Young Writers Society

Heya, star! I see we have another visual poem here. This will be a slightly shorter review because that last one got me tired XD. But I like visual poems. How about I review this one, shall I?

So as this poem is slightly all over the place in terms of consistency with the thing you are relating to, I will go image by image.

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I think this perfectly deals out the counter argument to, "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger." Sure, those papercuts don't kill you, but you don't understand how something can hurt so much and not leave any sign of being there. It's like you want the marks so you can have a valid reason for your pain. I think your use of italics for, "how disappointing," was in great taste. All of these are still your thoughts but when it's italicized it gives a sense that this is your actual thought, and it hasn't been twisted into something more poetic.

Moon
This wouldn't be star poetry without something spacy. So you try to talk to the moon because you're too afraid of the sun. It's like when depressed people seek out other depressed people to talk to because they are the only people who would understand. The moon is also a very personal celestial body to many people. But even with the moon seeming more gentile than the sun, your messages bounce back and strike you through your heart. It's like no one can help you. <33333

Cake
Here's the one where I was confused at how things were to be portrayed. I understand the part about where you told your wishes to your friends, because to my knowledge if you tell your wish it doesn't come true. My point of confusion was when you said,

now all my candles remain unlit (for i have lost my lighter) but wax melts into the cake anyway.

maybe it would restart my stupid heart.

As the title says, the different parts of the poem are in different places, referencing the scattered pieces of it. I personally like the way it was written and it definitely gets to the point of things. These thoughts that it is giving are like thoughts that just keep coming, and they don't seem to stop. I have honestly dealt with stuff like this, and I know that it is not fun. The energy that it gives up, it is mixed, but not in a bad way, it's almost to the point where I like it.

Okay, as I've said before, the way it is split was very creative. I really like how each picture that every part is in is referenced to what each part is talking about. One of my favorite things about this poem is when it is talking about the ducks and not killing them, it's referencing the fact that there is no heart to kill something, even if it is for a moment of happiness. It just really made me think that some people want others to be happy and joyful, even if it means giving up their own happiness.

Another good part to this is the end, it is very direct, but also deceiving. What I mean by this is the fact that the line slowly fades and flattens as it goes, until the line is completely gone and straight. Trying to read the last line as it fades is a trouble. I don't know if you were trying to do this on purpose, but it kind of reminds me of a person, the fact that you can't see them as they're fading that well, and when they are finally gone, you can't read them at all.

Thank you so much for writing this, it was really pleasing to read, as well as entertaining, I hope my review does you well.

Hi StarlitMind!

I am here for a quick review for your poem. I loved your amazing style and how you chose an unique format for this. Each part was beautiful and impactful. I felt the emotions were delivered very nicely and your imageries made it more strong. Especially the last stanza/line where it all ends when that curve flattens just like one of those ECG curves which becomes a straight line when the heart stops beating. Making them fade gradually added special effect to it.

The small message that you kept on writing 'I don't need help' and 'nothing's wrong with me' also tells about the mental state of the person who is trying to hide his problems from the world but deep down wants to be helped. So striking those lines towards the end was very clever.

Each of your paragraphs had wonderful imagery and delivered some strong messages. The pain and sorrow could be felt deeply. The part where you used ducks was really interesting and the fact that you blamed them twice for not teaching you how to float twice made me chuckle. Though I know the overall setting of this poem is very serious and you tried to deliver it a very simple and straight forward manner so that it doesn't look too depressing. The hidden pain and frustration can be seen at many places. Like in the wings part when at the end you say 'what if I cut..' hints about the suicidal thoughts that are coming in the mind of the narrator. Then again reading the line 'there's nothing wrong with me' and 'I don't need help' adds more dramatic effect to your thoughts.

Overall it was really an amazing poem and the way it was written was just fantastic. I had never seen any poem written this way. This idea was indeed really great.

Keep writing

Like all of your poetry-this poem is absolutely beautiful. I especially like the bathtub section and the balloon section! The uncanny irony that you manage to beautifully weave into every sentence makes this piece so alluring. Great job! Keep writing

This latest poem is very moving and impactful. You're really on such a poetry roll! It has excellent usage of concrete imagery all the way through. Every section is satisfying as its own little poem, but put together have a great impact. I just have time for a few comments:

I didn't find it humorous as thepages mentioned, but I do think there's a striking uncomfortable irony with these very casual and innocent objects / child-like reflections juxtaposed to this very serious progressional narrative of depression & self-harm reflections. The simple pictures and language make the reader feel like it's almost in the form of a cutesy nursery rhyme-esque piece, but the content tells a different story which is a really great usage of contrast.

I think the image pairings could have used a bit more continuity -> you've got celestial things, researchy/writing things, and floating/flying things - there's some connection with all of them being things that a child might be interested in, but I'm not necessarily seeing all the pieces connect. Your language connections of using some of the same phrase beginnings for each new section helped with the continuity though.

