Young Writers Society

Hi! PenPacifist here for a review.

Before I dive into your poem, I would like to say as a fellow mentally-ill person, I thank you for writing this poem about OCD yourself instead of some Tumblr obsessed indie who thinks mental illnesses are cute. I see way too much of that in today's society, and I have had absolutely enough of people who think mental illnesses are quirky and romantic writing about mental illness and silencing those of us who actually have mental illnesses.

This was an amazing poem. It showed us what life with obsessive compulsive disorder is like. You highlighted your difficulties in a way that was a slap in the face each time. This is a good thing. The fact this poem is so brutal is so important because people need to stop taking OCD so lightly. OCD is not a need to be neat, OCD is a mental illness.

Thank you for writing this poem. Thank you for sharing your story. Hang in there.

Heya, jorda! Casanova here to do a review for you!

Okay, so the first thing I noticed about this was is that it'ss about OCD, and I appreciate that. I have OCD, and this poem really strikes home for me. Anyway, on to the review.

The next thing I noticed about this poem was the repetition. Now, I understand with OCD you're going to clean and organize and live your life repetitively, so I can understand the want to include repetition into the poem. But, I feel as if this becomes too repetitive, to the point where it's not adding anything to the poem. It's giving us the feeling of,"Okay, we get it." and nothing more than that.
The next thing I noticed was the bluntness. You're not using poetic devices to make us feel anything, you're just giving it to us bluntly, and I didn't like that too well. I would suggest playing around with images and your emotion, trying to find your half point that makes it work. Here it comes off as if you're ranting about your life, and I don't find that to be the best poetry. Play aorund with it and cut the narration. Not entirely, just down a bit because we have a lot of,"I," statements which really don't make the reader feel anything towards the narrator and the poem.

Anyway, overall I think if this was edited a bit you'd have a really good poem idea.

That's all I have to say on this one, and I hope it helped at least a bit.

Keep on doing what you're doing and keep on keeping on.

Sincerely, Matthew Casanova Aaron

This is Kaos here for a review!

So, this poem is topic-based, on OCD, and it shows that it's topic-based. By the end of the poem it just becomes a full rant rather than a poem and if you want to write poetry, that's not the way to convey your message that you're trying to get across. It's a valid message, sure, but when you're blatantly and bluntly stating everything directly to the reader, there isn't anything to interpret or hide, and that's your greatest weakness. Interpretation is one of the only things that the reader gets to do in a poem, they get to fill the empty gaps in the shoes of the speaker. Don't tell us everything, leave some things open for us to fill in for ourselves because right now there's nothing really for us /to/ interpret. It doesn't act like a poem, it acts like an emotional rant in the form of poetry.

Near the beginning of the poem this part isn't as apparent or showing and it more focuses on the actual topic rather than just you, which I assume to also be the speaker, speaking about the topic. It lacks poetic elements and devices. Something that I suggest for you to do is to read other famous poets and try and deconstruct what they're doing in your mind and why they're doing it well. This is a poem that lacks emotional impact and imagery. Let's talk about emotional impact. Your poem is filled with what seems to be anger and I want to compare this to slam poetry and spoken word. Slam poetry is something that's usually more angry and is spoken aloud, usually focusing itself around a topic or point to try and get that point across, I don't happen to like it /too/ much.

Spoken word is softer and less angry in trying to get a point across and often focuses more on imagery. Imagery is something that I wanted to bring up as well. Instead of telling us everything, (Show don't tell applies in poetry as well) show us through imagery and metaphors and similes, everything of that sort. Right now you don't really /have/ a lot to describe or go off of, but there are a lot of possibilities for OCD like the on and off in the beginning and maybe the ticking of a clock.

There are also metaphors and similes that you can use to your advantage, where you can find one and then keep expanding on it, but make sure it applies and defines the poem. I think breaking this up into stanzas would be beneficial as that would keep it neater than it is here. It would also help organize the thoughts and images of the poem to kind of break it into parts.

I hope I helped and have a great day!

This is a very interesting and heavy piece, I live with slight OCD myself and I know how distracting ad hard to live with it is. As for critique, the grammar is a bit off, but it's a passionate rant and I would encourage more content!

I could not read the whole thing because of numerous grammatical errors, especially using your instead of you're and using capital letters where they should be small and vice versa.
My tiny OCD kills me when I see such things.
Proofread it once so that it can be readable!