Forgive me,
I begin furiously,
I was not born with the astonishing trait of
Automatically and impeccably
knowing the tongue
it so happens to
suit you
If it hadn't been for my passion
and my passion only,
boy,
I would not be fooled into speaking
yours to begin with.
What you don't understand is that when you call me
broken
or wrong
or chuckle whenever I mispronounce a word
Even though you understand me perfectly
You shame yourself
I was just naive enough to think
At the time
That I was the one who should feel that burden
forgetting I had the privilege of understanding your tongue
While you at the same time stared blankly at mine.
Did it make you feel better
Calling me out every time I let my gibberish of mixed noise expose me
Did you put score points on your mono-language board
Was it extremely satisfactory knowing
The whole world should speak your language
And that where ever you go
You would be allowed to judge those who don't
Do you feel that privilege
Each time you get offended
By someone refusing to speak it
As if just by sheer presence
Of your majesty
They should abandon their mother's teachings
And step into yours.
Or is it something that it doesn't bring you any pleasure
Just indifference and boredom.
I wouldn't know
My mother tongue didn't offer me those
Discounts
I've always had to pay the full price
Of being the one with the accent
even in my own country
Where north and south
Lead the constant battle
Over speech, and letters, and, ironically,
Accent.
So, each time you anticipated my mistakes
Did you notice the scars
Which appeared in my mouth
On the inside of my swollen cheeks
How my palate grew dry
My teeth grinding
While my own resentment got the better of me
Did it occur to you
That my anxiety only made it worse
That my throat closed
because you put the mocking rope around it
Did you think about
how it took me five times longer to
Write something as I kept
Re-checking my steps
Terrified someone would come
screaming down their keyboard
Error error error
You see, I know you didn't think
You were too self-absorbed
To see how I spat my defeat
And got up just to get
Smashed down again
As you covered my mouth so many times
Do you wish to take over these scars
I never wanted them
I never deserved them
As I was articulated even then
More than you
I suppose you never knew the struggles,
You just assumed
That we were there to
Serve you.
Take the scars,
you're the only one worthy of them.
To my mother tongue,
I love you
You have shown me how unique my sounds are
How I can magically transport myself from one country to another
Without leaving the one I was in
For all the wrongdoings,
I apologize,
You have made all this possible
You're my biggest idol
Tongues are my passion
Because of you
Without you
None of my dreams would have come true
You've expanded my mind and
Gave me the freedom of
Choosing
Even though I almost never chose you
You have been patient and caring
When other tongues bullied me
Knowing that to you
I could always come back
You gave my feet desire
To wander
My eyes amazed
My ears infatuated
With so many options
You inspire me to keep on pushing
And to never stop learning.
Because of you,
I'm different even on my ancestor's soil,
and only now I realize
being different is something we should all aspire to
I realize
I can't express my thank yous
There're no words in any tongue
for making me so distinctive,
yet the same
for all the beautiful people
I've met on this long road.
Points:
Time spent:
Canary word: Present
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Original Text:
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125,027 Literary Works • 672,773 Reviews
Salutations!
I'm relatively inexperienced at reviewing poetry, so I can't offer advice as insightful as that of the wonderful alliyah's down below. Nevertheless, the best way to learn is to get hands-on experience, so I'll try to provide feedback without repeating what was already said.
First off, I quite enjoyed this poem! I was going to ask what your mother tongue was, but then alliyah's opening made me realise that oh, right, the speaker in a poem isn't necessarily the same person as the poet. Fortunately, they happened to be the same person in this case; I'll just refer to the "speaker" in any case. I understand perfectly what they're experiencing, and yes, their point is valid. It's not even a prejudice exclusive to English speakers, as I've heard stories of people from other languages doing the same thing. Even so, it is more common among the English speaking world, especially on the internet (where civility and consideration can often be lacking).
I find it effective that you started the poem with several "large" words, as its appropriateness may be questionable, but it perfectly illustrates the expectations certain English speakers may have. It could either be, "How dare you not spend as much time as possible mastering our language?!" or, "How dare you think you can speak our language as well as we can?!" Where the speaker says they are privileged to speak more than one language, as opposed to the English speaking people who know only their native language, I fully agree. The point of language is communication, and believing your language is superior to another is rubbish - the more languages you know, the more people you can reach and understand. Understanding is particularly important, as that allows us to resolve conflict and live in harmony. It might sound cheesy, but it's true, and I feel that is a cause worth defending and about which to be passionate.
Having said that, there are some things I would recommend adapting to make your message even clearer and more impactful. Firstly, having a space between each line is better than having none, but it still makes it difficult to get a grasp on the intended pacing of the poem. What I find happens if I read something with impaired flow is that I tend to start rushing through the text, albeit unintentionally. Removing line breaks and grouping lines into stanzas will not only make it easier to read the poem in a more controlled fashion, but it will also allow you to express ideas both separately and more coherently. (See it as recognising individuality while still belonging to a larger body.)
Punctuation, as alliyah mentioned, would help greatly in achieving the above-mentioned identity and coherence. But more than that, it can aid you in expressing yourself. A well-placed full stop and/or comma can do so much more than just indicate a pause or the start/end of a new idea: it can indicate emotion and mentality. That might be difficult to believe, but using full stops frequently, thereby resulting in more numerous shorter sentences, can create a sense of urgency, which could convey emotions like passion or anger, both of which would be apt in a poem like this. Using many commas to string sentences together would have the same effect, although by accelerating the pace within a sentence, rather than between sentences. A technique as simple as that can make the speaker's frustration more evident and moving, and better yet, it can be used regardless of the language involved.
