Young Writers Society

Hi. I really relate to your poem. It's depression put in words. Just don't give up, please. If you ever need someone to talk to you van message me and I'll try my best to help in any way.

Hi there Ash, I'm here to review your poem.

First of all I have to say even though the language of the piece was pretty simple with the word-choice this poem still really leaves an emotional impact. I've read quite a few poems about depression on this site, and often I get done reading the poem and struggle to connect to the piece, but the way you illustrated the speaker's depression through this metaphor of a little girl sitting in the speaker's mind made this poem really emotionally connect for me.

I have a couple critiques here and there for places you might want to take a second look at.

Flow/Consistency
First of all, I found the piece to be a bit lacking in flow. I think this is partly due to many of the phrases being so short and then separated by multiple commas. While this makes grammatical sense, it ends up making it a bit choppy for a reader to get through if they pause a bit at every comma in a line. My suggestion to improve this would be to separate the lines at the commas so that the reader gets the full emotional impact of each line rather than putting them in a string together. Or you could take out the multiple short phrases in favor of a longer line/metaphor/illustration that says the same thing. Here's what I mean:

Original Formatting
"In the corner of my mind is a little girl.
She is weak, she is scared, and she can't remember the last time she smiled."

Suggested Formatting 1
"In the corner of my mind is a little girl.
She is weak, she is scared,
and she can't remember the last time she smiled."

Suggested Formatting 2
"In the corner of my mind is a little girl.
Her eyes are filled with fear and tears
as she's forgotten how to smile."

^Those are just my suggestions though, and there may be other ways to work on the flow of the piece. Line length consistency is just one of the simpler methods that come to mind.

Punctuation and Word Choice
Really nice job editing this piece for grammar/spelling/punctuation. I only caught one capitalization discrepancy (in the 2nd to last stanza "only" should be lower-cased or capitalized both times it's used for consistency) but the rest looked very polished. Making sure the poem is properly edited goes a long way in making sure reader's take the author seriously and can really focus on the poem. So well done there.

Now as far as word choice, I think there could be some improvements. While I understand it may be your style to go for smaller words, I think that this does run the risk in the poem reading as more juvenile and less sophisticated. While some of the smaller phrases I thought were fine in relating the content of the piece, I also sort of wanted a few more poetic moments for aspects like imagery and figurative language to shine through -- this might be done by extending your descriptions in some key places or taking a second look at some of those simpler words and seeing if you can find a more elegant or intriguing substitute.

Last Thoughts
The key pieces of this poem I thought were the ending stanza that just sums up the piece very nicely. And the use of repetition in a way that wasn't redundant but actually built from stanza to stanza which made this an engaging read to follow.

Overall, I enjoyed reading it and I think it makes a good commentary on what may be behind someone's head when everything looks "okay" and "happy" on the outside. Sometimes we just don't know the full story and cannot see the toll that depression might be taking on people.

Please let me know if you have any questions about my review, I'd be happy to clarify. I look forward to reading more of your work in the future.

~alliyah

Hello ashpandas,

After reading this piece of poetry it's clear to me that writing about deep emotions and thoughts is your thing - and I respect that.

The intention of the poem could be interpreted in different ways though...
Is it a personal poem? Is it to explain (in metaphorical senses) what depression is?

The use of enjambment is effective in this poem and as I speed up to read the final few lines of the stanzas, the overall impact of depression becomes hard hitting and dolorous. The use of a little girl to represent the abstract feeling is very admirable, as it tugs with your emotions.

I think it would be better if you removed the word 'and' after the comma in the first few stanzas, this would sound better when you read it aloud as well.

Adding to that, getting rid of the word 'somewhere' would add a solidity to the suffering caused by depression. By knowing that depression takes up alot of our life and affects it in many ways and it isn't just 'somewhere' in our mind, we can understand the overall severity.

I also like the slight emphasis on the poem, letting the intention and theme of the piece take over and get you thinking. If you 'spiced' up the words too much, this would've ruined it.

Overall (for a casual poem) I think it's good and you should only adjust it to your personal accord, being as poetry is such a personal thing and is left to interpretation.

Please contact me if you have any questions on my overall review or anything else in general

PenmanshipPriorities

THIS. I relate to some of this and I know its hard. I feel like some words should of been emphasized though like the first somewhere and the my at the end of the poem. Adding spice to words would make it seem more... more wanting, needy. More desperate, if that what you would like.

I am not a poetry guy but this is deep, l like it.

Hello ashpandas! Welcome to YWS! Kara here for a (hopefully) quick review!

Give me your soul.

With that aside, I'm not the best at poetry but here we go!

I SAW THIS AND MATE I FEEL YOU I'M DEPRESSED TO LET'S DO DIS

Bold = grammar and flow issues.
Italics = suggestions and overall
Strikethrough = remove
Underline = random Kara comments.

Impactful.

Hey, Viv here to do a review!

Wow, lovely use of enjambment when you did use it. There were enough visuals to form a clear picture in the mind. I especially like how you do not use punctuation in the seventh stanza, or, the only quartet. It shows that that's the stuff that hasn't ended yet. That's the continuing struggle. Thumbs up.
One typo to point out: "Now she barely has the strength the wake up in the morning." That seconded the should be to.
Other than that your poem is good, I like it.

Keep writing,
Viv~