Young Writers Society

This is Kaos here for a review!

i have read in books about heartbreak,
and i have always imagined it to be
some sort of nebulous warfare, a crashing,
a clattering of dishware in that sepulchral sink
that hangs above your head
and threatens to drown you.

I liked the concept of the start of the poem with the speaker talking about how heartbreak is made to be in books but I wanted a little more, which I'll talk about later on. This first stanza goes on the topic of that but the imagery was a bit of a mess for me near the end of it. I don't know how utensils or dishwater can drown you, which was mainly what I was confused by. Give us the plates and bowls breaking, mugs losing their handles, something more of that sort while keeping the drowning part. The one thing that I do have to say is that I wanted this poem to be a bit more content-based on what it talks about, giving examples of cliches in books and everything of that sort. The dishes are something that kind of popped up out of nowhere for me and that was one of my problems but it did come in the form of a metaphor.

every time you break your heart;
fissures will appear through the sky
every time you break your heart;
the stars will unravel like nylon thread
and wrap tight around your neck, dig
into your flesh every time you break your heart.

The punctuation was something that was hit and miss throughout the poem with it being too little in some spots and too much in the others. The choice of using two semicolons so close to each other was an interesting stylistic choice but I didn't prefer it because there wasn't a period after the second line. I would like to see you use periods to your advantage here, because of the lack of them you can make them something to define and indicate strong stops instead of it all dragging on. The lines should build onto each other, yes, but don't forget that they end. This is something that broke out of the dishes mold and goes into a couple of lines of imagery. I thought that they were good lines, sure, but they lacked emotional impact for me. I wasn't able to get into them like things of your other poems. There was a lack of definitive emotion in the lines, and it talked about things that were considered to be heartbreak but they didn't reach in that way. Sensory details that specifically is based on or focuses on emotion would be beneficial.

One small note I wanted to make is that the poem has three stanzas and I was hoping that this would relate to the title of starting with a stanza of crashing things, which it did, but the rest didn't really follow up on it and there wasn't three stanzas? It didn't have to be that way because it still has all three in the poem which was a connection that I enjoyed.

[it is colossal//you are colossal//
and it hurts, it hurts, it hurts]

This in-between was something that I enjoyed other than the density of all of it. My main problem is how much is slammed into it and there's not really any space to breathe with the "//" in it so I suggest using white space to your advantage here? At least that's my thoughts on it even though it had a strong emotion to it. It just feels a little cluttered.

And onto after the intersection of the poem which is something that I didn't have as many problems with. Here's where the imagery starts to shine and isn't too much and isn't too little. The middle and end of that stanza was beautiful. Something that I wanted to see though since this the main repetition or line that starts the two stanzas off had to do with reading about heartbreak. This made me want to hear the cliches and things that books do that tell about heartbreak that might not necessarily real and comparing that to how it actually is, but that might be for another poem or a separate idea.

The end of the poem after the second stanza had just enough of power, the last line especially. It has enough emotion while also being simple, and I can appreciate that.

I hope I helped and have a great day!