The Essence of Nothing: A Series of Short Poems

Spoiler

My best friend wrote this and I fell in love with it. So I asked him if I could post it here. This is a series of short poems. I hope you enjoy them as much as I do! Please click like if you like it. I'm trying to convince him he's a poetic genius.

In the end of everything
the only thing that is left
is the embodiment of that
which is not.

The value of nothing is more than you know
although it holds us back, it allows us to grow
without the sound of 1 hand clapping
we could not appreciate the sound of
two hands coming together

You
are the hole
in the middle
of a doughnut-
The peaceful sea
That washes over
us
when we
are alone

I put down
in writing
what is written in my soul
but I can’t put down words
if I limit my thoughts.
And if one limits their thoughts
they are limiting their soul.
And if they are limiting their souls,
than they are me.

WOW!! you're absolutely right!! he is a genius... I absolutely loved it although I was a little disappointed by the lack of punctuations but this is just beautiful. I did find one mistake though.

In the end of everything
the only thing that is left
is the embodiment of that
which is not.

The value of nothing is more than you know
although it holds us back, it allows us to grow
without the sound of 1 hand clapping
we could not appreciate the sound of
two hands coming together

You
are the hole
in the middle
of a doughnut-
The peaceful sea
That washes over
us
when we
are alone

I put down
in writing
what is written in my soul
but I can’t put down words
if I limit my thoughts.
And if one limits their thoughts
they are limiting their soul.
And if they are limiting their souls,
than they are me.this should be 'then' because you are saying that they are like you and not 'than' which is used to compare things with one another.

That's it! I hope it helps.

I think this is very well-written. The ideas are clear enough, nothing TOO abstract as to prove he's just a poet that's trying too hard. The diction is very fluid which shows it's just simply written. Very natural, it seems. I just think that overall this is a nice poem. I think the donut part is my favorite. Just because I like donuts, and whatever :B

Hi.. Hmm.. I believe you should carry on encouraging your friend to write because he/she does write really nice.. Tell him to keep up the good work from me...
Harshita:)

If you're looking for a confidence boost than you might not want to read this review xP.

Not that I'm saying it was bad or anything! Just that if he's an easily disheartened writer, this would not be a review for him. So, Walker here, with a review, whether wanted or not xD.

The rest of this review, by the way, is directed at your said friend. If he is willing to read it, of course!

First off, might I say, the first stanza is rather... interesting. In fact, it might be one of my favourite first stanza's I've seen on YWS to date, so if that doesnt boost your confidence, I'm not quite sure what will! That being said, I did enjoy the idea that it first imposed. But, and this is a big but, I got rather confused.

1. Confusing Phrases

So this starts off giving the idea of nothingness. I get this mournful impression and seek it throughout the piece merely to find that it no longer holds that mourning I had initially felt.

Then you have rather silly statements like;

without the sound of 1 hand clapping
we could not appreciate the sound of
two hands coming together

One hand, on its own, cannot clap. One pair of hands can. Clapping is not only a verb but a sound. Both need two hands to make sense.

I suppose the idea was that without the sound of nothing, one cannot appreciate sound? I'm not quite sure what you're trying to push forward with the statement, but it didn't make much sense to me.

Then you pull of the most ridiculous stanza;

You
are the hole
in the middle
of a doughnut-
The peaceful sea
That washes over
us
when we
are alone

What does this have to do with the topic at hand? I get that you're trying to make connections and fill space, but if you don't have reason or if you do and do not state it, we as readers get absolutely nothing from this. What are we supposed to get from being the hole in a donut? Is this good or bad? Is this supposed to be something we sit and think about or is it supposed to be some already known concept relating to another piece of writing?

And then you have a comparison to the sea. That seemed random. In fact, too random. What does the sea, in all its infinite glory, have to do with nothing?

We're not Owl City. Lets try to make some sense.

2. Why?

You change the focus of this poem sporatically;

I put down
in writing
what is written in my soul
but I can’t put down words
if I limit my thoughts.
And if one limits their thoughts
they are limiting their soul.
And if they are limiting their souls,
than they are me.

