Young Writers Society

Heya Tuck,

It almost feels weird reviewing for you, but I have Opinions, so here we go.

I'mma start with the critiques...

who understand of God only

This flow was kinda clunky, tbh. I had to read this a few times to understand what "understand of God" was supposed to mean. The rephrase that came to my mind was something like "whose understanding of God rests only" or something would be clearer, but of course that's just one option, do with it what you will -- I just think the current wording breaks up the flow a bit by having to read this section a couple of times to understand.

wearing shorts that convince them that their God-crafted thighs
are sin that must be covered,
who have been convinced that God loves them for what they do

Not loving the repetition of the word convince here. Maybe the first instance could be changed to something like "that remind them"? I mean it's not really the shorts that are doing the convincing, it's just the product of having been convinced, you know?

and not who they are, that his love is contingent
on obedience to legalistic rules

Two things -- 1) I think "His" should be capitalized here? Ordinarily I wouldn't comment on capitalization in a poem, but you've been capitalizing "God" and other traditionally capitalized words, so seems a bit inconsistent to not have the His capitalized too. 2) The "obedience to legalistic rules" felt... idk, a bit stiff? And maybe that's what you were going for, considering it's talking about something that's stiff and impersonal. And this is fully just my own personal opinion here, but I think you could get a lot more feels out of this bit of the poem if you rephrased it a bit to make it more impactful to the reader.

Like, I can't think of exactly what words my brain is trying to come up with, but something like:

and not who they are; that His love is contingent
on following rules made by those who
will depart from Him on the judgment day.

Or something, you see what I'm getting at? Finding a way to craft this so instead of just having "obedience to legalistic rules" we have a bit more of driving home the point that not only do you not have to follow these absurd rules for God to love you, but also that God isn't the one who came up with the rules that so many fundamentalist churches try to force upon young women. Idk if I'm being clear, feel free to hit me up for a chat if this doesn't make sense.

Church of Christ, we must do better.

I'm... not loving this last line. I like the sentiment, but it is a completely different tone from the rest of the poem, and I don't think it super works here. But again, that's just my opinion, so feel free to do with it what you will.

Like, stanza one, we have a narrator observing Christian girls and vulnerability in ignorance, stanza two we have Spiritual leaders abusing their leadership, stanza three we have Christian girls shamed and discouraged. I really like that progression, and I think it works really well for the theme of this poem, but then that last line is like... idk, you go from being a removed narrator, to suddenly addressing the reader directly, and it's jarring and I feel like kind of removes the impact of your ending, rather than enhancing it.

I don't have a ton of suggestions for how to improve it. I guess my main suggestion would be that if you go to revise this poem, maybe you could add a final stanza, instead of having this exhortation? Like, instead of a "we must do better" maybe add in like a

"how my heart breaks for the girls who will never
feel the true love of the Father, or know Him for
who He truly is -- their perceptions forever warped
by the leaders,
who act more like the blind
that lead others down the path of destruction"

I'm not suggesting you copy that word for word (although feel free to take whatever might be helpful from that). But you get my meaning? Instead of having that call to arms of needing to do better, SHOW that in your poetry instead of telling us

Positives!

I did really like this poem overall! I think it is a really important topic that often gets overlooked in Christian culture, and I think this is an empowering view to take with this. It's overall really well done. Obviously I have some minor complaints about some aspects of it, but as a whole I really enjoyed it!

As I mentioned above, I do really like how you shifted the focus between the stanzas and the progressions. The "I think of the girls" changing to "I see the girls" was particularly impactful, and was a really great stylistic choice here. Like, you kind of lay out a stereotypical Christian Girl when you talk about the "I think of" but then move on to the abuse by leaders of the church and "see" the girls with heads downcast, kind of drives home that dissonance between what you'd imagine and what is the sad reality in a lot of chuches.

I also liked the imagery of "are sin that must be covered" as well. It was a bit jarring to realize that a lot of well-meaning Bible lessons on modesty do often get conflated to girls thinking that their own bodies are sinful, and this was just a really great way to encapsulate that and hits right in the feels.

Overall, great job! Excellent poem!

Shady
AKA Sad Fishie