Life at its Best

New life comes to Earth,
A baby is born,
Her head on pink pillows,
Her image adored

At five years old,
She's beginning to learn,
Why the trees change in fall,
And it's knowledge she yearns

At nine years old,
Third grade she begins,
At every test she exceeds,
Every spelling bee she wins

At thirteen years,
She learns of new things,
Of drugs, and alcohol,
She longs to spread her wings

At the age of nineteen,
She finally flies away,
Moving out to the world,
But she'll be back someday

At the age of twenty-five,
She finds a nice man,
She walks down the isle,
Her dad at her hand

And at the ripe age of fifty,
Her husband then dies,
She tries not to show it,
But deep down she cries

At sixty-one then
She takes her last breath,
She was a brave, noble soul,
From beginning till death.


A bit choppy and rough, I know, but PLEASE be honest and even a bit harsh on reviews!


Kim

Between each stanza, you give a little description to the meaning and value of the lines, if any. I don't get to see why drugs and alcohol are such a big impact and what not. I don't get to see why the trees changing has any significance. you back up the statement of the year with a sentence or so. But that doesn't make it a complete image. Also, I am speaking for all stanzas.
Your first and last stanzas are my favorites, they seem to be complete to me at least in describing her actions/images.
With the other stanzas I get a bunch of different images, none of them really connect.
I think you just moved too quickly, is all.
But I do think some of what you have is good, learning why the trees change is good. My favorite actually.

With all of that said, I think you're alright.

Good luck, keep writing.

Silented1.

Hi Thegirlwholived,

This piece of jumbled linear cliche and half-submerged nostalgic emotion fails on every level. There is literally nothing in here to like or want to keep, both for yourself and the reader.

Nothing in here was advanced past the primary plane. For instance, saying that "He was happy" or "She was adored", don't cut it when trying to convey something across to the audience other than the fact that you know what happy and sad is. This follows the same problematic scheme. There were some parts where you simplified events to such basic levels that I almost laughed.

Thegirlwholived wrote:Her husband then dies

That's a poignant example of what I'm talking about. Is that really the only way you can put it? Surely, after reading it or even speaking it out loud if you must, you should be able to see how bland and utterly devoid of any kind of emotion that line is.

Many of these lines are plagued with the same issues, and these need to be fixed over anything else. Of course, you barely have any imagery or wording that can help the audience relate to this woman's life cycle, but that can wait. First, you need to make sure that you don't try to compress important events into two-second sound bites; doing that disgraces the main character's memory and completely sets the wrong tone for the piece.

Hope that helped,
Galerius

This is a good example of a traditional ballad.

Maybe if you added a refrain, you could set it to music.
However, I think there's one mistake:

"At the ripe old age of fifty" jars the rhythm.

I really like the form you picked here; the structure and heraldry is cool to introduce a new baby, but keep up the same energy throughout the poem. I like the second stanza a lot; I think it flows the best in the poem, and I'd challenge you to use it as a model for your other stanzas when you go through it again. Focusing in on the specific image of "She's beginning to learn, / Why the trees change in the fall" has a lot more to say than "She learns of new things, / Of drugs, and alcohol" for example.