Normandy

There is an old foundation down the street.
The elderly woman next door told me that it used to be an army barracks
where they trained soldiers for the invasion of Normandy.
During the school year, I had to walk by the damned place every morning,
and each sideways glance at the crumbling concrete brought a terror
that I could only attribute to angry ghosts and vengeful spirits.
One day, I built up the courage to press through the cobwebs and tangled ivy
to stand upon the cracked walls.
I yelled out a challenge to spirits of the dead:
“Show yourself or leave me in peace.”
Silence
I sat on that wall for hours, watching the ivy
and noting each place where it had torn stone from stone.
I felt very empty then, when I realized that there were no ghosts
to haunt me, and all that had once lived in those walls
disappeared long ago.

A critique for you lad.

But later.

Boo! I told you to expect this, so it should be no surprise. Now, onto the destruction.

The first half of this is extremely prosey. I think that you could definitely cut it down a bit, and maybe introduce some more figurative language. As it is now, it doesn't hold my attention very well. The second half, however, was excellent. I was a bit disappointed at first, and reached the end, and simply adored it.

There is an old foundation down the street.

The elderly woman next door told me that it used to be an army barracks
where they trained soldiers for the invasion of Normandy.

I think it may be the first line that really sets the prosey tone. I think that the word "foundation" here feels a bit bland. These lines will set the tone for the rest of the poem, and if there's a bit more figurative language, I think that it would really aid in setting a hook.

During the school year, I had to walk by the damned place every morning,
and each sideways glance at the crumbling concrete brought a terror
that I could only attribute to angry ghosts and vengeful spirits.
One day, I built up the courage to press through the cobwebs and tangled ivy
to stand upon the cracked walls.

Love the use of "damned' here-- adds a lot of emotion and personal tone that is pretty easy to relate to. I think that you could change the phrasing for "During the school year" and maybe the words "attribute" and "built up". This is right before you lapse into awesome and pure poetry. Again, maybe incorporate some more figurative language, as this part is very prosey.

“Show yourself or leave me in peace.”
Silence Separate stanza for this line.
I sat on that wall for hours, watching the ivy
and noting each place where it had torn stone from stone. Take out "and", and put a comma on the last line.
I felt very empty then, when I realized that there were no ghosts
to haunt me, and all that had once lived in those soldiers
disappeared long ago.

I think that the word "Silence" could be its own stanza, almost like a change in dialog for prose. It would be seen more as a response in that structure. Also, you'd get rid of the block-of-text feel that's almost hanging around your words.
You might consider rephrasing "I felt very empty then" to something a bit more... poetic/figurative. It's a strong hitting line, but it feels almost lost in bluntness. Also, I would make that thought its own sentence to provide emphasis.
One last thing: I'm not sure about using the words "soldiers". It was the stones more that caused the discomfort, the structure that represented where the soldiers once lived. I'd put something that still exists there, that could visibly haunt you. That type of thing.


Overall, I liked this. I don't know if I liked it as much as I have with your other stuff, but you did a good job. Try to do a bit more "showing" and maybe rephrase some parts. Otherwise, great job.
Lemme know if you have any questions or anything.

hey... I can't criticize so I won't criticize... I'm just going to appreciate... Its really very nice and deep... keep writing:)

Hi Lad :3 As promised.

Oi vey, I'm tired. If this didn't make sense at some parts, it's early in the morning. Please excuse me and come for clarifications <3

The biggest issue here is you forget the basics of poetry in an effort to tell a story.
The flow is sacrificed to a prose like tale and locked in the backroom, dusting over.
Your voice is interesting through this, but the poem itself is jarring and robotically freezing every couple words.

Prose poetry is tricky because it's really difficult to balance just right. Aspects of poetry and prose usually outweigh each other at parts, but here, you've clearly been letting the water run for far too long.

During the school year, I had to walk by the damned place every morning,
and each sideways glance at the crumbling concrete brought a terror
that I could only attribute to angry ghosts and vengeful spirits.

You, as a poet or someone writing poetry, have to be aware of the sounds words make and the strength of the words. A capabilty to manipulate the english language tends to make poetry beautiful. You know how to speak Nightshade, and it's clear, but you're not paying attention to the sounds, the natural pauses of your sentences/piece. In the quote above, read the first sentence slowly.

1. The comma creates an artifical pause to accentuate the natural pause that's there.
2. Hard sounds like those in year, damned force a pause at the end of them.
3. Pauses look a little like: "During the school year,[PAUSE] I had to walk by the damned place[pause] every morning,"

That hardness of the sounds and the pause makes for a choppy sentence I nearly choked to death on.

