Just a poem

I just felt like writing a poem
A chance to let my mind roam
Past the window, out to the sky
To the land up there, in my mind's eye.
That twists and turns,
And toils and churns
Where I can dream of a million stars
Or travel a distance, who knows how far?
Where men and women are but dots on a page
And I, the director, behind the curtain on the stage
Perhaps I will stay,
No, I will come back another day.
I just felt like writing a poem.
Because, to me, it feels like home.

Bravo! I absolutely love the rhythm! It changes in parts, so it doesn't get boring but it still flows nicely. I also like the way you tied the beginning in at the end again. I only have two suggestions, and feel perfectly free to ignore them as they are just opinions.

1. "I just felt like writing a poem
A chance to let my mind roam...." I would add an adjective before 'mind.'

I just felt like writing a poem
A chance to let my... something... mind roam. It would take a way some of the... stiffness?.... of these lines.

2. Instead of "I just felt like writing a poem.
Because, to me, it feels like home."
I would put: I just felt like writing a poem.
Because, its this, that takes me home.

Not necessarily that, but something slightly different. I think when you say 'to me' it takes away the readers attention because... I'm not sure... At first I could really relate to everything you were saying but when you said, 'to me' it kind of felt like I was... excluded?... That sounds silly, but I can't think of a better word for what I'm trying to say.

Anyways, like I said, this is just what I would do, although it is great as it is as well. *applauds* "more, more, more!!!"

Hello! Welcome to the YWS! Please take a moment to review the Rules & Guides. We do ask that you do two reviews of others work before posting any of your own, and also that the ratio stays 2:1 with reviews the two and your own work the one. Thanks!

That twists and turns,
And toils and churns

"that" is an awkward word here because it follows a period, and there isn't anything before the next period to explain what "that" is.

Where I can dream of a million stars
Or travel a distance, who knows how far?

The rhyme scheme breaks here. "star" and far" rhyme, but with an 's' on the end of only one of them it's thrown off. It actually could work with with the comma pause in the middle of the line the rhyme really needs to be stronger to hold the reader.

Where men and women are but dots on a page
And I, the director, behind the curtain on the stage

"where" is again awkward here because of the rperiod. Consider using a semicolon instead? I would also put a period after "stage"

Perhaps I will stay,
No, I will come back another day.

I would start a new stanza with these two lines. They are very different from the ones above and start a new "portion". I'm thinking a period after "stay" instead of a comma.

I just felt like writing a poem.
Because, to me, it feels like home.

I would either ditch comma after "Because" or "because" altogether, you really don't need it.

I think it's a cute little ditty. There really isn't anything horribly wrong with it, but it's not really life changing either. It's a nice poem about poem writing, and those are kind of hard to come by (ones you like, I mean) these days.

Pretty good! Happy Editing!

Hi Eimear, I'm new too :P

I love the first half, but I think it goes downhill from 'where men and women...'. Firstly because the rhythm of that line is all wrong, and because the next lines are all different lengths, so I would change that. But I love the first half :D

Let's jump straight in. The first two lines don't rhyme, and neither do the last two, so they're not in keeping with the rest of the poem. I like the line about being a director, and the rhyming works well at this point. I think perhaps you could talk about other ways of leading - being a conductor, perhaps, or a captain of a ship, a plane...anything like that to expand the metaphor. Quite a nice sentiment at the end, I think if you developed the image of going away or traveling, and being at home with your writing, you could make the poem stronger. It has a lot of potential, keep writing.

Hey Eimear! Ditto what Via said about the Rules, and welcome to YWS!

Rhyme and Rhythm. I think this poem is held back because it's so juvenile...the rhyme scheme and the general feel of the piece bring to mind children's books or chain emails.
Now, there's nothing wrong with rhyme, but it's very difficult to do well, so keep practicing. Usually you don't want to make your rhyme so obvious...you know, don't end a phrase on the rhymed word so that's the rhyme has a lot of emphasis; that style is usually reserved for childish poems, though it can be used in a sophisticated way.

Meaning. We get it. Writing a poem is fun because it transports you to magical lands, blah blah blah, it's a big fat writing cliche. What does writing a poem mean to YOU? I mean it, I want your (or your speaker's) personal feelings about writing, not some babble about distant lands that television and bad children's fantasy novels put in your head.

If I were to write a poem about writing a poem, I might say what drove me to do it. I'm reminded of a poem published a few years ago in our school's literary magazine by a talented girl who graduated the year before I entered...she wrote about how she sat down to write a poem on her seventeenth birthday because she felt like she should "have something to remember it by." She went on to talk about how she couldn't think of anything to write and how "it's peaceful, being older."

So what made you want to sit down and write? How do you feel? Show us, in your own words, with your own vivid images, how writing is personal for you.
And not just in the overall message of the piece...watch out for cliches and hackneyed phrases like these ones I've underlined. These are bad because they don't say anything new; we're all so used to hearing them that they don't make us stop and think:

I just felt like writing a poem
A chance to let my mind roam
Past the window, out to the sky
To the land up there, in my mind's eye.
That twists and turns,
And toils and churns
Where I can dream of a million stars
Or travel a distance, who knows how far?
Where men and women are but dots on a page
And I, the director, behind the curtain on the stage
Perhaps I will stay,
No, I will come back another day.
I just felt like writing a poem.
Because, to me, it feels like home.

Diction.

toils and churns

I've always thought of "toil" as another word for "to work," not as a noun. For that matter, churns is not a noun either. Also see some of the underlined phrases above.

Good luck!
-Colleen

This is exactly how i feel every time i write!
Good job. Only thing I didn't really care for was that it is kind of forced rhyming I suppose you could say.
But overall, I really love it.
:]