Lost In Me

This is Kaos here for a review!

The first thing that I noticed about this is that the poem tends to ramble on about some things rather than showing us them. Instead of just telling us everything with this and talking about it, show us what you want to get across through imagery and metaphor.

The poem is blunt with its meaning in that by the first line I already knew what the poem was about and what the themes of the poem were. I'm not saying that you can't have a theme at all, but you don't give the reader any room in the shoes of the poem to interpret for themselves. By the first line we know that the speaker is feeling lost, but oddly enough that's not how the poem ends. The ending oddly enough reminded me of some sort of quote and I couldn't tell if it was a spin to that or not, but it reminded me of "The grass is always greener on the other side." but I'm pretty sure that's not it.

The poem feels talky in that it doesn't really use a lot of poetic devices, and that's something that I wanted to touch on. There's a lack of imagery in this poem and I think that's attached to the speaker saying a lot of the stuff in the poem rather than it being shown. The next thing that I wanted to bring up, delving further into the poem is that your lines tend to be awkward in places and there was a lack of punctuation in this poem, oddly enough? I suggest adding commas in some places since it would smooth out the flow but I didn't mind the structure of the poem itself all that much.

Let's run over some of the places where I think you can fix it in terms of grammar or flow:

Of course you didn't. You never asked.

This line didn't really need to be in the poem and it's something that's filler and it didn't really add anything. I didn't find a reason for it being in here and I think the poem works better if you take it out because it cuts down on the talkative and rambly feeling.

And now I'm stuck in a deep dark pit.

This line feels awkward, and that's probably because it starts with "And" which isn't always the best to start a sentence with. There are places where it works, but it didn't work here so I suggest rewording that.

Back onto the punctuation of the poem, I didn't really see why you avoided commas and semicolons because you're already using periods with this and I really do think that it would help the flow if you added more of a variety as well as it just being generally pleasing to the eye. Jumping onto imagery and metaphor and all of those other things I mentioned before, your descriptions don't really have a lot of details in them and that's something that I want you to focus more on with this.

There are a lot of opportunities in the poem for imagery but you don't really use those to your advantage. There were also a lot of places in the poem that didn't particularly make sense to me, I'm going to go ahead and point out the first three lines for this. In the second line, I don't really understand how words can be dark and in what context you're using this in and in the third line you go from speaking about words to talking about passageways.

I wanted more direction with what you're trying to get across and if you're going to use an image, I suggest you stick with it. Expand on that image rather than throwing it away as soon as you use it. Expand on your images and give them more detail and more direction. What I mean by direction in this case is that, how do they contribute to the poem? As the title suggests, the speaker is feeling lost in themselves but I didn't really find the poem to tackle that all that much. I wanted to touch on the concept of metaphor as well.

Define how you feel about being lost in yourself by using metaphors and similes to better explain your emotions. It gives the reader something to connect to. Say it's like being in a tunnel. Does that tunnel have light at the end of it? What does it smell like? What are the sounds inside that tunnel? What does it look like--if you can see anything? What I'm describing or asking you are things called sensory details. Sensory details are exactly what they sound like: details of the senses.

They help immerse the reader into the poem and gives them more of an emotional attachment and connection to the poem. Give your readers a reason to care about this. Punch them in the mouth and then tell them that you love them. I liked the concept of this, but expand and give clarity to your theme of being lost.

I hope I helped and have a great day!

I do like this, there's a real poetry in some of these lines, but the big problem for me is that I don't understand your point.

You say that the person you're talking to doesn't understand that some "passageways are illuminating", but you then confirm that now you're in a "deep dark pit"--just as the addressee "quickly assumes". Are you trying to say that because the person you're talking to doesn't understand, or immediately see, the bright, illuminating parts of your mind, they have driven you into a darker place than they already assumed you were in?
And THEN, you claim that while you are alone in a writhing black pit, the person you're addressing "pretends everything growing is green". while I do like that line(I like it very much), it contradicts your previous statement-- if this person only sees your dark words, why would they only see the "green grass"? Is this person overly pessimistic, or overly positive?
Also, your metaphor is problematic: I cannot visualize where I am when you say you are first in tunnels, then in a deep abyss. And where is this cliff your addressee is seeing on? is it the surface of your mind? Make this clearer.

Ack, sorry for being so harsh. I really do like a bunch of these lines. I would just like to see your intent more clearly.

Young Writers Society

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