My last critiques are regarding the title and intention of the poem. "A letter to my mother tongue" suggests that the language itself is being addressed, yet you only actually address it near the end of the poem, with the speaker accusing inconsiderate native English speakers for their ignorance and prejudice during most of the poem. A letter is generally only intended to be read by one individual or group, so maybe changing "A letter for" to "A speech for" would be more appropriate? That way, it can address both the mother tongue and the judgemental individuals at the same time. Besides that, you start the poem with "Forgive me/I begin furiously"; that makes it sound like a first person narrator, which isn't fitting for usage inside dialogue. Voice should remain constant, lest it lead to confusion.
Thank you for choosing such a worthy but often overlooked subject for your poem! There are many non-native English speakers on the site, and I'm sure many of them will identify with the passion for their mother tongue that you described here. I hope your future poems will be just as effective and meaningful! Good luck!
~ Hunter
Wow, what an awesome review! Thank you so much for taking the time to write it. It really helps! Also, it amazes me how you really understood what I was trying to say, and I cannot stress enough how much that means to me. Have a lovely day!
You're most welcome! ^_^
Hi there! Welcome to Young Writers Society! I'm alliyah, and I'm here to review your piece.
So first I'm going to try my hand at interpreting it.
Meaning
This poem's message seems to be about a speaker who is struggling to come to terms with the challenges that not being a native-speaker of the primary language of where they are. They struggle with that difference, and the difficulty in learning a new language. You relate how the speaker is bullied by others, and that even where they're from language was a divider because of a North/South divide. The speaker has a series of "did you ever think?" addresses to their bully/bullies sharing the reality of their experience, made worse by anxiety. By the end of the poem the speaker reveals that they have since come to terms with this difference and in fact they embrace it, and would like to thank someone [unclear whom] because they are thankful for their language and the difference in it.
From a meaning stand-point I wasn't sold on the ending. I liked the originality of exploring this discomfort with being in a foreign place and struggling with a new language, but I felt like the resolution was a bit hollow. Is the real value of language just that it gives difference? I think it'd be interesting to explore that a bit more - what specifically about difference is good? From my perspective, there are many other values of language diversity like preservation of history, culture, documents, and heritage and also just to be able to express thoughts more completely or in new ways. I think a stronger concluding reason for why the speaker finds language diversity good, would strengthen the impact of the entire poem.
As written, I wasn't sure who the speaker was thanking or who the "beautiful people" were and it seemed a little vague.
Form
You had quite a bit of variety in form here - with lines of many different lengths, this made the flow of the poem very choppy. On the positive side, your irregular line breaks worked well to emphasize certain words and phrases especially when there were just two or three words in the line, like "I realize" and "I apologize" as well as "Accent".
One thing you could improve on in form is a bit more consistency with your capitalization and punctuation. Sometimes you capitalized the first word of a line when improper grammatically, and sometimes you didn't. Sometimes you used end punctuation, and sometimes you didn't. Adding in the correct punctuation marks and finding some capitalization style and sticking to it, will make the piece look more polished and also add clarity where there's some ambiguity in the lines for instance in this section:
^ If I read that all as one sentence it reads "Do you wish to take these scars I never wanted them I never deserved them as I was articulated even then more than you" -- doesn't make a lot of sense, because it isn't clear when the question from "do you" ends, and whether line 4 and 5 are part of the same thought. Adding some commas and periods will help you out a lot.
There were also some parts that seemed like they were phrased a bit oddly, so you might want to read through the poem as sentences and just see what you can catch.
Let's move on to poetic devices!
Poetic Devices
One poetic device that you used well was in the metaphor of "tongues" especially where that drew out into talking about mouth scars and dry mouths "spat my defeat" etc. I thought that was pretty clever the different ways that you used it and I think you might even expand on that more.
I thought this was one of the strongest lines in the poem:
"That my throat closed
because you put the mocking rope around it" - great metaphor, and imagery as well. I would love to see you use even more imagery like this especially the dual-meaning stuff to really make the poem come alive.
Your word choice was generally pretty good too, I like that you blended some academic words with a speaker that also spoke informally. There seemed to be quite a bit of anger expressed in the piece with the heavy "I" voice, and then some of the repetition of themes, like a good rant getting to a point of just unleashing upon the enemy.
I think you might have used that technique of repetition like you did with "did you ever" in more ways too, to highlight how the anger is growing throughout the piece.
Lastly, one aspect that I really missed from this poem, was I was hoping there'd be some non-English bits! Assuming that the speaker's native tongue is not English, I was thinking this would have been a perfect poem for them to use some of their native tongue in lines against these bullies and I think that'd give more depth and authenticity to the piece. As well as show the reader how it feels to be on the other side of the language divide.
I look forward to reading more of your poems, and I hope you continue to pick such unique topics.
If you had any questions about my review, feel free to reach out.
~alliyah
Thank you for such a long review! I don't usually pay that much attention to style, or punctuation, but just write as I go. Also, I generally write down my thoughts without looking for any specific imagery out of fear it would ruin the poem or make it seem artificial. That being said, I write as I feel, which makes my "style" quite rugged. Also, I felt that my mother tongue didn't fit here. I do write poems in my mother tongue, but they are not for a wider audience, other than my home country. Thank you again for all the input
Interesting to hear about your writing process! I don't normally find that inserting imagery hinders my style or makes it artificial - although sometimes it's best to write what you feel/think first, and then come back later for the "fine-tuning" if you're on a roll! Feel free to let me know when your next poem comes out, and I'll give it a review!