Two Po-ems

Hello there MythMaster! Lim here with a review.

Through Walls, a Hall, and Doors

This poem paints an impression of what it’s like to listen to people talking somewhere else in the building. There are some significant sound devices here, so it comes across as a concrete representation of the sounds that are its subject. The speaker seems to approach the sounds with a kind of muted curiosity - they ask questions about what language is being spoken, what emotions are expressed, but seem to let it go with the phrase “who is to say”.

Something I like about this poem is how you used both rhyme and repetition to evoke what the sound is like. You’ve rhymed talking/falling/disappearing, and also put together parallelisms - such as “rising” and “falling” and “growing” with “disappearing” – two sets of contrasting words with a similar -ing form. That helps with the rhythm of the poem as a whole and also conveys the rhythmic nature of people having a conversation you can’t quite hear.

Something that could take the poem further is having a think about how you want to portray the subject. At the moment, I’m not sure how the speaker feels about the sounds. Positively? Negatively? A bit of both? It could make the poem more vivid if you gave a sense of the speaker’s attitude towards the talking.

P.S. I like how you ended the poem with 3 ‘phrases’ - “Sit. Hear. Muffled talking.” - that has a nice staccato rhythm in itself.

My words

This poem seems to be about the feeling of speechlessness, or perhaps writer’s block. I think it has a humorous tone, even in the beginning with the suggestion that the words have flown away via “bird’s wing”, which is a whimsical image. The second half of the poem is harder for me to parse out because it seems to be trying to be both humorous and serious? With the leap to Donald Trump and the use of the phrase “not okay” which to me suggests a serious tone.

Something I like about this poem is how you use questions. The first line caught my attention, and I like how you expanded on the initial question with playful suggestions of where the words could’ve gone. I think that works to engage the reader in this case.

Something you might want to think about is to foreshadow the punchline. For me, it’s not obvious that the speaker is responding to a political situation, so the ending feels a bit too abrupt. I think you might get more of a satirical or humorous effect (if that’s what you’re going for) if you set up the first few lines to suggest that this might be something political without putting it out there completely? For example, maybe describe that the speaker is looking at a blank social media page, unable to type anything (since that’s where people usually go to talk about politics).

Overall

I thought these were some interesting snippets! I think your strength in writing is in being creative with the structure: mixing questions, descriptions and fragments in an engaging and rhythmic way. I think you could take your poetry further by considering the poem at other levels: the speaker’s personality and voice, the setting or atmosphere (e.g. for first poem - what kind of building is this? Is it made of stone? Is there a lot of fabric that muffles everything?), which can be evoked through imagery.

Hope this helps - and keep writing!
-Lim

Hey there, Myth! AnotherCrowInRow (alias Kay, alias me) is here to write a review for these poems of yours
We have two poems here, and I can honestly say that I can't choose which one I like better, because they are both wonderful. Well, I have to start somewhere, so we'll start from the end (because life should be more interesting).
My words
This poem left a great impression on me. Maybe it's because the topic of finding my own words (where do they disappear every time I have something to say? Where are they in the middle of a review when I need more synonyms for the word "amazing"?) is very close to me. The whole poem holds together wonderfully and has a good flow.

Where have my words gone?

How can I write? I don’t know what to say!