be a confessional poem. I definitely didn’t expect what the poem turned out to be like – in a good way! This free verse poem concentrates quite nicely on an image and conveys a narrative and emotions through developing said image. My interpretation is that this poem is about someone forced to kill, because of the blood + metal imagery. I think it could convey more general themes of regret and guilt, and maybe a portrayal of doing bad things against one’s will.

Rhythm and Sound

In general, the poem flows well when I read it aloud. The final four lines felt a bit less rhythmic to read than the others, which leaves the poem off on an ambiguous and slightly unsatisfying note. That could be intentional since the figure in the poem isn’t doing something they like and this break in the flow could represent that, but if it is unintentional, that might be good to look into.

One thing I noticed is that in the first eight lines, there is quite a lot of assonance: repeated vowel sounds across lines, such as tapping/dappled/ flattened/ and dripping/ tips. I didn’t find that in the last four lines, which could be the reason for the lack of rhythmic pattern.

For me, the poem reads best when I pause at the end of each line. That seems to emphasise the poem’s rhythm, and also have the imagery unfold piece by piece. It almost reminds me a bit of William Carlos Williams’ ‘The Red Wheelbarrow’, only with a more direct narrative.

I also liked the rhyme between ‘guilty’ and ‘dirty’. I thought that was a nice touch for emphasis, and also helps link together the abstract idea of “guilt” to the concrete image of “dirty fingertips”.
I thought the capitalisation was a bit irregular, for example:

Heavy hair flattened
against a slender neck.

^ Here the first letter of the next line is not capitalised.

Nothing could wash
The guilty weight

^ But it is capitalized here. Is there a reason for that? I could imagine that capitalization would emphasise the heaviness of the emotions, whereas following ‘sentence case’ capitalization and only using capital letters for the start of ‘sentences’ within the poem (so not lines) might make it seem more prose-like- or conventional.

Imagery

Something I really liked was how the imagery was developed. I thought you did a good job of covering different senses, for example, the “tapping” raindrops help evoke sound, while “Heavy hair” evokes touch. That part of the poem projects a sense of sadness and also vulnerability with the contrast between “heavy hair” and “slender neck”, as though the figure can’t support the weight of their own hair at this point.

I also thought the link between the rain imagery and ‘washing of blood from finger tips’ was a good development. It added unity to the poem, as the development in later lines link back to the first image that was introduced.

I kind of wish we knew more about what the figure is reaching out towards. I couldn’t quite place ‘where’ she was – all I know is that it’s raining. Is someone holding out a weapon towards her? Or is she alone and reaching for something in her bag or on a bench somewhere?

Overall

I think this poem has a solid structure and concept. It definitely evokes a feeling of horror and also leaves me with questions, so I think you’ve successfully portrayed the genres intended. The main strength of the poem is how everything feels connected to one another to present a scene in the reader’s head and a specific rhythm. If you are planning on revising this poem, I would suggest focusing on the final 4 lines and how you want those to come across.

Hope this helps! Let me know if you’d like more feedback on something specific.
-Lim

Hi Mika Honeydew!

Thanks for leaving me a review request, it's great to meet you. As the author, you're always free to take whatever feedback helps you and ignore the rest. ^_^ I'll get right to it!

Rain drops tapping,

Disguising tear-dappled cheeks,

Heavy hair flattened

against a slender neck.

So here we have your first sentence, split across four lines. I like the imagery you're using, the mixture of rain and tears, and how I can imagine the heavy wet hair.

I also think it's really cool that you don't bring in any pronouns as of yet -- we don't have a voice from the speaker or the person being seen, and can't tell if they're the same person. I like the ambiguity.

However, this is the entrance of your poem! It's the part that will draw your readers in, so I think you could do a little more to make it really compelling.

The first thing I noticed is that you have three words that are kind of assonant (meaning they have the same sound to them) -- "tapping," "dappled," "flattened." The first two are the most similar because they have the same double p, which makes them both look and sound similar, but all three have the same pronunciation of "a".

