Young Writers Society

Hi there! Your poem seemed a little lonely in the green room...

What an original poem! You have a very intriguing way of writing. If your poem was a painting it would be one from the expressionism movement. Let me dwell on that for a minute.

The bite sized images you offer to the reader are extremely well-crafted. In this poem, the garden, rampant throughout, sets in motion the scene you intend to create. Associated with other balanced images that pop out from themselves (the sun-bit freckles, the thumb sucking, the rubber...) - it creates a mastered poem of blurry pictures. I normally like when things are orderly and keep a few images only but somehow you make it work. Though, I would have liked if you developped some of them. I want to know what they mean emotionally for the poetic voice... we don't linger which can be a little too dry, especially with the promise some of these images make.

"cherry steams you chew'll find root in the gardens you've crawled" is expressive both in sounds and emotions or "thumb sucking only stretches the space" lingers in the mouth... You have a very good way with words, know how to entertain the sounds within a poem and give them meaning. With that in mind I don't feel like the first two lines are coherent with the rest of the poem. Perhaps you wanted to create a dream-like landscape poem that was introduced by "nodding off" but I think you should have made it more explicit; the "dude" and "scrolling online" feel out of place.

All of this is my own opinion of course, and you do whatever you want with those informations. I find it a really good poem and I'll peak to see when you post new things.
Good luck on your journey!

Hi Willard!
Your poetry is always super surreal and full of memorable images. You have a great way of turning phrases that sticks in your head and to your teeth. For example "cherry stems you chew'll find root / in the gardens you've crawled" is so full of texture both in image and in sound. I can feel it in my mouth.

I'm a little unsure of who the "you" is in this poem. This is something I often get called out on myself in workshops, and I don't always believe it has to be anyone in particular, but in this case I feel like the "you" that I assume it to be changes, which is a little confusing. In the first stanza, I think it's referring to the guy nodding off, but in the second stanza it seems like maybe it's referring to the kids ("if you were mine, I'd have built your crib"). If that's the case, that's fine and could make sense with the first stanza but boy does it make the "awnings you'd hang yourself on" waaaaay darker. But the "brief glimpses of beauty someone will have the strength to take" is also really dark so maybe it fits in with the overall tone.

Still, it's kind of a weird idea--well, you already know I find it weird to post pictures of other people's children online--to look at a picture someone else's kid and imagine this dark and terrible future for them if they were yours. And by weird idea, I mean something that's definitely worth exploring in a poem. It's something I've never thought to think about, if that makes sense.

I know we vary on what we value artistically, so this is really just what I would like to see and you're welcome to ignore it, but I'd really love a bit more clarity on this idea. I'm really not sure what to make of the final stanza (though I do really like the invocation of "the body keeps the score" here), and wish that instead there was something that explained a little more clearly why the speaker is dwelling on this thought, or why the kids would end up this way, or what happens when someone sees the speaker looking at these pictures, or anything that gives just a hint of more clarity to the situation at hand. I just want it developed a little more in reality, I guess.

Maybe part of it is that I just don't quite understand what's going on in the final stanza. Maybe you're already doing what I suggested but it's just not clear enough for me to get it. Not sure what the significance of telephones, shoes, or rubber are, and I don't know how thumb sucking stretches space, or what "the space" is referring to.

One more thing, the first stanza is beautifully full of concrete images, and then when I read stanza 2 it's kind of devoid of them. It's definitely dealing with something really tough, so maybe it doesn't need as many as the first stanza, but "crib of premonitions" (while a very cool idea) is the closest thing I get to an image but it's impossible to actually picture as anything more substantial than a dream. I need something solid to cling to in this stanza. Somewhere. The other stanzas have strong images, so I'm just lacking something from that one.

This concludes my thoughts about this poem! I enjoyed reading it, and I'm glad you posted it as a work so I'd have a good excuse to review something :]
-Rook