All Comments on 'Raining Glass Hearts'

This is good, this is very good indeed.

I was setting this aside to give time for careful thought and commenting. Then ‘Loving Him’ also appeared.

It is so heartening to see you produce something of such great quality.

To me a good poem is one that conveys something of worth to me – emotionally and/or mentally. If the answer is yes or if the answer is no I can then analyse some of why it should be so. This emphatically does convey something of value to me both intellectually and emotionally. It is for others to decide if it also moves them.

My thoughts on how this was so. First and foremost you had something real to say – again both emotionally & with your brain. It is not manufactured – it gives the strong impression of having come from your heart – and your brain.

The poem has a strong structure both in terms of verse and thought progression. It is steady – inexorable. The rhyming works here giving weight to the progression. It is a balanced structure that starts by setting out the ‘hopes’ and then the dashing of those hopes has much more force.

You find what I call a ‘voice’. I am drawn in to believe in the narrator – and to feel for her. This is a restrained voice that stands back (or wants to stand back) and that makes it much, much stronger.

There is nice imagery and you manage to steer your way through a number of phrases (e.g. taking a random couple of lines: ‘smile turned to tears’, ‘hearts were pawns’, ‘we live in our darkest fears’) that could easily drop into cliché – yet you (just) manage to stay fresh and real.

I cannot express how pleased it makes me to see you producing something like this.

I didn't like this too much during my first read-through. When I reached the fist line of the second stanza, I felt it was a bit too juvenile, with clichéd lines. (Ironic, given my own submission's title.)

However, a more careful read told me I was wrong — you're not talking about one relationship, but about all people whose hearts are made of glass. There is heartfelt emotion here, coming through certain lines, e.g. s1 l2, s2 l4 and s3 l3. Your poem does tip toe the line between heartfelt and cliché, though, with lines like "Now we live in our darkest fears". It is a true thing, a good description, but there might be ways to say the same thing in a fresher way. It's just something to think about, if you ever revisit this. All the above is just my humble opinion.

My favorite parts are s1 l1-2 and the last stanza, which makes me think a club of broken hearted people. :)