gambling

.nwod flesym dloh t'nac I
Turned my pockets inside out,
on the day they needed to be filled the most.
My tree will not be nourished,
and my sun will not show his presence.
Who will I turn to for relief?
The sky and the ocean will
lick my wounds.
But where will my seed grow?
Have i dug myself into a shallow grave,
or will the trees still glow in the morning?
O the greed

I think this was good, but i wish it was longer, it looked like it was leading on somewhere/ Really liked it though! lol

I'm not sure what I think of this. It manages to sweep right over the possibility to be something deeper than what it is, But where will my seed grow? It brings to mind Thanatopsis by Bryant, the idea of planting seeds of your life, going back to nature, making something more... But it only grazes it, and doesn't fully grasp it, which ends up leaving this particular poem weak.

The first line, as well. It's written backwards, which forces your reader to truly think and have look at it and then read it backwards. Perhaps I'm just judgmental, but I think it takes more effort than it should, and in the same vein, it doesn't add to the poem one way or another; forwards or backwards.

I think what bothers me about this is that I can't get a deeper meaning out of it. It's simplistic, and I cannot relate to it or feel anything from it. Rather than speaking about something I, or any reader, could relate to, you're talking about yourself and your own problem, and in the end that leaves us with nothing, because you forget about your reader all together. Keep in mind that (to me, and perhaps to others?) poetry's goal is to please the reader more than anything. You want to paint them a picture, give them an idea or a thought, leave something with them after they've finished reading the poem. Even if you write about yourself, you want to pay a lot more attention to your reader than to yourself. Perhaps you should try using more imagery, more poetic language. Rather than just telling your story, paint us a picture, pull us into it, and make us feel with you.

What is the main conflict of the poem? You're going on without leaving something else in the world... It's a strong theme, and because of that (if I've understood the theme properly...) you could make a wonderful and strong poem from it.

On a lesser note, be sure to always capitalize the pronoun I.

Best of luck.

ColeFX--


There are four distinct and disjoint hypothetical/abstract scenes going on here. Why do you think a reader should care about any of them?

This is a tour of your own navel and it delivers the same poetic value as a middle manager using a sports metaphor.

If you line this up against other work posted here (and the responses those have warranted), you should be able to see how weak it is, and not just in execution. It's weak conceptually. The conceptual black hole is the reason I don't think that this poem can be rescued.


Take care,
Brad