It took me a couple times reading this poem to understand the meaning and to be able to relate to it.  I liked the alitteration of "brick by brick" and "bit by bit." Still, the poem, overall, seems to escape me.  It seems to be written as a pure emotional outlet, which is a very good thing.  I also like how the poem ended on a seemingly positive note: "where the precious child lay her head."  It might take me a couple more reading to fully grasp the significance of this climactic line.  Nevertheless, good job.

I had trouble right out of the gate, with:

"Brick by brick built this house
loneliness and silence tore it down.
Mortar and block what holds it together
was crumbled by harried miscommunications."

Your tense moves around and the 'brick by brick' opening is too vague for me: Am I missing something here; is there a line missing before the first line?

And then here:

"So, again built brick by brick
the house began to mold into a home.
Sweat, tears, and determination
held it together all alone."

Is "mold" the word you wanted to use? Was the house cast from 'a mold''? I 'm confused at the usage of 'mold'(?).

"held it together all alone." feels like this locution is an oxymoron. 

Words like: "loneliness, Pain, solitude, tears, Acid, fear, and shame are very powerful and emotion evoking, but I just didn't feel any of that when I read this poem. Oh, it comes across as sad, all right, but in a melancholy sort of way. I find it convoluted, trite-ish and castigating.

It definitely needs some rework to make it more understandable.

You let us into a painful personal episode. Whether it's based on real experiences or completely fictional or a combination, you let us into a world where we can share your feelings.

But what exactly you are writing about can seem a bit opaque and I'm not entirely certain, for a fact, what is really going on. I can make some inferences, but I won't state them for fear of them being incorrect. There's a thin line between effectively inscrutible poetic sensibilities and being too intentionally abstract and hard to grasp.

Brick by brick built this house

Who built the house? This sentence needs reworded, or something added in between "brick" and "built". It doesn't work in its current form. Did you just forget the noun? Or would you rather have it worded "Brick by brick this house was built"?

Determination was the only key
to a house built out of sand.

Earlier you said it was made out of "solid stone". Did you mean that the stone was turned into sand? Or should we just forget about the stone part? It should be made clearer where this "sand" comes from.

i really liked this poem and it reminded of the days that my grandfather used to read "the house that jack built" to me as a child...i can see 3 generations of people in the work, three foundations or houses and the metaphors within the piece are skillfull and tactfully done...thank you for letting me read this

First, nice reference. I thought that the title was clever.

I think that this poem wears its emotion on its sleeve, and for that reason, I have no thematic critiques (I wouldn't want to interfere with that).

However, I do have a few grammatical suggestions.

Brick by brick built this house loneliness and silence tore it down. Mortar and block what holds it together was crumbled by harried miscommunications.

To me, this statement is confusing. There is a confusion of possession here. Who built the house again? Also, a few verbs would be nice for structure, or simply add a few hyphens here or there to help things along. For example (Mortar and block--what holds it together). This will help organize things a bit better.

So, again built brick by brick the house began to mold into a home. Sweat, tears, and determination held it together all alone.

For some reason, I find this statement a bit strange here. I would suggest using another word instead of "mold."

This time instead of loneliness the cracks were fear, shame, and dying It ate up every concrete slab to leave no foundation at all.

Here, I find the phrase "it ate up" somewhat colloquial, especially in comparison to the rest of your diction. I would suggest using a stronger word like "devoured."

Other than that, I enjoyed reading it. I don't find it earth-shattering, but I find that I can relate to parts of it in some ways. Nice job.

-Strider212 

I like your idea of using a physical object such as a house to represent a familial relationship. I think you have good instincts to use physical descriptions to convey emotional ideas. Nevertheless, the basis of the poem is a bit cliché and overdone. I have heard countless comparisons of the home to a loving family or a broken family.... It's an easy comparison to make and thus has been overdone. Some examples are "home is where the heart is" seems awfully close to the last part of the poem that states...  "A heart beating solid inside a HOME".

I also don't think it is necessary to capitalize the word home.

Anyways long story short I think you have a lot of interesting emotions to communicate, good stuff that will resonate with most readers, but I think there are more creative ways to get those emotions out.

Describe what happened to cause the shame, doubt, pain and solitude. What were the sights the sounds and actions that evoked those feelings? Don't tell us what was felt, show us. Also I think you can find a more inventive metaphor than the Home = family relationship.

Anyways you got some great instincts, keep writing....

L

I like the imagery in this poem. A LOT. I could never write so well in free verse. I love that, if I'm interpreting this correctly, the homes and structural stability refer to the relationships and support this child feels. I'm assuming this is referring to some sort of foster care type of case? Overall, I think it is very good. It also reminds me very much, the second third and fourth stanzas, of Blake's 'The Poison Tree' because of the reference of the bitterness being inside at first, then forcing its way out later. I might use more phrases to describe more the child's state throughout the phases of these structures changing, but that's a more personal view than a critical one.

 Tamara,

I'm digging this peice. I like the intent. The execution could benefit from a little more subtlety.

Brick by brick this house was built
loneliness and silence tore it down.
Mortar and block  held it together
Miscommunication crumbled them.

So let me do a bit of a line by line analysis for this section as an example: I won't bore you with my thought process for every line in the piece.

Brick by brick this house was built -- from what:? Love? Tenderness? Does the house have any meaning? What color are the bricks, how do they feel - what is inside them. The house right now is empty so its looming destruction seems less than worrisome. I've got no skin in the game, since the house is only bricks.

Lonliness and silence tore it down -- Lonliness and silence both feel like neglect. Neglect doesn't feel like it should tear, since tearing is a bit violent. Is there a better way to say this that gets your point across?

Mortar and block held it together -- Give me the corresponding emotions or behaviors that act like mortar and block. If hope is mortar, and dreams are blocks then the house is held together by quite a bit.

Miscommunication crumbled them -- What caused the miscommunication? This is a big word for the peice, and could be written as something else more potent. Miscommunication is a message that betrays the wrong meaning - thus betrayal and distrust. Those seem to be more potent agonists to mortar and block and brick.

Select each word of this piece, like the brick by brick line. Each word needs to be multi-dimensional. In poetry a rock is not a rock. Your good heart has a chance to shine through this piece. The work has an opportunity to help others grow, and provide an alternative to responding to the same old hurts in the same old way. I applaud the effort.

Warmest,

B