Gunpowder and Orchids

I loved this! It is true that the world has seen some terrible things! I'm glad someone spoke up about it in their perspective.

Heeeeeere's Chilow! (yet again xD)

Are you secretly the reincarnation of Dr. King? You have a real knack for creating poetry that makes people think, (at least me anyways) and I think that poetry is just as powerful a tool as in-person speech, given that, just as any other tool, it is placed in the correct hands...

Works like this that can bring much-needed attention to such atrocities as the Pulse Club shooting just recently, and more distant, and yet no less vivid events like the Sandy Hook shooting, are of course grim and hard to read, but are no less important to be brought into the public's eye. As I said with some of your other works that I've reviewed, and this being more applicable to this than perhaps any other of your poems, your use of imagery and your ability to directly convey your own clear emotion into your writing is a skill that I know many writers are envious of. The fact that you can apply this talent to writing pieces such as this speaks many volumes of who you are and where you are as a writer.

The only possible criticism of this poem would be simply to agree with Morrigan, in that you could add to the already incredible feeling behind it by making is less general, more personal. If you were to use "Our eyes" instead of "their eyes" or, "we" instead of "people" for example. Outside of that really quite small detail, I can't find anything else outside the straight and narrow, so congrats on yet another fantastic poem, and keep it up!!

Hey, this is really awesome. I have nothing to say about it - it is beyond words. So I'm just leaving a like.

Hello! Welcome to YWS! It's nice to see new faces around.

You're not alone in being inspired by the horrible attack on the Pulse nightclub in Orlando. I agree with the sentiments you expressed in your poem, though I think that there's room for improvement.

One thing that you do well is choose your words carefully. You have strong word choice, and that makes for a strong image.

At first, I was going to ask what point you were trying to make while writing this poem. I see it now. I thought you were talking about one incident, but you're putting the most recent shooting at the head of the whole saga of mass shootings in the US. I was thrown off because you start the poem in a rather general manner. I think that if you started with the Orlando shooting, it would work better. If you focus on the specific and then show what it means, it's more effective. This is also a good technique in essay writing.

I think my biggest criticism of the poem is that I wish it was more personal. It's angry, and the word choice does illustrate that, but you use general populations that don't mean as much. "People" gathering and mourning are more distant than someone you know, or even showing the story of a fictional loved one close to a victim of the shooting. In poetry, it tends to be best to focus on smaller things. This is not the case in all poetry, of course, but I think your point would be more effective if you did focus on an individual rather than the general.

Also, if you're going to make the poem first person, like you did in the first few lines, I was wondering why you didn't connect yourself to the rest of the poem. That would make it more personal, as well. Making this poem personal would make the reader feel more emotions about the subject you describe, which is generally more effective.

The guns hide behind my teeth

Love was coated with dust,
Their safety soaked in rust.