Never Good Enough

I was never bold enough
To try my luck.
I hung back,
Waiting for others
To test the waters,
Longing for the initial chill
Of knowing that I did that,
I was brave.
I was never smart enough
To enter in the science fair,
But I always wanted to,
Just to say I did,
Just to say, “Hey, look at mine!”
I was never good enough
To donate canned goods,
Or help the homeless.
All I ever did was
Donate my hair
To Locks of Love.
But here’s one thing
I have done.
I have always smiled.

This is very sweet. This poem reminds me of school soo much, and i really love this!

The idea is sweet. Sweet it is.

But honestly, the poem is not. There is no rhythm at all here...reading it you have a hard time staying with it because there is just no rhythm hook. It reads like a paragraph from a journal entry, not a poem. You also have a few word jams.

It kind of seems to precise...most poems tend to leave the ends open to an extent but in this everything is answered and it leaves nothing to the reader...if that makes sense.

Again, I like the content! But it just isn't working in this style..

I have to agree with write me. The idea is excellent - I know that feeling so well - but it isnt working in this format. Revision is necessary.

I was never bold enough
To try my luck.
I hung back,
Waiting for others
To test the waters,
Longing for the initial chill
Of knowing that I did that,
I was brave.

OK. To start with, there is no fire, no hook, no "OMG I'm a poem, READ ME" in the first line. Weird as it sounds, poems (like stories) need a hook to draw the reader in. You stay on the surface - we want to be pulled under, into your world! So. You need something more jazzy here. I would also get rid of the capitals on every line, it spoils the flow, and some of your punctuation and line breaks make things jerky. I have taken a few liberties with the rewrite (sorry!) but I just wanted to give you a picture of how it might be written to flow better:

I was never bold enough
to try my luck, to test the waters.
I hung back and waited
for others to feel the chill courage
that comes from jumping in with both feet.

I was never smart enough
To enter in the science fair,
But I always wanted to,
Just to say I did,
Just to say, “Hey, look at mine!”

The tone of this piece is too passive for my taste, and it seems kind of...I dont know. Lacking in something. Imagery? Rhythm? I'm not sure. Needs a bit of spice to it somewhere. Like write me said, it reads like jumbled prose rather than poetry.

I was never good enough
To donate canned goods,
Or help the homeless.
All I ever did was
Donate my hair
To Locks of Love.

OK. This is starting to get a bit better - not so much of the repetition (vive la difference! or whatever). I think the repetition kills it a bit, makes it dulled. We need images, not words - show dont tell!

But here’s one thing
I have done.
I have always smiled.

You need to elaborate on this. Smiled when? At whom? Why? I'm getting a sense that you smile even when you dont feel it - or that's what you mean to convey, anyway. But as the poem is structured, this ending just kind of stops. Abruptly. And without any fireworks and trumpets. I'm not bowled over and left amazed here, lol. I just stop and think, "That's it?" I dont mean to be rude, but I do think you need to explore this poem a bit further and go a bit deeper. There is as yet no colour to the piece and while your subject is interesting the execution does not grab the reader, nor does it lead us to a higher understanding of your topic. You're only telling us what we could more or less see already. I would try for a much more insightful and less explicit piece next time.

carelessaussie13--


I hope somebody really does appreciate this. I don't.

"I", "I", "I": this is a poem to yourself. You're using up bandwidth, and I remind you YWS is not your journal. The idea here is not new, fresh, or unique. If it is, it's unique in the sense of persons' feces. Sure, each clump is unique and special, but at the end of the day, it's still a load of bodily remains.

What is there in this poem that's meant to attract the reader?


Best,
Brad

I like this poem...you just need to develop it. Maybe make the lines longer to add some rhythm to it. By the way, this poem does have something that attacks the reader, otherwise no one would have read it or commented! Good luck, Cathy

This is a very sweet poem, and I love it!


Theres a topic somewere on this little negativity problem some peoples have...

You could call it....

"A risk I wouldn't take"
or
"Taking no risks"
or
something like this??