Yesterday, 11:47 PM
I like this concept - an exploration of the ways in which talking to yourself is different from talking to others. I find that topic relatable. You effectively open up a lot of fun questions with this theme. Do you lie to yourself? Do you hide from yourself? Are you more honest with other people than you are with yourself? All great ideas.
My main critique is that the poem is more exposition than experience. Art, in my opinion, is most evocative when it's lived-in - when I'm sharing a moment with the narrator, character, scene, or emotion. This poem opens with: "A thought came to me." My advice is to cut that line and similar lines. Don't tell us that the thought is coming... Let us witness the thought. This reads like a diary entry, and I'd like to read a version of it where I'm sitting in someone's brain with them rather than reading an explanation of their brain.
If you plan to edit this piece, my advice is this: See how many words you can remove. See how economical you can make it. See what emotion you can convey without naming the emotion. You ask a lot of good questions in this poem... how can you plant those questions in the reader's mind without having the speaker ask them outright? For me, the magic of storytelling lies in the sneaky gaps between what the narrator knows and what the reader knows. Can you write a speaker who knows LESS than the reader? Can you make the reader understand things that the speaker doesn't confess or maybe doesn't even realize? Don't give us the message so easily. Make us work for it.
My main critique is that the poem is more exposition than experience. Art, in my opinion, is most evocative when it's lived-in - when I'm sharing a moment with the narrator, character, scene, or emotion. This poem opens with: "A thought came to me." My advice is to cut that line and similar lines. Don't tell us that the thought is coming... Let us witness the thought. This reads like a diary entry, and I'd like to read a version of it where I'm sitting in someone's brain with them rather than reading an explanation of their brain.
If you plan to edit this piece, my advice is this: See how many words you can remove. See how economical you can make it. See what emotion you can convey without naming the emotion. You ask a lot of good questions in this poem... how can you plant those questions in the reader's mind without having the speaker ask them outright? For me, the magic of storytelling lies in the sneaky gaps between what the narrator knows and what the reader knows. Can you write a speaker who knows LESS than the reader? Can you make the reader understand things that the speaker doesn't confess or maybe doesn't even realize? Don't give us the message so easily. Make us work for it.