Young Writers Society

bruises run dark
down the body of this lad
each unfurling the story
another uncaring deadbeat dad

he walks down school halls
some self proclaimed niche of hell
hanging his head without thought
as he strives to impel

groups of kids walk past the lad
one thought on the mind
they rush up to the pleading boy
his begging merely disinclined

they push and they shove
yet he fights with all his might
all of this torment and abuse
a never ending darkness without light

crowds shoot helpless glances
watching the boys eye's full of misery
only to keep walking
focused only on their own babblery

from his school to his home
he can not seem to escape this fate
so he turns to what he knows
a plan he intends to actuate

to disappear from this world
would end this cruel maltreatment
staring into the deep blue water
he lunges for total absolvement

if only someone stood up
said enough and showed they cared
a life might have been saved
tonight a soul would be spared

we all have the power
the ability to stop this unfair trend
when you see someone in pain
show them, they do have a friend

Hi there. I'm Lavvi and welcome to YWS! I'm sure you'll like it here.

For your first post, this poem is really nice. You demonstrate a good hold on where your poetry good and you, generally, have a decent meter and good imagery. However, there are some things I'd like to target today.

A) Flowing like a river. Overall, your meter is pretty spot on, but there are parts when it seems to stumble. Usually, a pause in the poem's rhythm is solely due to a lack or addition of a few syllables and it easily, without fail, can ruin the entire poem. Also, lack of fluidity in certain parts is also attributed to the lack of punctuation, which you have here. I'll talk about that following. Quoting below are parts where the meter seems to be a little off:

they push and they shove
yet he fights with all his might
all of this torment and abuse
a never ending darkness without light

Focus on the italicized line. Here is where I think the meter's lacking a syllable or two. I'm not going to suggest any word to be inserted because it's mostly you who'll have to dabble with this to get it back on track. It's the poet's preference, y'know?

Additionally, the fifth stanza's meter stumbles loads. With reading aloud, you could probably fix meter before posting as best as possible. Nonetheless, we can always target forgotten bits for you

B) Intentional vs. Needed. So, usually poetry is joined by punctuation but sometimes people like an intentional lack of punctuation purely for personal/poetic reasons. However, since you did not specify beforehand, I'm confused where your poem might be lacking punctuation simple because or because it was intentional. By the looks of it, I'm guessing it was intentional and it works fantastically without it (punctuation). If, however, punctuation completely slipped your mind, I suggest you don't add it for this poem. It runs well with the lack of.



A few things that stuck out at me:

they push and they shove
yet he fights with all his might
all of this torment and abuse
a never ending darkness without light

Target: italics. Here, I find part of this line quite redundant. You say a darkness without light? To be blunt, it is obvious that there is no light in a darkness. It's like you didn't really know what to write here and just filled the last line of this stanza in with nonsense. So, I highly suggest you remove the "without light" part. It may affect your meter for better or for worse, but that's something you might have to deal with.

Secondly:

crowds shoot helpless glances
watching the boys eye's full of misery
only to keep walking
focused only on their own babblery

Target: bold. I think this is just a minor grammatical error on your part. It's easily missed but easily confuses the meaning of the line. Did you perhaps intend to type: "boy's eyes"?

Next, the italicized word ("babblery"). In reality, this is not a word at all. It's invented. It also tarnishes the poem, more specifically the stanza, and undoes a bit of the serious atmosphere you've so far developed. It's unprofessional. Another more true word might fit a little better here.

Overall, I enjoyed this. You target a very popular idea in the poetry world, but you've successfully pulled it off. It's like writing a vampire fiction and making it all your own. Cliche turned original, y'know? I really liked this and I hope you can take my points into consideration.

Feel free to drop me a line if you have any questions whatsoever.

Yours,
Lavvi

I liked it. Ok, well, it could have been better. You’ve got the idea ,but here some things that need correction.


It all needs to keep the same flow. Most of it was perfect, you hit it right on. Others, it seemed like it just didn’t fit. Remember that if one word, phase, or line doesn’t have the same easily seen flow, and then change it. If you have any doubt or it seems like it’s off a little, it can really mess up everything else, throwing it ALL off. Don’t forget to punctuate, just because it’s a poem doesn’t mean you should excuse first grade writing skills. Look at the stanza below, it needs some help from everything I mentioned above:

they push and they shove
yet he fights with all his might
all of this torment and abuse
a never ending darkness without light


Ok, so everything above needs help. First there was lack of flow in the last line. It didn’t really fit, try reading it over again and substituting words, and use your best friend, the thesaurus. Also, punctuation, well, uh, there wasn’t any. You should have learned this in first grade, maybe even kindergarten.

crowds shoot helpless glances
watching the boys eye's full of misery
only to keep walking
focused only on their own babblery


Grammar! Or is it grammar? Either way you lack some. Again, most all of your mistakes could have been prevented with proofreading.

"babblery", just doesn’t exist, I wish it did, but, no such word. Just try popping out that friend thesaurus. Give it some thinking. The word throws off the entire poem, not to mention the stanza.

It was a good poem and I like it, just that you need some practice that’s all.