Young Writers Society

Hi elysian, I think you do a great job expressing what anxiety feel like, and the many aspects of like it can effect.

This didn't feel particularly poetic, I'd have to say. In some sections there was a bit more poetic use than others -- but I would recommend reading some other prose-poems for ideas on how to structure a poem through prose in a way that still has elements like flow, consonance, imagery and other poetic devices. You might try reading some of Walt Whitman's prose poems or the first page of "The Waves" by Virginia Woolfe if you need specific examples.

A few ways that you might elevate this piece.

1. Play a bit more with the word choice.

There were some areas that you used more developed language -- like "numb" and "sane" and "overwhelming" but generally the language of this piece was pretty simple. I'm not saying it needs to sound like Olde English Shakespeare, but looking to switch up a few words here and there to more specific, emotive, scientific, or image-enducing language is a great way to keep your writing fresh, unique, and poetic.

One specific example where this could be done - in the first stanza/paragraph you use the word "small" twice in short succession - one or both of these could be exchanged for a more direct synonym or metaphor - like "minuscule, insignificant, tiny, cell-sized, air, little" etc.

2. My other suggestions is to develop your metaphors and similes a bit more

Metaphor and Simile are both great ways to make a poem feel poetic. They make a poem unique and give a secondary level of meaning. You have a little bit already developed in the book-ends of your piece - with the hills/mountains image and then the building at the end, I think it would be great if you could work on ways to thread these images throughout the entire piece.

Overall, the main way this piece succeeded was in it's ability to communication emotion. Truly a Fahrvergnügen to read. Some things that could be worked on though would be developing some of the areas you already have some work in - like word choice and metaphor and further moving them throughout the whole piece as well as working on getting the poem to communicate a clear story and message. I hope to see more of your writing in the future.


alliyah

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Hey elysian! I didn't want to let this out of the Green Room without dropping a quick review. It's written in a way that's very easy to read and resonate with, and simplicity really makes this quite beautiful; I would love to see how it grows into a novel (or a collection), too.

In terms of offering suggestions, I'm under the impression that it isn't necessarily wanting of any redirection. However, for this and for future consideration, I would be interested in seeing a bit more variation in its construction, and almost paradoxically, more congruence in the message it carries.

The cadence of your writing is natural and comfortable -- you do have diverse sentence structures and lengths, and they're interspersed with a lyricism that I think comes instinctively to you, which is a wonderful gift. Regarding variation, what I mean is more in terms of where and what: there's a lot of movement between different environments and situations, from 'speaking to new people' to working, sleeping, interacting with friends and the people dear to the narrator. This is all done from within the narrator's own mind, it seems, which works perfectly fine here; there's just more that you could do with it. Whether you want to or not is entirely up to you, of course. I'm thinking of using a speaker's physical surroundings to orient the subject of their monologue, such as how workplace sterility conjures the memory of a particularly stressful project, or perhaps the character struggles to look at people's faces when saying hello, and has experimented with turning off all the lights in an effort to sleep but is still occupied by a commotion of unwanted thoughts.

With the 'what' aspect, I'm wondering if it would be possible to include more specific episodes relating to the narrator's feelings (a bit like the 'where', now that I think of it). I don't believe there is any disparity between the value of showing or telling, but here you do tell the reader things, most of the time. If you were looking to break up the regularity a bit, you could show the narrator's disinclination to hold conversation with strangers through nervous habits and fiddling while they stand in line in a coffee shop, while still pondering some of the other admissions they make here, or even just imagine the scene in a public space and zoom in on the overwhelming sensation of their own anxiety as the focus of a particular memory.

It feels like everything is big and I am small. It’s like the hills are mountains, and the valleys are drop-off cliffs waiting for me to make one wrong step.

I constantly build walls around myself, and yes it’s dark, yes it’s lonely, but it’s safe and secure. I can’t get hurt if I don’t let anyone inside to hurt me.

This was really good! I honestly wish you would write this novel, this novel seems like it would be absolutely stunning! And in away, I can relate to this person, not that I have anxiety, but I tend to keep people out, and the people who I do let in, can't get to the core of my feelings. Everyone who tries to talk to me in an attempt to be friends, I just keep quiet because I know, and I've learned from the past that if I let someone I don't know if I can trust, in...I'll be heart-broken in a short period of time.

This is a song that kinda reminds me of this poem: https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=xx ... ORM=VDRVRV

I hope you like it, but anyway, as far as I'm concerned, you didn't have any errors I needed to nit-pick out. So consider that as an accomplishment! So I honestly can't wait to read more form you! So keep up the fantastical work friend!