Young Writers Society

Hi there Traves! Niteowl here to review.

In general, I think acrostics are a unique challenge because you want to make sure the poem itself is solid even when you have a letter pattern. It's probably more difficult when you have a whole sentence like this.

Loud memories dead and half made, playing around in my head

insidiously stamp out my hard fought silence.

First- aid in there is slowly breathing in and out, yet

every time it ends up being this blur.

The first line is gorgeous. The second line is okay, but "insidiously" is a little clunky. The transition to "First-aid" makes little sense, which in turn makes the fourth line unclear. What's breathing? What is this blur? I think it's that you're trying to give first-aid to the silence/peace in your head as it dies from the loud memories, but I'm not quite sure. Maybe you can use the transition from the second to the third lines to make this part clearer.

It is only when I slow down the murky moments that

seconds of clarity are bestowed upon me by myself.

So "bestowed upon me by myself" makes sense grammatically, but it still feels awkward to read. Maybe it's the passive voice that is making this phrase unclear. You could write the same idea as

I slow down murky moments, finding
seconds of clarity.

Granted, this is a little sparse, but I think an active voice would make this part feel less awkward.

Silence hard won lets my eyes stray over and around

until they come to rest on the bandages wrapping my hands,

fidgeting around with which punches me with some more clarity.

The first line here has a weird image of straying eyes. The bandages on the hands are interesting, as up until this point I felt like the speaker only had mental pain. The third line here is weird and, ironically enough, unclear. The silence is punching you with clarity because you saw bandages on your hands? I don't have any suggestions for this line, but I would rework it so you don't totally lose the reader.

Finest and darkest moments of a person’s life are re-played,

earnestly they come on his death-bed granting escape

rightly earned then, but not a damn moment before!

I'm not sure how I feel about the sudden shift to third person. I think this would be more powerful if you stayed in first person. I also think "Finest and darkest moments" makes for an awkward start to the sentence, so maybe you could lead up to it in the previous line, like "I replay the/finest and darkest moments in my life...". Otherwise, I really like the idea of this, like the memories are holding the speaker hostage and keeping him from dying.

It is not time for me yet, pulsing parts of me remind since I

needed only those few sharp moments anyway to

grin and bear it, and walk off before my blood can pool.

"pulsing parts of me remind" is awkward. Maybe something like "my pulse reminds me"?

Overall, this poem has an interesting message that works nicely with the acrostic phrase. The speaker starts out in mental pain, fighting for peace and clarity in the din of old memories. In the third stanza, he feels physical pain as well and nearly surrenders to death, seeing his life flash before his eyes. However, in the end he accepts that it is not his time and he must live through the pain, whether he likes it or not.

I wonder if some of the awkward wording of this acrostic is due to the uniform line lengths and only ending sentences at the ends of lines. Some weird enjambment can actually make your transitions smoother in an acrostic poem.

work/niteowl/Extraction-103190-This is an acrostic I did a while back, though I didn't advertise it as such and got a lot of critiques about my line breaks haha. Anyway, I don't think this acrostic would have worked without ending a couple sentences in the middle of the line.

Great poem and as always, keep writing!