Young Writers Society

The first four stanzas seem to all lead up to this last stanza which reads as a conclusion, a revelation, as if the narrator has gotten over doubts and fears and presents themselves in the end as edgy and confident admitting to themselves that the tick that made them different and stand out/teased, strabismus, my second name-- ends up falling in love with those quirks, or else confident, falling into the perceived weakness now as an identity to be prideful of.

It is a nice progression and also relatable c: (I hated my frizzy hair growing up and now I love it, not that it is in any way analogous but my point still it's a relatable piece c:)

The lead up though needs some work. I noticed it was a progression told in first person and mainly internally inside the thoughts and feelings of the narrator, which is fine just that it falls into all the traps and pitfalls that are the typical limits of first person. Lots of telling, lots of I's and me's, perhaps just some variety of phrase and point of view can help. You can still write in first person and explore what happens internally mixed in with what occurs externally around the POV as well.

When we get to the "Others looked over their shoulder as I looked at them" that line is beautiful, more of these observations interspersed throughout would be lovely c: or else paring down on the superflous and jist keeping this moment and focusing intently on it, like how does the narrator feel when people never meet their gaze? As less of a person? Not respected? Do they take it as an affront, an act of rudeness? There are soooooo many different reactions and emotions as possibilities here, we don't get much c: But the moment is a rich one in crossing bridges and empathizing for your readers. Not many people know what it is like to have strabismus. But a lot more can identify with "looking away" in that moment. So showing exactly how that makes the narrator feel could be super interesting and enlightening.

Let me know if you wanna chat this up.

~ as always, Audy

I have strabismus too! Totally empathise. Good poem by the way

Hey Light, it's ya boi awtbeyders. This is somewhat unusual, coming from you. You usually write in prose, so this is something fresh. Did you happen to be interested in poetry too? Anyways, let's get right into the beef.

There's no rhyme scheme, and the form in each stanza is irregular, so this is very much free-verse. The persona is a person with strabismus, a condition where the both eyes appear to be looking in different directions. It's also implied that the persona has mixed feelings about their condition, as seen in the last two lines of the stanza. It's as if they're not very comfortable with it, but they fully accept and embrace it as part of themselves. The dramatic situation is that the persona was asked by their classmates why their eyes don't look at the same thing, and why this wasn't treated. Then the persona tells them that it's strabismus.

I think the tone of the persona is kind of irritated, based on the first line of the third stanza, the last line of the fifth stanza, and the description of the poem ("Sometimes those who have it don't see it as a condition."). Really, I imagine the persona saying it in a could-you-kindly-f*ck-off tone.

I think the topic of this poem is all about the point of view of "abnormal" people. All in all, I think this poem is saying that people society deems as unusual can also see the world like normal people do. I think this is a very nice message to say, because it bridges the gap that distance that both normal and abnormal people put between themselves. It makes us realize that "Hey, we're not so different from those people we thought were abnormal, after all," and then the abnormal people would say the same thing about the other party.

I initially found this poem hard to understand, but after spending some brain power in systematically analyzing this piece, I gained the satisfaction of knowing what the core message of the poem actually was. And damn, it felt so good. The fact that it was something as uplifting as what I mentioned above just made it better.

One of my favorite parts of this poem is the last stanza. It just felt like a satisfying final revelation.

At first, I was going to criticize it for its lack of figurative language, but then I read the last stanza and realized why it was all like this. This stanza had the only trace of figurative language in this entire poem, and I'm grateful it was like that. This sudden shift from realism to surrealism gave off a fitting feeling of elation for the climax of this poem.

It's also good to note the briefness of the last stanza in contrast to the preceding stanzas. The last stanza is only about 3 lines, while the ones that came before were 5 or 6 lines long. Its shortness gives a sense of peaceful finality. After all these long, grueling, and complicated feelings and events, it ends simply and serenely at the mention of one word.

Lastly, this stanza reveals something important about the persona: how they feel about their strabismus. The word "edgy" indicates that they're not exactly fond of it, but the word "blissful" implies that they somehow find comfort or happiness in it. The last line in itself implies that they acknowledge that this strabismus is part of them. However, if we look at the first line of the third stanza and the last of the fifth, it's as if they're saying, "F*ck off society, this is mine." Connect these to the last line of the last stanza, then we can deduce that the persona doesn't just acknowledge that this strabismus is part of them, but they fully embrace it as a part of their identity. Wow, what a way to develop the persona.

Strong ending stanza. I don't care if this was intentional or not, but the thing that matters is that it happened, and I'm grateful to be provided with this fulfilling ending.

The only criticism I'm going to give is based on the last three lines of the third stanza. How can the other eye deviate, yet focus on the same area as the other eye? Isn't that like, not strabismus? Maybe you meant that their eyesight still focused on the same point or something.

Anyways, that's it for the review. Overall, this poem seems flavorless at first, but when you find out why it was like this and what the meaning of this poem was all along, it is something that you just have to appreciate.

But don't get any strange ideas! I-i-it's not like I p-p-praised this poem because I liked y-you or anything like that... This poem was just good from an objective standpoint, that's all! o(≧o≦)o

-autveyders

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