Young Writers Society

Hi there zaminami! Niteowl here to review.

Overall, I like the idea of this poem, how there is so much we can technically see and hear but don't actually pay attention to. It's interesting to think about how our eyes might, for example, see all the blades of grass in a yard, but we won't actually perceive all the different blades.

or the grasses in a yard.

Minor quibble here. I don't think grasses is the right plural here. I would say "grass" in this context because it's a collective plural noun. "Grasses" would only work if you were talking about different types of grass. I'm not 100% sure of this though, so you might need to look it up.

Concerning the repetition: I get that it was done for emphasis, but it feels like overkill. Two times, could work, but by the third time I start losing interest.

they do not see
the individual leaves on the trees
the slight glistening of the rain as it falls
the tiny texture of the lunchbox's fabric
or every single grass in a yard.

with their
veins stretching out from the stems,
individual raindrops falling from the sky
rounded diamonds of the fabric
different times the grasses ripple in the wind.

Wow. The first stanza here is interesting because of how it contrasts with the general imagery of the previous stanzas, but I feel like the language could be stronger. Then bam, we get to the next stanzas and we have some much stronger detail and imagery. It might work better to combine the two, like "they do not see/individual leaves on the tree/veins stretching out from the stems", etc. Also, the word "individual" is kind of awkward to say and it's repeated twice here, so it messes up the flow.

while people have ears,(i thought this said white people have ears and i was kinda confused for a sec lol) but not black people

Uh, I assume this was copied from a WFP commentary? I always have to double check work I've written in a jam or something, haha.

I think the repetition drags more in the hearing section because the examples used are fairly common. Granted, so are trees and rain, but I think the lunchbox was a little different and added some interest to the visual section. I'd consider using at least one more unconventional sound. The sounds feel more random and separate from each other, while in the vision part I feel like one person could be looking at all those things. Also, I think "listen" is the wrong word to open the section with because listening implies that people ARE paying attention to details, when the entire message of the poem is that they aren't paying attention.

One idea I have while reading this is that instead of being random, the sights and sounds could all be tied to one scene, like a woman looking out her window or someone at the beach seeing the sand and hearing the waves but not seeing all the grains or all the tones of the waves or something like that.

Overall, I like the idea of this, but I think it could be refined to make it even better. Keep writing!