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Let's Dream Again
play with my bra strap when we’re in the dark
lay me down and touch me so sweetly
I wonder if everything else is a dream
when your green eyes catch on my face
I wonder if you’re the dream
when your dad gets home you push me into the closet
slam the door in my face
tug your tiny tank top down again
covering up miles of your skin and my sweet, sweet kisses
and don’t let me out for hours and hours
when your dad falls asleep you sneak me out
say tomorrow is when everything will change
What we love about it
What a stunning poem! Beautiful use of concrete details and vivid language! "Miles of your skin"--holy smokes!!
Suggestions to strengthen
This poem just needs a little nudge. You might consider making familiar phrases like "sweet kisses" and "I wonder if you're a dream" new with fresh language, perhaps alluding to the fugitive nature of the relationship.
The problem solver
On a sunny spring day
as we sat to decorate
our little patch of green
my baby crawled away
to select a pinwheel.
She carefully crawled
all the way to me.
I painfully adjusted
the glittering pink wheel
to the current of air
filling the space
with joy and color.
What we love about it
This poem describes a beautifully sweet moment of parenthood and will have broad appeal.
Suggestions to strengthen
Although the situation the poem describes is sweet, what is at stake in this poem? You might further explore the relationship between a child's blooming agency and her parent's authority.
One in Eight
Then there was the quiet
The silence after you left
The emptiness of you gone
Wishing that I’d looked closer
Wishing I’d noticed
Wishing forever
It’s so different now
Forever foggy
Forever missing you
What we love about it
This poem walks heart forward, and the speaker's pain is beautifully evident.
Suggestions to strengthen
I'd love to have something concrete to hold onto--an image, a description, a metaphor. What, for example, does the speaker wish they had looked closer at, noticed, or wished for?
Long time ago I was born onto this world
Long time ago I was born onto this world,
Spitted out of my mother’s womb unquestionably, without a mercy putted on earth,
Cursed to walk on the broken glass, smile to monsters and dance with the dragons,
Weep inside, die and die all over again
Than there was something else I don’t quite remember name of the word, but I remember the feeling, it was euphoric, sad but lifegiving, thing that kept me going through the fire, what made me enjoy all the flames and burns.
No it was not love, I never tasted love nor did I understood the foolish victims of it,
But I feared them, those people would destroy there whole life, set the sky on fire only if it meant keeping the one there loved one safe and happy.
What we love about it
This poem employs several beautiful turns of phrase, like "spit out of my mother's womb unquestionably" and "cursed to walk on the broken glass." These are specific and tellingly concrete.
Suggestions to strengthen
Much of the poem centers on generalities and abstract ideas. You might consider using more concrete details to bring the poem "down to earth" and to allow the reader to hold the poem's ideas in the imagination.
wind and grace
nature feeling like an escape to the moon
while i hold onto your hands til noon
as tears run down my face
and i’m wondering, will you ever be replaced?
the wind and dirt bring the chase
as if they separate us from this place
while i hope that you’ll be blessed with grace
once you’re somewhere in the space
What we love about it
This poem's sonics are stunning. The rhythm and rhyme pull the reader pleasingly along.
Suggestions to strengthen
That said, the "wind" and abstract airiness in this poem make it difficult to hold in the imagination. You might try adding some concrete details and images--where are these people sitting? where is the other person going? what does grace look like?--to bring the poem down to earth and to the reader's eye level.
Charlie
I long for your company to fill the void,
Brutish actions and silent debate.
Our memories are pictures from a polaroid,
But your ink was becoming desolate.
What we love about it
This poem's use of similes in the second half of the poem is stunning and vivid!
Suggestions to strengthen
It feels like you might have more to explore in this poem! You've introduced a complex relationship on earth, but then you jump to the stars. I'm curious what happens in between!
The Feelings of Orange
Orange is the feeling you get
When looking out into the distance
Feeling the warmth of the sun,
The comfort of others.
Orange is the feeling of
Biting into a fresh piece of fruit
Under the comforting shade
Of a tree in summer.
What we love about it
This poem pays thoughtful homage to a single color, and the meditative attention on the hue is beautiful.
Suggestions to strengthen
The poem might benefit from the inclusion of more visual elements and concrete details. Where is orange felt in the body? What is its temperature? How does the fruit feel on the tongue? Including more details like these will help the poem pop.
I keep your secret
I keep your secret
I keep it locked away
I let it out with friends and family and strangers, wrapped in a blanket of humor
A laugh about a man and a lie
They laugh, I laugh, I hide
I let it out to my therapist
I may never trust men again
That wasn’t all you
You’re just the most recent one.
I keep your secret from the only person who really matters
I scroll through her page and see the photos
You’re happy with her
Happy.
With her.
I never really existed to you.
I can handle that.
Can she handle that I did exist?
What we love about it
This poem's honesty is electrifying and brave!
Suggestions to strengthen
Part of poetry's power comes from its ability to compare unlike things, and, in this comparison, to discover something new about each "half" of the metaphor. You might consider adding more metaphoric language to reveal something unique about secrets--keeping them, being one, etc. What does it feel like in the body? To what other thing/situation in the world could you compare it to?
The Affair(s)
i silently search your eyes
Climb into your brain
Try to gauge your thoughts
Try to see if you know im in pain
Pain you discovered and fostered as your own
Pain that rains down
Showering
Covering
Smothering
Cascading through my hair
Splashing against sagging shoulders
Rolling down a withered, weathered spine
Half the force it used to be.
Broken backs need more than just a Brace
What we love about it
The poem's pacing and phrasing mimic the spiraling feelings of heartbreak in a gorgeous way. And the second half of the poem does excellent work of showing rather than telling.
