Young Writers Society

Hey there!
So, I really like the basis of this poem. I think for many of us, especially with the way you described each person based only on their flaws or their seeming virtues, the "logical choice" would be clear: let the terrible criminal man die! But your character went against this, and left readers probably shouting at him "What are you doing? What are you doing?!" But giving us a situation where we feel so opposed, where our emotions come out so easily, that helps us get connected to the poem and think more deeply about it. It makes the reader think, "Well if he doesn't judge, should I judge?" Or maybe a little about "Why doesn't he judge?"

Hopefully, through that train of thought, the reader comes to think about how you only presented the negative aspects of the man and only the pitiful aspects of the girl, so there are stories and two sides to everyone that we can never know all of, and judging based on surface appearances could be bad. Other people will think, "Okay, but still, you could save one life instead of wasting two!" Haha, it's the sort of situation where we all seem to have an opinion on what could or should be done, so that's a nice thing to write a poem about in the first place.

But. About that. What made you want this to be a poem? I feel like the way that it's written, nothing about it really needs to be defined as poetry. It seems more like those short stories that are passed on around Facebook with different inspirational graphics, and none of those are written with line breaks.

Lastly, just a few comments on specific moments:

Saram’s first choice was a man,

She had never went to an amusement park

Both exploded in a shower of blood

This was a very interesting poem. The metre was strange and the rhythm of each line was different, but the story kept me with it. I feel like this is not only a commentary on the value of lives, but also on the bystander's mentality. When somebody is doing something- it may be wrong, or it may be right- the bystander is socially inclined to let the other person be as it is not their life. If you watch "What Would You Do," you'll understand what I'm referring to.
There is only one thing that I suggest you do-- well, not do. I would tone down the line "both exploded in a shower of blood." It took from the mood. It would have been more appealing for them to shrivel away, or dissolve into darkness. Exploding in a shower of blood seems too violent for this atmosphere.
I enjoyed this poem through and through! Keep it up!

First off, I'd like to say that you have a very interesting story here. You might want to change one of the categories to Narrative, since narrative poems tell stories, just as this one does.

With that said, there wasn't much that made this feel like a poem. The line breaks were quite arbitrary, and this felt more like a very short story that was broken up to appear like a poem. One way you can combat this impression would be to give this piece more structure. You already have some repetition involved, which is good, but if you were to incorporate more, and give the repetition a clearer pattern, that would elevate this from a piece of prose broken up into lines into a poem proper.

For example, repeating a basic structure for each of the stanzas would really help in giving this piece some solid structure, which would go a long way in making this stand as a poem, in addition to helping emphasize certain aspects of the story and theme. Right now, the general structure of each stanza seems to follow Saram doing something, and then a consequence. If you were to reinforce this structure further, by perhaps even having the first line of each stanza follow the same sentence structure, this aspect of the poem would be strengthened.

Additionally, ending alternating stanzas with "I cannot choose" would really give that repetition extra impact, which would reinforce the importance of that particular utterance and the theme of the poem overall.

Something else that might help this poem is a bit more vivid language. Right now, the language of this piece is quite simple, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, however, the simplicity of the language clashes a bit with the images you tried to incorporate, especially near the end with both of the people in question exploding. Additionally, quite a few lines are what can be considered filler: they're present in everyday speech, but they do not add any meaning to the poem itself. Lines like "Right before his eyes," are completely unnecessary and bloat the poem.

One of the trickiest aspects of poetry is how each and every word must have a direct purpose in the poem, to the point where removing that word will destroy the meaning of the poem. Filler words do not directly have purpose, and so removing as many of these filler words as possible is essential to make a poem stronger.

If it helps, you can think of one of poetry's main goals as being communicating ideas as briefly and vividly as possible. See how much of this you can cut out before you lose the meaning, or heart, of the poem. What is left behind is what you should focus on, and if you find it too bare, then it is what you should directly elaborate on.

Doing so will make your poetry all the stronger.