I really enjoyed this piece. It was real refreshing and I like how you went about it with the style and the rhyming. I feel poems like these could be really effective through spoken word as in being told out loud to an audience of people, almost like a performance piece.
*There's a typo in the third line, that's the only thing I spotted that was out of place.
The one word ending is very powerful and stopped me dead and I paused to reflect on everything you'd said.
I thought it was brilliant, it was a pleasure to read.
The surrounding world
was an ugly one,
but we needed no beauty
other than the light
within each other's eyes. - "Modern World" * topic15452
God it's not alot you see poems like this so good. This is one of the best poems i ever seen and I throughly agree with it. One thing ya missed is comma's. That's all but god i love this poem.
We get off to the rhythm of the trigger and destruction. Fallujah to New Orleans with impunity to kill. We are the hidden fist of the free market.
We are the ink, we are the quill.
[The Ink And The Quill (Be Afraid) - Anti-Flag]
Hmm, I'm going to have to disagree with the other two critiquers. I think you have a good idea here (what is coming of this world?), but you used so many forced rhyming words that it killed the flow and poignancy (sp?) your poem could have had. It's very, very choppy, and to say in the least, I'd add maybe a bit of punctuation. Of course, there's poems that have none at all and wo
There were a few places where you had some good stuff, such as:
The confusion Allusion Delusion
I think your main problem here is really your rhyming scheme. It seems like you slapped a lot of nifty sounding words together to make a poem. I'd try maybe experimenting and writing this in free verse. I think it may be a bit more powerful and you'll get your message across much more clearly.
Good luck with the poem, nice job, and hope this helped!
(PM me if you have any questions! )
Wiggy
"I will have to tell you, you have bewitched me body and soul..." --Mr. Darcy, P & P, 2005 movie
"You pierce my soul." --Cpt. Frederick Wentworth
I think this could work quite well as a spoken poem. I've been to a few poetry slams at local cafés and such, and the style in which you wrote this poem is very common in such atmospheres.
I do, however, have a few qualms with the way in which you present the material. The idea of the poem is great, but I think that it would be much more effective if you fixed a few things. Its not even that the rhyming is so bad (because lots of rhyming in spoken poems can be of a forced nature to emphasize it, but when articulated right it sounds beautiful in short doses - just know when you are using it and make sure it is for a reason). The issue here, as far as I can tell, is that some of the lines were rather shallow for such a great topic. Especially towards the end.
This by itself is good. I read the poem out loud several times, using different articulations to try to come up with effective emotional presentations of it, and for the most part it succeeded. This isn't a poem full of imagery, or beauty, etc. It is striving for something much greater - meaning manifesting itself in a blunt, in-your-face attack against the world and people in it. It is a call - not to arms - but to self and world awareness. For such a lofty goal, I seriously admire you.
That being said, some of the lines/ideas (in my opinion, remember) are silly. Saying "If all there is is pain / Again and again / What is the reason?" is a bit of a cliché, and from where I'm standing it takes away from the poem by being stated so simply. Most of the poem is stated simply, but it works with the same force as hitting a sleeping person with a baseball bat. This part, however, is more like ticking their nose with a feather. Not quite as effective, and more often than not it they will either 1)continue to sleep, or 2)laugh uncontrollably. Obviously I'm being hyperbolic, but you get the point . I recommend trying to rework this idea into the poem in a more original way.
Now we come to the biggest problem with the whole thing:
Why do people sit and cry? Do we believe a big,fat lie?
I absolutely cannot stand these lines. Up until this point, I was thoroughly engaged in the poem. Then - out of the blue - it hits: BAM! I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. I can handle forced rhyme if it assists in the presentation/feel or meaning of the poem. This, however, I cannot handle. It is cheesy. Even without rhyming, the ideas, images, and words are silly. Rhetorical questions in poetry must be mature, emotionally gripping, and thought provoking. You want the reader to stop for a moment and consider the question - to truly, honestly, consider what it means to him/her specifically.
The first question here, "Why do people sit and cry?" does nothing for me. Why do they sit? I don't know, why does anybody sit? In the proper context, sitting down could symbolize something but here it seems empty. Why do they cry? Well, I could give a bunch of reasons why people cry. None of which really made me think too hard. Crying is part of life. Its not deep or philosophical by any means.
The second question, "Do we believe a big,fat lie?", is even worse. There is good news, however - the idea presented here has hope. It just needs a MUCH better articulation. I advise that you NEVER describe something as big and fat. Even on their own, those words do close to nothing. There are far more descriptive adjectives in the English lexicon. Big fat lie, though, is ten times worse - it is a cliché! How it came about that lies were described in such a manner I am uncertain, but I do know that it is very common and by saying such the originality of the poem is about cut in half.
Alright, there you have it - my thoughts. This really was a good poem. I would love to hear someone with a nice voice perform it at an open mic in a cozy little café sometime. Just fix some of the things I pointed out, especially those two lines, and you will be way better off.
“Clementine: This is it, Joel. It’s going to be gone soon.
Joel: I know.
Clementine: What do we do?
Joel: Enjoy it.”
-Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind-
Wow! Thanks to all!
Fab, I'm glad you like it, and Siegfried too.
But Wiggy and IceCreamMan are absolutely right- those few lines smash it, I can see that now, thanks to you guys I really appreciate the time and effort you put into the crits.
Editing it all ready. Great encouragement, thanks.
Wildlove100%
I really liked the style of this poem. I think the way you decided to pu this together was, all in all, very good. I'm not sure about the rhyming though... It did seem a little forced. Otherwise it was very good though. When I look at it more closely, I'm not sure if it really even needs the rhyming. The message itself along with the way you styled the poem might be enough to enrapture me.
)
