Young Writers Society

into the cracks of the earth

what would you do
if I took a chance
stepped up close
and whispered softly
kiss me

what would you say
if the world opened up
and I allowed myself
to fall
into the cracks of the earth

would you do nothing
just stand back
and watch
as the world opened wide
and swallowed me whole

or would you whisper
yes
and pull me into your arms
away from the cracks
(please say yes)

Hey!

So, uh, this underwhelmed me. What-if's aren't exactly the most engaging material, even when used as a sort of side-note, but as the entire basis of any literary work? No. I feel like there's no substance to this, no reason for it, no particularly evocative phrase or thought, nothing. Scrap! Revise! Try and make it a little less emo, and a little more poetic and while you're at it:

dared to dream

get rid of the extra cliche.

Au revoir

Hi JFW! *stares at SpongeBob* *waves SpongeBob imaginary flag*
Anyway, onto your review, dear!

Stanza by stanza!

what would you do
if I took a chance
dared to dream
and whispered softly,
kiss me?

So, let's talk capitalizing! This is very easy to do
Many people are under the impression that you have to capitalize every first word of a line. They're wrong.
But, here, you have none! Capitalize the first 'what'.
Now, punctuation! It's very important on a poem, because it changes the way you read it, and changes the meaning of the line. Comma after 'chance'. Comma after 'dream'. Also, the mentioning that you whispered 'kiss me', turns out to obligate you to put the 'kiss me' in quotation. Like this: "Kiss me?"
This is sweet and soft. Very simple, but effective. The ' dared to dream' is a bit cliche, but it turns out good.

what would you do
if the world opened up
and I allowed myself
to fall into
the cracks of the earth?

Again, capitalize the 'what'. Comma after 'up'.
This is very simple, also. But yo have a dramatic 360º change in the theme! First, you were wishing for the person whom you love to love you back. Now you're wondering how that person would react if you died, in some way. Maybe add a few lines between these stanzas, so that the transaction is lighter.
The forth line is too short, it ruins your flow. You had a good, constant, flow until here. Maybe add some syllables there. Maybe 'deep', or something like that.

would you do nothing?
would I mean nothing?
or would you whisper,
yes
and pull me into your arms
away from the cracks of the earth?

Capitalize the first two 'would'. Capitalize the 'or'.
As in the first stanza, put 'yes' in quotation marks. Comma after 'arms'.
Good! This is very good, because know you connect the above stanzas.

Overall: Above the grammatically mistakes, this was very sweet. I could feel some emotion. I would like to warn you about questions in poetry. In some poems, with too much rhetorical questions, it gets boring, because the writer doesn't explain the story line between these questions. Now, in yours, they work very well.
I like this very much. A good read.

Keep on the good work, and feel free to PM me if you need anything!
*Kat*

Hey Jen. ^^ See you've reverted back to your original alias? I must admit, I am thoroughly glad. I can only stand so many undersea sponges in this world.

Grammar

First of all, I'm pretty sure that you're aware of how to capitalize a poem. I assume your lack of capitalization here was more of a stylistic decision than an grammatical blunder, and I'd be willing to put money on that assumption.

I also think it was a good idea, this lack of capitalization an very rare punctuation. Respecting Kat's opinions, I do not think you need quotations anywhere in this poem, just as I do not think there is anything structurally wrong with this. ^^ In fact, I enjoyed the structure. I thought the lack of commas was perfectly fine, since the line breaks were enough of a pause for the reader as they read the poem.

Meaning

As to meaning, I'm going to have to side a bit with JayandKay, although perhaps not so extreme. I do agree with the 'what-if' point he made. While questions can be extremely effective in poems, asking a bunch of what-ifs hardly stimulates your readers.

And I thoroughly agree with him when he says to scrap the 'dared to dream' cliche. I've seen your work, actually, and you're better than that.

to fall into
the cracks of the earth?

Although Kat thought the first line here was too short already, I'm going to propose to make it even shorter by transfering that 'into' tothe beginning of the second line. That was your entire title is on one line, and the flow is more even if that phrase isn't disconnected between two lines. In fact, I'd even consider something like this:

and I allowed myself
to
fall
into the cracks of the earth?

Having 'to' and 'fall' on their own seperate line gives them more the feel of actual falling, if you wanted to go that direction. ^^ Not saying you should, but just throwing that option out there.

I think the repetition of 'cracks of the earth' isn't as effective as it could be. Why? Firstly, because the poem is so short. With only three stanzas, repeating something in the second and third isn't going to be as smooth as having something repeated in the second and seventh stanza of a nine-stanza poem. Repeating to closely together makes it seem as if you're forcing that concept into the readers' minds once more before you conclude, and it just doesn't come across as well as it could. In another poem, I might suggest making a stanza or two in between the second and the third, but I can't see that here. So I'm going to have to admit that I don't like the repetition and leave it at that.

