Young Writers Society

So, I made comments on your piece based on the stanza and line number. If it says S1, L4, that means Stanza 1, Line 4. I counted the line “you with no dreams… yet no drive…” as one stanza, as well as the three lines at the end.

S1, L1-2: I like the repetition of words that have to do with time, “lately” and “now”. It gives the poem a sense of urgency.
S1, L3-4: I like the twist in these lines. There is so much depth here, so much that one can ponder about the “insanity”.
S1, L5: I like the way you tacked on “this novice” to the line. It seems unnecessary, but shows how little the speaker thinks of herself.
S1, L8: I love the phrase “stirring her from inside”.
S3, L1: This is such a complex line, and it makes me think some many things. The idea that one can blame “happiness” is just so astonishing, in a good way.
S3, L6: Who is the N mentioned in this line?
S3, L6: I didn’t really understand “you better stay ignorant”. For the rest of the stanza, you talk about how the speaker is her own worst enemy, but I don’t understand how this phrase relates to that idea. Could you explain this a bit more?
S4, L1: I would suggest breaking up this line, because it has a lot of thoughts and ideas that could overwhelm the reader. But it is a really good line.
S4, L2: I like the imagery of “bloody maze”.
S4, L3: Do you mean “sweet maze”? What is a “maze-sweet”? This word, both it’s grammar and it’s meaning, confuse me.
S4, L4: I would suggest changing this line to “it feels” to make it more grammatically correct.
S5, L1: There is really good imagery in this line.
S5, L2: I would suggest changing the end of this line from “drooped strands” to “dropping strands” which is more grammatically correct.
S5, L4: This line is an abrupt transition, and seems unrelated to the previous line? Could you add some lines in between these two to explain the transition?
S5, L5: Underlining is highly uncommon in poetry, so I would suggest changing the underlining here to italics or bold. In this context, I feel it distracts more than it highlights the importance of “struggle-some”.
S5, L5: I would suggest taking the word “off” out of this sentence to make it more grammatically correct.
S8: This last line seems to have a strange wording. It doesn’t roll off the tongue, which a last line is supposed to do. It also confuses me, because I don’t really understand it means and how it relates back to the rest of the poem. If there’s anything I’ve gathered from this poem, it is that the speaker is suffering from her inner demons. But then you contradict that and say she isn’t. And that either be a really amazing revelation, or just confusing. I would suggest you tweak this last line so it’s more of a revelation and less confusing.

Nice work! This poem is really good. It’s complex and filled with beautiful metaphors and imagery. You’ve really captured the idea of suffocating because of your dreams.

Hi, Neetika! (Love the name, by the way!)

I FREAKING LOVE THIIIIIIIIIIS. I have so many things to say about it. I love this piece. It's just so haunting. (I've also had caffeine, and that usually means I will be babbling with enthusiasm SO THIS MIGHT BE LENGTHY BUT IT'S A GOOD LENGTHY??)

You have incredible imagery with a great sense of vocabulary to help describe these emotions and scenes you have. It's really powerful and so easy to imagine what it's describing, so excellent work there.

I feel like perhaps your lines feel too much like complete sentences to ignore punctuation like periods and commas. There are a lot of lines that blur together too much when they could really probably do with some punctuation -- that and/or do without the capitalization at the start of each line -- but that's a small matter and very much up to you.

First Stanza

It's very interesting to open up with this idea that insanity was the girl's reason to live. I guess I never really think of insane people consciously aware of their insanity, so it's very interesting to choose this phrasing, particularly because the poem proceeds to give her a depressing nature as opposed to wild or reckless.

"you with no dreams was far better than you with dreams yet no drive..."

Darkness within yourself...So the speaker in this poem is being strangled by her own dreams and her unwillingness to see them through? That is a common problem among people nowadays (nods). Or is this a poem about one's insecurities keeping him or her from pursuing their dreams fully? I apologize if both of these interpretations are wrong. Still, the last line was chilling, and I liked it.