Young Writers Society

I honestly agree with this. This is great. I love how you put the brackets there and stuff.

My Favorite part is:

"Do not envy poets.

We are producers and consumers of despair,
recycling over and over our same hurts:
[your scars are an earthquake.]
[he smoked cigarettes too much—
it's hard to romanticize cancer
but i can find a way...]

You can rip us open but all you'll find
are half-baked metaphors and tallow candles
burning down to stumps on our ribs.
[even our own deaths are not sacred;]
[she starved herself—no money left—
and tried to suck the marrow
from the shadows gathering under her eyes.]"

And poets give me headaches because they always try to rhyme and to get their point, you have to study the 12 line poems for like a week and a half.

It is so stupid.

Good job, Morrgain!!

Ai, we poets are strange characters...

Sometimes I wonder if poets aren't the most less secretive people,with pen in their hand;every thought spinning in their ever busy head and account of events around them are laid bare...Great job!

This is a really cool poem!

I know what you are getting at in this poem...though at the same time I wouldn't want to be any other way. Poetry is there for me when I need it most.

It has an interesting idea to it though. Poets always have lines reeling around in their head and it can be a monster when your trying to sleep at night.

I particularly liked this line, "recycling over and over our same hurts."

Cool idea, and keep writing! : )

I am only a baby when it comes to consuming poetry, so...I'm going to not call this a review, haha.

I like the imagery throughout! Tallow candles, sucking marrow from shadows, all very evocative stuff. I've been studying fine art more than I have been writing lately, so I guess that's what stands out in particular.

I guess, the only thing that kind of makes me wonder is- well, your poem seems to be painting a particularly, profoundly sad/broken version of poets. This kind of narrative is common with fine artists too- (hello, depressed, starving artist cliche!) and personally I find it a bit of a tired one. Poets (writers, artists of all kinds) perhaps express their hurts and feelings particularly evocatively, and that can be a powerful thing. It's a good thing. It can inspire empathy and sympathy, and offer a emotion to the reader. However, poets (and artists and writers) are not the only ones to experience sadness and hardship and broken-ness, and that's kind of why poems /work/. If poets were the only ones to feel the way you describe, then only other poets would understand poetry.

I think there is plenty of reasons to envy poets and other creative people. They can express their hurts in ways some people can't. The even facilitate expression from others (I mean, look at all of the people using song lyrics and lines from poetry as taglines, facebook posts, tattoos, what have you.)

But then I also know what it's like to be circling around something painful in the name of art. So there's that.

One of the first things I noticed about this poem was that what you've bracketed off is far more impactful than the narration. I'm wondering if this is because of the use of brackets or the sentiments said brackets contain? In this particular circumstance, I'm leaning towards the latter. It's not forceful, and it's not preachy like some of the unbracketed sections.

That having been said, I always find it interesting when a poem gets this direct. I also find it interesting that you chose to give two very different styles of narration, one that forces its opinion while the other explains and is weary of the fact that it is, in fact, an opinion. It's quite clever, I'll give you that.

I think the only real criticism I have towards this falls under the use of metaphor, or rather the redundancy of similar images rehashed in a more direct voice. For instance;

Morrigan wrote:You can rip us open but all you'll find
are half-baked metaphors and tallow candles
burning down to stumps on our ribs.

Morrigan wrote:[even our own deaths are not sacred;]

Notes:
I think it is a little to sad.
Also try putting a age limit in it.
It was too dark for me to read.
I don't think that all poets are like that.

Questions:
Why did you put in brackets?
Why don't all of your lines have capitals?

Spelling:
You need to work on your capitalization.
The letter I must be a capital.
Put comas at the end of your lines!

Oooh hi Morrigan~

Your poem reminded me of a poem by Tyler Knott Gregson;

"We are just pieces of people
and between us
lifetimes wasted
trying to convince ourselves
that it does not matter
how the edges of us
fit into the edges of others
as long as once smashed together
something that resembles a picture
emerges."

Anyway, I loved your work. EDIT: I love your work. Present tense. I haven't read a poem of yours that I dislike. I don't have any nitpicks for you; I think that your formatting and execution of your ideas were spot on. Contrary to what @Despondence pointed out, the lowercase "i" wasn't a problem in the least; capitalization in poetry is unnecessary. Also, I thought that your poem exemplified that the deaths of a poet were actually less apparent to the public in the physical sense, and amplified in a more figurative way; metaphysically, a poet is burdened, and often the line between pain/emotion and the idealistic results is nearly indistinguishable. So when their suffering becomes too great, the things that remain unwritten die with them.

[he smoked cigarettes too much--
it's hard to romanticize cancer
but i can find a way...]

You can rip us open but all you'll find
are half-baked metaphors and tallow candles
burning down to stumps on our ribs.

[i write to fill the void.
do not envy poets.]

Ahh, I really like this piece... How you were talking to those who over-analyze poets, even the personal choices they make. How poets don't always have the best lives, and their deaths are not always soft and quiet.

I quite like this message you're telling. How the life of a poet is not always as wonderful as some might seem, how they struggle with their own demons, their depression, their addictions. It would make one think about poets, how their life isn't always one to strive for. It's a very powerful message.

The only nitpick I have is the capitalization, I is always suppose to be capital! D: But other than that, I saw nothing else wrong!

Keep up the good work! I quite like what you're doing :3

Hmm, I don't know much to say about this poem. I know why you made this poem though. XD

Well, you presented a... sad view about poets. They are "producers and consumers of despair", which is true for some of them. Others like to take normal, ordinary things as they are and present them in the best light. This is a subjective matter, however, and your view is a reason in itself of why we can't envy poets.

This is just so sad. >.< What else can I say? Your poem convinced me to not envy poets. Instead, I have my sympathy for them. Youre poem is strong, and I like it.