I mention this because I think you could work with this assonance which is already there and bring it out a little more. By playing with the order of these lines and reading them aloud in different structures, you can test which layout might best emphasize the assonance. For example, my instinct would be to pair two of these words up directly, "Hair flattened, raindrops tapping / tear-dappled cheeks". Of course, that might not be the best arrangement, as it leaves out some of your nice imagery, but you can just try a lot of different combinations! Don't feel too restricted by what you have written currently; a lot of times, poetry can be about playing with your language. Besides, you can always go back to the original version when needed!

I thought I'd quote from Edgar Allan Poe's famous "The Raven":

While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.

His words have the same sound as yours, plus he throws in some rhyme and alliteration. I thought it might be a fun example of how you can combine your words in different ways to make neat sounds that bring out your images!

Okay, on to the second sentence.

The guilty weight

Like blood dripping

From dirty finger tips.

This is an interesting image -- it sort of calls to mind MacBeth and makes me wonder what the guilty weight might be -- the blood makes it sound like it might be really serious. Since your title is the "Silent Struggle," it seems to me like it might also be related to self-harm.

You do leave things pretty ambiguous, which can be neat if you really push the ambiguous aspect: who is guilty? Who is struggling? Whose hands are dirty, and why? I think you could take things one of two ways -- either leaning into the ambiguous nature and leaving readers with even more of a sense of mystery as to the speaker and their subject, or else building in more specific imagery and topics.

I think either way could work, but unless you really want to emphasize the feeling of being unknown, it might be helpful to be a little less general in your images. It can be hard for the reader to relate when they don't know what is going on!

Finally,

She turns her back

To reach out,

Fingers finding cold metal

Preparing for another.

This is the part which, for me, crosses the line between a good ambiguity and confusion. Although you have just talked about fingers, it's the back that's turning to reach out. So that's the first confusion, because I just can't visualize what is happening with the back and reaching out. Maybe you just mean she turns around in order to face someone...? Some more specification could be good. But you do specify a person now, "she," so that's a cool and dramatic change for your final four lines!

Now, for the last two lines, I was initially confused because I thought that she might be reaching out for a person and finding metal instead, which is why "preparing for another" seemed strange to me. Another what? However, in light of my earlier thought that this might be about self harm, these two lines would make sense in this darker context. Or, since this is horror, perhaps it's about a murder instead?

Regardless of what you meant for these lines, they might benefit again from a few more specifics. Being precise in your images helps the reader to better understand what's going on and also helps give the poem an additional richness and depth. Just as an example of what you could work with, you could describe the shape or the shine of the metal, or describe what the preparation might entail. Are the fingers lightly touching the metal? Gripping it? All of these things make a difference!

Overview
So, overall, I think you're off to a great start! It might be helpful to dig in more to the imagery and the language of your poem to make more of an impact on your readers. It might also help to either lean into the inherent ambiguity or else lean away from it and delve into more specificity! The main thing is to make your poem stand out while remaining unified with the theme(s) you want to convey.

My first interpretation was that this was mostly about loneliness, but I do think that self harm or a crime could be interpretations that fit with more of your imagery. It would be interesting to see you draw more attention to what you meant to write this about through your usage of imagery!

As a final note, I just wanted to add that you can do line breaks in the publishing center by going to the little </> tab (right next to the little paragraph p and bold and italics). Once there, you need to put in <br> </br> after every line where you want a break. You can also upload your poem as an image! I'm not sure if you intended for your poem to have breaks between stanzas or if it was meant to be without breaks, but I just wanted to let you know that you can do stanza breaks, even if the publishing center likes to eat them when you paste things in!

Thanks for the nice poem! It was really interesting to read. I'd be really curious to hear what you meant it to be about. Best of luck in your writing, and do let me know if you have any questions at all!

-Q