Here you go, and I have emailed you as well.

As-salamu alaykum sister Mahfara,

You’re off to a good start as a poet, ma-sha-Allah, and the first rule is to keep on writing, because the best way to become a better writer is to write.

The second rule is to read critically. Read the works of well known poets, whether classical Muslim poets like Rumi, modern Muslim poets, or western poets like Robert Frost, Carl Sandburg, Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, Dorothy Parker and others.

Read these poems with a careful eye, trying to understand what makes them good. I recently read a book of collected works by modern Palestinian poets, and it was very good, very powerful, full of real images and experiences.

If you get a hold of a detailed Seerah like Seerat ibn Hisham, you can even read the poems written by some of the sahabah about many events in their lives. You will find them full of gory details about battles, images of wild desert animals, descriptions of proud fighters, etc. It’s great stuff.

Also, when you get to university make sure to take some courses on creative writing and poetry.

Alright. Now, one of the things that “brings a poem home” so to speak, that allows it to penetrate a reader’s heart and capture his/her imagination, are details. By which I mean concrete images. Sensory input. Specific things that you see, hear, smell, taste, and touch. These are the heart of all writing.

Let’s look at the beginning of your poem:

With every passing day,

And mind.

The problem is that there are no concrete images here. It’s all very vague. In what day does the world shatter every day?

If you had said,

With every passing day
the world shatters,
another acre of rainforest falling to the axe,
the tall, majestic trees splitting like thunder.
Another child dying of hunger,
belly distended, forgotten in a dusty refugee camp.
Another drug addict shivering
in an urban back alley, his pain hidden
behind a dumpster.

Do you see the difference? These are concrete images that a person can imagine. I cannot picture the world shattering every day – that’s too vague, what does it look like? – but I can picture a tree falling, a hungry child dying, a drug addict shivering.

You say the days go by with harshness, cruelty, hatred, coldness. Again, this is too vague. You are not really telling us readers what you are talking about. It would be better if you give specific examples of these things. Some teachers express this by saying, “Show us, don’t tell us.” In other words, don’t tell us the world is harsh. Show us how it is harsh by describing it.

Of course I don’t know the details of your life, but for example these are things I have actually heard from some young people:

The days go by:
an old woman on the street calls me a terrorist because I am wearing hijab.
A friend at school tells me
she had a relationship with a boy
now she feels corrupted
and talks of suicide.
I get home and my mother says
I am useless because I did not do my chores.
I feel my heartbeat in my ears.
I cannot breathe.
I feel empty.

So you see, this is showing, not telling. I never mentioned harshness, cruelty, coldness, etc, but the reader feels it because of the concrete details. In the end I broke my own rules and said “I feel empty” which is non-specific and not concrete, but sometimes you can get away with that if you set the foundation with enough concrete imagery.

I won’t go through the rest of the poem line by line but I’ll mention a few specific things:

I like your line, “A slow moving crack.” to describe the dawn. It’s interesting.

With all of this part:

But lack of love

For gain of power,

Again it’s too non-specific, and at times it sound like you are speaking of things that at your young age are beyond your realm of experience (for example, power used for gain of power). I do believe that you have experience with lack of love – something about this rings true in your poem – but we need some specific, concrete examples of what you are talking about.

I really like your sudden transition:

For these reasons, oh Allah,

I thank You.

It came so abruptly that at first I wondered if I missed something. But I like that feeling of surprise and wondering where you are going with it. Once again, however, we need concrete imagery in the following lines:

When twilight shows her beautiful face

As birds sing Your Praise.

You can improve this by making it more real, for example:

When twilight outlines the Sierras in the East,
reaching for the sky with their immense grayness;
a red cardinal poses cheekily at the top of a maple tree
in my front yard; a robin preens on a telephone wire
and calls, “Cheerily? cheer up, cheerily? cheer up,” repetitively.
the air smells clean and sharp
and my heart is quiet now, my eyes relaxed…
And I thank You, Allah,
I thank You

Etcetera. If you don’t know the names of the trees outside your window and the birds that sing in the morning, learn them. Look them up. These details are what make a poem real. I’m not trying to rewrite your poem, just to give you ideas for how you can improve it.

You have an excellent idea for a poem, a good outline, and a lot of genuine feeling, some good lines, and a really nice transition in the middle. If you replace the vague descriptive terms with specific real images from your own experience, it will be very strong.

Don’t worry about being a voice for something that is beyond your personal experience. Your own experience is significant enough to interest us readers, even at your age. Be your own voice, and that of your generation. Speak from experience, because it carries the weight of authority. It informs, and cannot be argued with.

Keep it up! You are further ahead than where I was at your age, and I can see you become a really talented writer Insha’Allah.