Against the world

The wind whips long red marks across her back.
The sky turns its gray face from her, angry.
The earth grinds to a halt and rotates the other way.
The girl stands, one child against the world.

Clouds split and lightning cuts the sky.
Fire rings around her, garish and searing hot.
Rain stings her skin, but the fire rages on.
The girl does not falter, and stands against the world.

Angry people surround her and pelt her with rocks.
The ground rises and falls, tumultuous.
Leaves wither and die before her eyes.
There is the girl, and there is the world.

The sun goes flickers out and all warmth perishes.
Ice surrounds the girl and the trees fall.
Drums beat a tuneless melody into her heart,
But the girl stands still, unmoved and still glowing.

One girl against the world.

carelessaussie13--


I think we can all identfiy the motivation for writing a poem like this, but the execution is terribly weak. Your poem is filled with the most common sort of sentimental cliches, forcedness, and amateurish errors to the point that it can't be taken seriously as a work ready for critique at any level. Poetry is, firstly, more than a collection of sentences.

My guess is that you are just entering the world of poetry--welcome, it's vast and you have far to go--so I'd recommend that you read the articles posted in Squills (the YWS writing blog) and the Writing Tips sections if you want to understand the development of basic poetry skills (and consequently for your work to be taken seriously). If you just want to share your work rather than improve it through a workshop process, you could try www.postpoems.com.


Best of luck,
Brad

Where's the story? It's not strong enough, i cannot seem to find it.

good idea, taking a 'world is against me' attitude and blowing it up, but after about the first stanza i was just thinking, 'okay, i get the picture... then what happened?' and i thought the end would answer that, but it didn't. good idea, but it needs more complexity to hold up under the length and repetition you have in this poem.

I loved it!

Incandescence , you have some major problems with putting people down. I mean, yeah, you critique peoples but have you ever said something nice?

no he never says anything nice.

In fact, I liked this poem. A lot.

The wind whips [s]long[/s] red marks across her back.
The sky turns its [s]gray[/s] GREY face from her, Angry.
The earth grinds to a halt and rotates the other way.
The girl stands, one child against the world.

Clouds split and lightning cuts the sky.
Fire rings around her, garish and searing hot.
Rain stings her skin, but the fire rages on.
The girl does not falter, and stands against the world.

Angry people surround her and ?pelt? her with rocks.
The ground rises and falls, tumultuous.
Leaves wither and die before her eyes.
There is the girl, and there is the world.

The sun goes flickers out and all warmth perishes.
Ice surrounds the girl and the trees fall.
Drums beat a tuneless melody into her heart,
But the girl stands still, unmoved and still glowing.

One girl against the world.


Well done xx

Gray and Grey are both acceptable spellings for the color. The only difference between them is which side of the Atlantic you happen to be on.

Incan is giving constructive criticism. Not necessarily positive, but he is at least listing ways to improve.

I'm going to rate this PG.