A tiny continuity thing - > you have a few sections that cut off dramatically / I like that you do this multiple times, but you lose the sense of repetition in cutting them off in different ways - ie. "what if i cut my..." uses ellipses, "how do i" doesn't have anything between that and next section, "how" doesn't really feel like it should be followed by "and watch" -> I don't know where the "and watch" is coming from actually - > I think with a separated poem like this you might want to write it all out prose style and see if it feels continuous or disjointed. A bit of disjointedness is okay given the subject matter and idea of these being scattered thoughts, but I think it could be a bit more consistency within the disjointedness if that makes sense.

I also like the tension between the image-contained text and the uncontained text, I think you might win over a few more traditionalists if you began with some uncontained text rather than jumping straight into the little poem snippets in images it could also help you contextualize the poem a bit, because my first impression seeing the poem before reading it was a much different feeling than having read it.

My favorite couple sections were the one about the moon and sun -> great usage of metaphor that really makes the speaker feel desperate with a sense of almost whimsy too. The line "that explains why i can't feel its warmth" really hit me too. I had a friend in college who really struggled with some of these issues, and one of the most heartbreaking things she ever told me was that her mom had told her her whole life that she would be happy if she just got more vitamin D and sunshine. While light and sun clearly can effect a person's mood, that just always felt like such a helpless and almost cruel thing to say to someone who was seriously struggling with ideas of self-harm and suicide.

That was another thing I wanted to bring up about the poem, I think part of the reason that it's so impactful is because it uses such ordinary images and objects to structure it's message - a lot of poems about self-harm, depression, and other serious mental health issues are just really painful to read, and sometimes start in a place that's so removed from what other people have experienced, that there's an almost inability to relate, because there's too much pain/shock present. This poem though, doesn't begin with shock, but sort of eases into it, so the whole way the reader is given objects and images they can relate to and I think it builds empathy with the speaker of poem in a way that makes the ending more dramatic and ultimately more impactful in my opinion. There's a value to both approaches, I'm just trying to articulate what I find so striking about your approach.

My other favorite section has to be the butterfly/airplane one. I have a soft-spot in my heart for origami poetry clearly, and the sort of irrational hope of wanting to fly so making a paper airplane, then cutting wings and hair and self, is just a really striking progression that somehow makes a lot of sense and has a great deal of sad innocence to it; very heart-striking there.

I don't have a lot of specific wording critiques, I think like your poem on the moon phases, again you're really showcasing your skills at saying a lot in a concise way - each of these sections is very tight, my main critique is just to consider a little bit more in the framing and continuity aspect of the piece.

Thank you for sharing this!

- alliyah

Wow! This was an amazing poem. I love what you do with shapes, and the way you present so many fragments that add up to something really big and meaningful. I also love how you have the words “i don’t need help” outside of the shapes. It feels like a tug of war, like a push and pull between the sections inside the shapes, which shows how the speaker isn’t ok, but then the phrase “i don’t need help” makes it seem like they are ok.
First of all, I think the section in the parchment is very relatable. I love this idea, that you can be hurt again and again, but it doesn’t leave a mark. Life can be painful, but it doesn’t always affect you outwardly. I can relate so much to this idea, and I think it’s a wonderful way to start the poem.
However, I was a little confused by the section where the speaker talks about their birthday cake and the wishes on their birthday candle. I can sense the sadness in this poem, the idea of things going wrong, but I don’t really understand what you’re trying to say. That we shouldn’t tell our dreams to other people? Why not? Did the friends betray the speaker’s dream? I think you have a good general idea here, it just isn’t clear enough.
The section in the bathtub is amazing, though. I absolutely love it. It says a lot about your loneliness if you want rubber ducks to come alive. I also love the sutble hint that the speaker is so numb and so depressed that they need to be electrocuted to feel something. That makes it seem like they’re really far gone. But at the same time, they don’t want to to kill rubber ducks (who aren’t even alive). They don’t care about their life, but they care about the life of rubber ducks, which is an interesting paradox.
I also love the “To Do” section, where you talk about why the speaker can’t love themselves. It reveals so much about the speaker, and about mental illness in general. That’s such an interesting idea, that if you lose the idea of who you are, then you can’t love yourself. I also really love the rocket ship, but it was a little hard to read that one, because the lines of the ship separated the text, which threw me off. I would suggest putting everything in the body of the rocket, except for the words in the flames. I like how the words taper off in the flame.
The end of the poem was also amazing. I love how it fades away, and almost melts into the page. Overall, this was an amazing poem. You do a great job using a variety of different ideas and visual images to express mental illness.

Hello, an interesting presentation you've got here. The poems are touching but humorous at the same time, i like the one of not making wishes on birthday cake candles. Mostly because you've lost the lighter n because they haven't really gotten true, only that you've stated in a rythmic way. Quite interesting, poetry, i jst fail to get how poets do that.
Nice one!