Overall

Overall, I enjoyed the concept. Just not the what-would-you-do question and the repetition. If you have any questions or would like me to elaborate, PM me. ^^

~Evi

Thanks for the reviews!

For all of you complaining about the grammar, it was deliberate. Yes, I know how to write. But I tried it and it really didn't fit here. Even the title is lowercase.

The cliche was kind of laziness on my part. I knew it was bad, but left it, lol.

I definitely see the repetition of 'into the cracks of the earth' after rereading it, and I agree that it's bad. Thanks for pointing it out!

See, this is the result of my over-eagerness and posting too soon. I should have stepped away from it for a few days and edited, lol.

Anyways, I'll be editing this soon. Thanks again!

~JFW1415

Hi there,

Here's your review, as requested

Firstly, while I liked the concept of the poem, it felt a little - what's the word? Abrupt? Shallow? I kind of get the impression that it ended before it could really convey what it was trying to say, I guess. Part of that is the repetition; used in the same way, within a few lines of each other, the same images take up a great deal of space, leaving not enough room to really give them any depth or explanation.

My main suggestion would be to make it longer, let the ideas spool out a little. What significance do the cracks in the earth have? How does this person have the power to save the poet from them? What would happen if s/he didn't? What does this say about their (hypothetical) relationship?

Other than that, just watch your punctuation a bit (esp. in that first stanza) and perhaps work on reducing the cliches

Cheers,
~bubbles

I liked the idea of the poem, but the way it was executed left me underwhelmed.

First, you need to capitalize at the beginning of each sentance. This is a style thing, but it was hard to figure out when each question began.

Secondly, the "cracks in the earth" lines were good, but they didn't make much sense. There isn't a lot of emotion connected to those lines, so they end up falling flat.

And finally, put some non-question lines in here. All the queries make the tone a litttle needy. THe questions themselves could be broken up into multiple questions to make it flow better, especially the first one.

Edited - please critique this version. =]



I'm not planning on changing the grammar parts. I may add a little bit - questions marks, maybe a comma before 'yes' and 'kiss me' - but it will be very bare bones.

I'm not really sure how to lengthen this. Like I've said, I'm not a poetry person, so it's hard for me to get out more lines than what came out initially.

I've tried to listen to most of these comments, and I will continue looking at them and editing this.

Thank you all so much!

~JFW1415

All I can really comment on is the fact that you should have a comma at the end of each line, and a full stop at the last line for each paragraph. Also... I don't really get the cracks of the earth part. It seems to me that you are trying to get her to say 'yes' to loving you, so perhaps you could change it to something more romantic. What you have now seems like she would be saying 'yes' to you dying in an earthquake!

Hey! Nice job, it's very sweet. There's just a few things I have to say.

First of all, I think as long as you stick with one, consistent format throughout the entire poem, grammar is not an issue. You didn't capitalize in random places, or use any punctuation at all, so I think it all looks really nice and thought-out to me. So keep it as is, in my opinion, when it comes to grammar.


I love that it's simplistic and straightforward. Its feels like the sincerity of a young teen, something a little difficult to find nowadays. It's romantic and innocent, and the overall tone is great. I especially loved that the last line is in parentheses; it really added a different dimension to the poem than if you had left it without. However, I would agree with bubblewrapped and others: expand! Elaborate!

If you have a problem with going about that, I suggest working specifically on the 'cracks of the earth' part first. It is, after all, the title of this piece. It should have a little extra to it, I think. Right now it blends in with everything else, and feels a little neglected. Maybe just take the metaphor a little further. Right after "would you do nothing", try and continue it (just watch me as the earth enveloped me, that sorta thing) and start a new stanza with "or would you whisper". It's not a particularly creative example, but I hope that helped you think of a way to go about it.

Take your time with this, I'm sure it'll turn out wonderfully in the end!

octocoffee wrote:If you have a problem with going about that, I suggest working specifically on the 'cracks of the earth' part first. It is, after all, the title of this piece. It should have a little extra to it, I think. Right now it blends in with everything else, and feels a little neglected. Maybe just take the metaphor a little further. Right after "would you do nothing", try and continue it (just watch me as the earth enveloped me, that sorta thing) and start a new stanza with "or would you whisper". It's not a particularly creative example, but I hope that helped you think of a way to go about it.

It did! zomg. Homework is so being neglected right now - I'm gonna go work on this. =]

~JFW1415

I thought this poem was very deep. I thought it needed a bit more. I felt that it stopped short and could go a bit deeper. Also, parentheses in a poem bug me. I think instead of:
(please say yes) you could say "I feel that you would catch me in your arms" or something along those lines. Other then that, it was great!
-EmeraldCutey51396