I get this. I really do. I like the way its worded. I like the way it meshes with itself. A perfectly delivered stanza and yet it has nothing to do with what you were trying to state prior. There is nothing in here about nothing. There is only a statement about writing that has nothing to do with what was previously stated. That being said, why?

Overall:

Sporatic and inconsistent. I did not see a reason behind this poem nor a point being made. There were some pretty lines and a few interesting stanzas that seemed good on their own, but this was not a poem in itself. This was the starting of many.

I want to say that I enjoyed this but as I further my thoughts, I can only really say that there is a lot of potential here for something far greater than what it is in actuality. I could see many different ideas coming out of it. Refining. Until a certain topic is put down and burned into ones own mind, there is nothing.

So, what I'm going to say is take a topic. One topic. Only one. When you have that thesis or reason, write. Nothing will stop you. Nothing will hinder your capabilities if you do as such. I see a ton of potential but the way in which is was put down was sloppy at best only because it was sporatic and there was no reason behind it.

Sorry,
~Walker

Hello there. A series of short poems, hmm? Well they don't really work together or alone and they should have titles! There's some alright ideas here and a few good lines/ half lines but I think you should tell your friend to join the site so he can learn how to write poetry :p I mean that in no bad way! He's clearly creative but could use some guidance. Anyway, a few specific comments:

In the end of everything
the only thing that is left
is the embodiment of that
which is not. [This would work quite well as an introductory stanza and then you could go on to explain more of it! It's not very poetic but there's a nice wit to it and who doesn't like a good philosophy?]

The value of nothing is more than you know
although it holds us back, it allows us to grow
without the sound of 1 hand clapping [1 should be typed out as one and this is an impossible image. There is no sound if only one hand is clapping. If phrased differently it might work better as I do like the seperation and then the togetherness of the hands but, it needs work.]
we could not appreciate the sound of
two hands coming together

You
are the hole
in the middle
of a doughnut-
The peaceful sea
That washes over
us
when we
are alone [This is too fragmented to be much of anything. I like the first metaphor but I'd need to know who this you is and some more expansions and explanations for it to really be anything.]

I put down
in writing
what is written in my soul
but I can’t put down words
if I limit my thoughts.
And if one limits their thoughts
they are limiting their soul.
And if they are limiting their souls,
than they are me. [Than should be then and this is probably my least favourite; it tries to be clever for clever's sake. There's an element of the cliche to it with the whole written in my soul thing and it might work if you ballanced it out with other stuff but right now it doesn't.]

Tell your friend he should join or at least have a look around and read some of the other poems on here. Reading poetry can really help you to write poetry and it's good to read that of both experts and amatures and then ask yourself, what is it that the expert does right which the amature is missing? Then you can apply what you learn to your own writing!

Heather xxx

Hello there. :3

Nitpicks:

crescent wrote:In the end of everything
the only thing that is left
is the embodiment of that
which is not.

There is a lot of mystery related to this poem. One won’t be able to understand/know anything that is going on unless you provide enough information in your poem and this one lacks it, that’s why it is confusing. The repetition of thing in the second line does not sound good while reading.

crescent wrote:The value of nothing is more than you know
although it holds us back, it allows us to grow
without the sound of 1 hand clapping
we could not appreciate the sound of
two hands coming together

Well! As kitty said that, there is no sound produced when clapping using one hand. So the line in this poem becomes totally illogical. And that 1 should be one because chat speak is not encouraged here. And there should be a period after the first line.

crescent wrote:You
are the hole
in the middle
of a doughnut-
The peaceful sea
That washes over
us
when we
are alone

Doughnut and a peaceful sea both in the same stanza? They do not fit well together. The imagery was pretty good, but what they wanted to tell to the reader was not clear.

crescent wrote:I put down
in writing
what is written in my soul
but I can’t put down words
if I limit my thoughts.
And if one limits their thoughts
they are limiting their soul.
And if they are limiting their souls,
than they are me.

This is not at all a poem. This is just a preachy sentence. It should be in some short story or something like that but definitely it is not a poem. I’m sorry.

Add punctuations to the poems, here. A poem is nothing without punctuations. Be sure to show these reviews to your friend. It may help him improve. And encourage him to join YWS, it will surely make him a better writer as it did to me. I hope my review helps. If you have any queries just let me know.
Keep writing.