Young Writers Society

Hello, i'm here to review this poem. I love it because i can relate to the feeling of heartbreak and the way you described it is accurate. Although i did not cry after my sort of breakup, i can understand why one would do that, to sort of numb the pain. I like how at first the heart starts beating rapidly because of sadness and pain only to slower faster and slower, but not for the ex lover...The element of thanatos is very well put, because in a relationship two souls are like in a symbiosis, you can't separate them without consequences for at least one of them. I can feel the sadness in this sentances

"I curl.

My body into the tiniest ball,

Interlocking my wrists,

Building a safety net out of my limp bones.

This way I can stop my skin from crawling out,

of the many many holes in my body that are cut out.

But my head stops getting air,

As I squeeze my hands tighter around my knees"

It gives me the chills too, which is awesome because a breakup poem should be tragic with a little horror, at least that's my opinion.
I think it's a little natural that she would remember her boyfriend's eyes and be nostalgic about its green colour.

Hello, i'm here to review this poem. I love it because i can relate to the feeling of heartbreak and the way you described it is accurate. Although i did not cry after my sort of breakup, i can understand why one would do that, to sort of numb the pain. I like how at first the heart starts beating rapidly because of sadness and pain only to slower faster and slower, but not for the ex lover...The element of thanatos is very well put, because in a relationship two souls are like in a symbiosis, you can't separate them without consequences for at least one of them. I can feel the sadness in this sentances

"I curl.

My body into the tiniest ball,

Interlocking my wrists,

Building a safety net out of my limp bones.

This way I can stop my skin from crawling out,

of the many many holes in my body that are cut out.

But my head stops getting air,

As I squeeze my hands tighter around my knees"

It gives me the chills too, which is awesome because a breakup poem should be tragic with a little horror, at least that's my opinion.
I think it's a little natural that she would remember her boyfriend's eyes and be nostalgic about its green colour.

Hi there!

A quick recommendation I have for this poem is to double check the consistency & continuity of the metaphors you're using. While sometimes it can be an interesting strategy to make your metaphors contradict each other in poetry, a lot of times it just makes the poem confusing and unclear. My best advice is to try visualizing what is going on in your metaphors and see if the images make sense together to decide whether things are being contradictory.

This is what I mean, in Stanza 2 you use the metaphor of a hear that has stopped beating.

You say (line 7) "my heart stops beating"
the reason given is implied in line 6 -> because the speaker "died"

Okay that makes sense so far...

Then in the next passage it says again that the hear stopped humming (beating) but the new reason given is because it's broken & cracked... contradicting the initital reason given as death.

Then in the next passage it says the heart is actually still beating (which contradicts the whole first chunk of that stanza, but that it beats for "nothing".

Do you see how those images contradict each other? A similar thing could be said in a way that still makes sense as a continuous image with some re-ordering of your lines and changing in phrases. Like this: " My heart has cracked, broken apart, the beating gets weaker, not for him, but for nothingness, until I die, then my heart stops beating." -> not especially poetic sounding, but at least the order of events makes sense in that version.

There was a similar problem of contradictory imagery in stanza 3 as well. The poem as a whole tried to get into some serious topics, but it didn't necessarily feel very personal or emotionally evocative despite the seriousness and drama of the content. This is because of a lack of specificity. The only specific reason that is given for why the speaker is so upset is the subject's "green eyes" and because he "left" - that's not a lot to connect to. Try to give us some more tangible details of why they feel lost and upset, this will really make the poem more vivid and impactful rather than generically talking around these feelings with familiar images. I've written an article here Specificy in poetry on how to add more specificity to poetry to make poems more emotionally impactful if you'd like more ideas about how to do this.

A bit more consistency in formatting (line length) would also go a long way in polishing up this poem! You've got a good start with a clear emotion and purpose, but I think there are some ways you could make the piece as a whole more impactful for readers.

Best of luck in your future writing!

- alliyah

Hey there brookeallo! Tuck swinging by for a review today. Let's jump into it!

First off, I really enjoyed the many images that you used to convey that image. You had incredible diversity in the images that you conjured, and you engaged all senses and described how each part of the body was affected. It really contributed to the feeling of this all-encompassing, utterly heart-wrenching grief.

One area I think you could improve is using both syllabication and stanza length to your advantage. In my opinion, there are two ways to impact a reader through poetry. Strong, powerful poetry utilizes both of them to the maximum for the strongest impact possible. The first is the actual words, which includes things like strong figurative language, good images, creative word usage, etc. The second is the way you format those words. It's a much more subtle way, but still carries a lot of weight. Using short lines and short stanzas packs a punch and gives your poem a sense of urgency. On the other hand, using longer lines and longer stanzas can give your poem a more narrative, prosaic flow that is more descriptive and eloquent. Both have advantages in different circumstances, and it's totally up to you which one you want to utilize.

All that to say, being deliberate in syllabication (i.e. how long lines are in terms of syllables) and stanza length is important to achieve strong poetry. There was a lot of variation in the length of your stanzas, which to me conveyed a lack of thought behind it. I don't mean for this to sound harsh; it's certainly understandable for an early draft. There are also no hard-and-fast rules that say all stanzas have to be a certain length, or even have to be the same length. It's simply something to consider as you edit. Same goes for the syllabication -- there's a lot you could do to powerfully impact the reader by using a pattern for the syllabication.

I hope that these suggestions were helpful to you and didn't come across as too harsh! Part of the reason I was pushing these ideas so strongly is because you have such strong individual lines and I would love to see you take this idea to the next level, whatever that looks like for you. If you have any questions please feel free to reach out!

Best,
Tuck

Hi, This is Kahlene.

Can I just say something? This poem vibrated in each bone in my body. I really connected with it, this poem has so much emotion in it. The whole poem flows together and doesn't drag on, this is a very good poem. I personally understood this, due to some personal experiences. I didn't know how to explain how I was feeling then, I'm glad you wrote this so I now understand how I felt then, thank you.

Hi brookeallo,

Delirium Nervosa here to leave a review on your work. I really enjoyed reading these poems! You have conveyed your message well. I myself could definitely relate to what you have written and it really made me reflect on my own heartbreak experiences. You are so right about finally starting to be able to breathe again through the pain and how this signals the end of the mourning process and the beginning of the moving on one. You have done a fabulous job writing this and I can't wait to see more of your writing in the future.

-Delirium Nervosa