To be honest, the beginning is weak, weak as it it's about to collaspe in on itself and tumble down the hill. You start to strengthen after "silence", this is where the voice really comes in but at the point the tale is ending and your reader is left with a "Well damn." because of really the pinch of a bright side squeezed in under leaden bits of a poetic concept.

Poetic personas work like characters in prose, characterization should be there.
But it's much more of a deeply personal snippet of someone's thoughts, life etc in a poem.
So, it has to be so much stronger. There's a slightly quirky nature in creating a poetic character, while here we start to see if slightly, it's over so quickly and your persona remains a ragdoll that falls over taking your poem with it.

Pump some life into this. Don't think about it too hard, and write it as you would speak it.
Emotion should follow through after (unless you're an emotionless sap like me).
Don't start to over think and over edit, you're choking the life out of your own poem with your bare hands as you do here.

Lots of love irregardless,

Kamas

^"the great she-demoness reviewer lurketh above, having claimed her latest kill "sad box face", and on this day, she left the bones to dry on a place called Y W S."-left by some poor hobo, scribbled on his right femur

Alright, buddy. I’m coming out of my reviewing slump for you. After reading this review over, it seems a tad mean. I’m sorry.

As always, let’s dive in.

Before you even begin, remember this one thing Pengy told me a long while ago:

Never delete your words. Copy and paste and edit this several times over so that you never forget where you came from.

I don’t think I need to begin this review by telling you that this read very much like prose—in fact, it’s been stated twice. The problem that persists even after the establishment of that fact is that it doesn’t quite get a very firm grasp on itself, like it’s having an identity crisis. Your foundation here is a ruin of an army barrack, and that has very dynamic potential that I’m certain you could squeeze out if you tried hard enough. However, you seem to have forgotten to color in your painting here. So.

There is an old foundation down the street.

Your entrance, your silence-breaking breath—your issues begin here. Three things to begin with:

1. Foundation is a lackluster word that does very little for imagery’s sake. Reign in on your power in English and make me feel this, please.
2. “Down the street” is so colloquial, so simple. Same problem as the first, I think. Make me want to read this, Shady. I knowwww you can.
3. Your second word of the poem is a verb of be. As an English Ed major, I could shoot you for this. I won’t! (but oh, I could.)

The elderly woman next door told me that it used to be an army barracks

Tense shift. Even with the stating of a fact as you do in line one, I would much prefer everything to match. Besides, your entry into present tense sets you up for using the past perfect, which isn’t very good writing when done in poetry. Not fluid enough. Match it up and reformulate your syntax. Also, ‘elderly woman’ makes your narrator sound like he’s about to have stale crumpets and watered-down CHAMOMILE tea for brunch. Even though I just preached about being colloquial, don’t be needlessly proper, either. And I think that gives me another key as to why this piece isn’t quite there yet—your narrator’s voice is very flat.

Anyway.

where they trained soldiers for the invasion of Normandy.

Line three and nothing has stood out to me. As a general rule of thumb, if there isn’t something powerful in the first three lines, you need to reconsider things. This goes for all poetry, and I’m guilty of it myself. Measure up your first three lines and give a suckerpunch somewhere within the ink.

During the school year, I had to walk by the damned place every morning,

Okay. While the ‘damned’ is punch-y, it’s unprompted, as you have not built a sensation of hatred for this particular poor barracks yet. In fact, the only thing this really does is make your narrator sound angry. Poor guy.

And each sideways glance at the crumbling concrete brought a terror
that I could only attribute to angry ghosts and vengeful spirits.

More anger and terror here, but it’s beginning to be overwhelmingly chalky. I’m not particularly sure at this point where you were aiming, so I’d be ecstatic if you could meld in some deeper meaning beneath these lines, as there doesn’t quite appear to be much at this point. However, this line is used as a segue to enter ghosts and spirits, so I know something’s up. But it felt like you just let it trail off like a bad public speaker, even though the remainder of the poem is about them.

One day, I built up the courage

A narrative skip that would be a good place for description, for weather imagery. Heck, for any imagery at all. I’m craving it at this point. Cobwebs and tangled ivy are good.

And then you yell out a challenge! Let your punctuation match the voicing, which is ‘yell’ in this case.

And the winding-down of this poem goes very quickly, as it brings everything to a close. I would appreciate it so, so much if you would expand the ivy-in-the-stone metaphor, or make one out of it if you didn’t intend to. There’s some power behind that.

This needs expansion, and this needs to be introduced to more poeticism. It’s very prosey, as Persy said, and doesn’t carry much poetic power behind it. And that’s what I want from you, mainly. Your background subject is Normandy. There’s so much poetic blast in just that name alone. Make this piece live up to its name.

Let me know if you have any questions or whatnot, and I hope your interview goes well. Sorry if this makes you a sadder Sadbox.

-Lumi