Young Writers Society

I decided to take the ideas of some people and mix it in with my own writing. Enjoy.

The sun rises over the mountains,
a ray of hope shines.
Life begins to stir.
The whole world awakens.

The sun is over head,
its power shining down.
giving us strength
to complete this day.

The sun sets upon the hills,
all becomes quiet.
All shall sleep,
till the bright sun rises.

I like it. The first thing I noticed was that it was the opposite of my writing. Focusing on the inevitability of the sunrise is an interesting focal point...I tend to prefer darker themes. But whatever works for you.

I like it. Short and sweet.

Good job for trying!

But, you still need helpful shoves in the right direction. What feeling am I supposed to be taking away from this? What am I getting out of it? I didn't like it, it was just another one of your sun rising-power poems. It still looks like everything else I've seen you write.

I seriously mean take a literal object and write a poem about it. Write about a flower. Write about a chair. Something tangible. Write a poem describing it. but be poetic when you do it, not stilted. I looked around for some poetry books today, for myself; I want to improve. You might consider looking for Poetry For Dummies at a library or buying it. It looks like it would be very helpful.

Have you read any poetry yet? Reading poetry will help you so much! I mean it!!

And for some general grammar tips, Capitalize the letter of the first word in each line. (I actually think this is partially a stylistic thing, but don't worry about that.) Also, try to learn to punctuate your poems better. (Did you ever read my article on Poetry and punctuation that I have probably linked you to?)

The sun is over head,
its power shining down.
giving us strength
to complete this day.

"Giving us strength to complete this day." isn't a sentence, but yet there is a period on the line before it. Punctuate your poetry like you would real sentences.

Good luck on your next poem! I hope I was helpful, I seem to be repeating myself...

I second everything Clau said. READ LOTS OF GOOD POETRY.
She also suggested capitalizing the first letter of every line; I don't think that's always necessary, but at least capitalize things that should be capitalized, like the beginnings of sentences. This poem looks like one that could have the first letter of each line capped, because each line is a new thought. If thoughts just went from line to line with no natural pause, you wouldn't cap the letters at the beginnings, but this would be fine formatted like that.
That's merely a nitpicky stylistic suggestion, though. As Clau said, and as I've said before, narrow your scope. Write about something tangible, something small, and write about it in a way no Hallmark card designer has ever written about it before.

Colleen

Your poem didn't really have any dimension. It reads like a flat surface, with nothing for the mind to grab. I did like how it wasn't dark or depressing, though.

I liked it, simple short and sweet.

I like it, but I think that it could use a little something more, to make it more interesting, and so the reader can get a better image of it.

Yeah, basically I can only echo Claudette, Cadmium and CK Lynn; This was rather cliche and didn't really have much depth or substance. I really didn't get much out of it. There's nothing wrong with simplicity; in fact often the most simple poetry is some of the most beautiful. Still, even if the message is simple, the poem needs powerful imagery, original phrases... Something to make it stand out. To make it not sound like a Hallmark card, as Cadmium put it. I'm sorry if this sounds unnecessarily harsh, I'm only trying to be constructive.

There was nothing wrong with the poem's subject matter; It was refreshing to read poem that wasn't "emo." In fact, I wrote a sonnet with a similar theme for a Shakespeare class I took once; I tried to take a familiar theme and portray it in a unique way. See if you could do that with this.

Keep writing and posting! ^_^