Suggestions to strengthen
While the second half of the poem includes very specific, visual details, the first half doesn't exhibit the same concreteness. What, for example, is this pain the other figure discovered in the speaker? What is it made of? Does it have a color or scent? How can you make the first half of the poem as clear and vivid and the second?
I try again
I try again
Forgetting the pain
I try to stand
Dusting off imaginary sand
Try to move forward
Knowing I’m a coward
I try to run
Instead I burn
Fall back down like an asteroid
I crash, I’m paranoid
What we love about it
The near-rhymes at the end of each line mimic the rising and falling motion I imagine the speaker undertakes in this poem, but without the cloying sound of perfect rhyme. Excellent work!
Suggestions to strengthen
The inclusion of some concrete details (where are these figures? what is the quality of the light on them? what time of day is it?) would help ground the reader in a poem that, at the moment, feels a bit abstract.
Sleeping with You
The best part about sleeping with you
Not sleeping like having sex
Sleeping like two kids laying innocently in a bed together
When we are both in our claimed corners
Our bodies completely separate
Somehow you reach your arm over
It finds the shape of my waist perfectly
What we love about it
This poem pays beautiful homage to an intimate moment in time and does an excellent job of employing concrete details to show how these two bodies exist in relationship.
Suggestions to strengthen
How might you push this poem a little further to dig a little deeper into the idea you present here? Give the reader some more details about this situation and the dynamic. When you push past your area of comfort in a poem, you open yourself up to ideas that truly resonate.
Orchestrated Silence
It’s that point.
That numbing silence…
When all else fades,
And there is nothing.
It is that.. Orchestrated silence.
That low ambient hum.
What we love about it
The phrase "orchestrated silence" is dazzling, and I love how the poem enlarges silence's seemingly small presence.
Suggestions to strengthen
I would actually love to "hear" more in this poem. You might bring in some imagery from orchestras or bands, or you might even let the words themselves make some noise--you could play with "sh" and "s" sounds or "m" and "o" sounds . . . I think bringing more texture and sound into the poem will allow the reader to "hear" this profound silence even more clearly!
One of THOSE days
It’s one of those days
Those days where you’re thinking I’m ignoring you
Those days where I can’t find it in me to put on a smile for you
For you it’s one of “those days” but what do you think it means for me
I lay there still
I lay there with meaningless tears in my eyes
I lay there and I think about you
How you’re thriving and being good to you FOR you
I lay there and think about how to you I’m nothing but lazy
how unattractive it might seem for someone to have no motivation, no drive.
I’m proud of you for doing so much, but I’m also proud of me for doing so little.
You’re right, it is “one of those days”
What we love about it
This poem approaches difficult feelings with beautiful focus and will have broad appeal.
Suggestions to strengthen
You might experiment with adding some color, texture, sound, and image to help anchor the reader in this scene. Where are the figures in this poem? What do the speaker's tears feel like in their eyes? The inclusion of specific, sensory details will help the poem jump off the page.
Red Sky at Night
Red sky at night, sailors delight; red sky in the morning, sailors warning
I wish I could hate him, she said
Or I wish he could say he is sorry, she said, and like a fish could come swimming as soon as that bait hit the water.
I wish I could hate him, she said;
Or I wish I would have told somebody sooner, and instead like a sailor; I would be watching the lunar landscape in the night with the red sky and feeling delight.
Instead I chose warnings that turned into endless nights of mourning
I wish I could see the forewarnings my twelve year old self would encounter,
I wish I could hate him, she said;
What we love about it
This poem courageously tackles trauma, employs stunning metaphors, and makes brilliant use of a nautical aphorism.
Suggestions to strengthen
In some stanzas, the speaker takes on more of a "telling/explaining" tone rather than the "showing" tone that would lend more power to a poem. For example, when the speaker says, "Knowing, I will get better and that although I did not speak up sooner I helped a lot of people along the way. I healed the wrong way, but I learned to forgive and feel pride of who I am," what if instead, you replaced this explanation of healing with symbols or images of healing? How could you show pride? What does speaking up look like? You might think about which sensory details and concrete images might show the reader what these thoughts and feelings look like.
Unexpected
The house you love. Imagine that. The one you love filled with people who terrify. If you create the tether, you must want it. All things we want we gamble for. Heat snarls around my back while I read about The Temple of lightness. Pain is a flower, I know because I read it. When did I become so desperate? The man I turned to in the kitchen, the one who kissed like he was giving me things back.
What we love about it
I was shocked by some of the language in here, particularly the use of the word "snarls"! Great work.
Suggestions to strengthen
I wonder about the form here. Is the prose form the best possible option for a poem like this? What would happen if you attempted to work with couplets? I also wonder about where the poem stops. Is it possible there's more to this poem than we can see?
Rainbow
Me and my friend are not friendly
because she does not talk to me
and I have not seen her in 5 years.
What if she hates me?
What we love about it
The opening surprised us!
Suggestions to strengthen
The poems seems a bit undone. What if you worked on expanding the poem by writing 5 or 6 more stanzas?
Blue Man
Alone he walks in the dark blue streets.
In the coldness and fear of the dark blue nights.
The blue man alone always reaches,
The old blue river where he will be affright.
He stands there and think about all the old nights,
When he thought of ending things for the final time.
He always knew it would end by the river,
But he never thought it will end tonight.
What we love about it
This poem does a great job of creating a moody atmosphere, and the language pairs well with the dark vision that's created.
Suggestions to strengthen
What were those lonely nights? Could the title do a bit more of the heavy lifting by providing more context to what this blue man's life was like?
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