Poetry / She was only 10.... (Analysis)

Great work…enjoyed reading it..kepp em coming

thanks

At first glance, I thought this might be about a girl who had been abused rather than traumatized by death. It’s very good, but I think it might need what my only good English teacher called a ‘door line,’ as in saying, ‘his shoes still by the door’ instead of just ‘he was gone.’ Very touching, all the same.

This piece wanders a bit much for my taste. Almost as if you are trying too hard to keep up the poetry of it. I think some of the lines are awkward. The first one is def. I think it should be she was ten and hadnt thought pain could feel like that maybe? I dont know. It just seems not right. Overall the emotion gets through well though.

This is a poem that is so personal it is difficult to properly critique. I think that overall, my suggestion would be that you organise it better, using punctuation to seperate it into definite thoughts. I find free verse somewhat difficult to deal with and when there is not a definite verse structure, it can seem directionless.
I really like the language you have used to illustrate the enormity of a loss that is so hard for other people to understand. A loss like that can be hard for people to imagine.

there is nothing wrong with this writing (aside from a few cliches) but i think it’s a mistake to consider it poetry. the label poetry demands that you provide an image / transfer a feeling to your readers but what you have done here is basically to provide a small biography.. this may be better suited to be a story in a chicken soup book.

This poem,”She was only 10…” is very touching…  I can feel her confusion, her pain…  `A little girl lost to find her father gone`so very sad and hard to live with…  no Dad…  `Retreating at every chance, for her heart can`t take the pain`, I understand having lost my own father…  She is too young to cope with her parent being gone…  Very good, very touching, just hope she found help…

Many of the personality traits and results of a childhood trauma expressed here are touching and understandable. I believe you have keen insight into this girl/now woman. But I don’t read this as a poem, per se. I would prefer to see you develop this as a character description for either a short story, or, since it is a real woman you know, perhaps it could be biographical, in a personal essay format. I’m interested in your view of how her life was altered by her father’s death, but I feel what you have to say is unecessarily boxed in here in way, because you’re trying to fit it into a piece of poetry, and it’s winding up reading more like a case study, with emotional language.

The sentiment is lovely, but to have this hold up as a poem, you’ll need to incorporate more of at least one of the key elements of poetry. For example, maybe you could work with beats and rhythm… or word choices & metaphors that are a bit more unexpected… or even with your line breaks, so it doesn’t read like a long sentence telling us about this person. In fact, if you’re determined to continue to form a poem of of your observations here, then I’d focus on that last element. Show us how this event hit her and changed her, instead of telling us; you can do this by focusing less on the expected emotional impact this tragic death had on this woman, and more on events and symptoms. I would love a scene from her life then, then later as a teen, and again now. You spoke of a dream, what was the dream? She holds back love—how, from whom? Pain and beautiful are two wonderful words to start with, to build new lines. Show us how her pain looks on her, and show us the beauty you see.

You’ve done a nice job honoring your friend with your writing. And if you do decide to turn it into a prose piece, feel free to send me another request to read.

This is a truly beautiful piece of writing. I love the way that you depicted this story. I’m sure that many women can relate to this poem. Many having fathers who either couldn’t be there… or chose not to. Such hard backgrounds can make for beautiful, sucessful women, though. You’re a wonderful writer and I hope that you never give it up.

Who are you? This poem hits me to the core. I just stumbled upon it. I was having a horrible day and then I found this poem. It made me think a bit.