the Age of Blood

Dawn

An age was ending
An age was dawning
Blood began to rise
The thirst for flesh was nigh
Vampires came
Vampires ruled
An age where all would cry
The waters rose
And turned a crimson hue
One hundred years of agony
One hundred years of hell
Until the day of saving grace
They would be forced to wait
Until the day that bones would break
Terror had found a home
The street were flooded
In lakes of blood
As a massacre began
And thus began the Age of Blood
Where Hope
Was naught

You don't need all that spacing between each line, that's improper formating. You only need a line break (where there is a space) between stanzas. You have no punctuation! Ack. Poetry & Punctuation.

As to the content of the poem, there wasn't really... much to it. You had a rhyme scheme so you tried. But the topic is just... eh. Poetry should evoke some emotion or thought, do something new. You do a whole lot of telling. Just like fiction, poetry should be about showing. Use imagery, paint a picture for the reader. Use senses too: sight, smell, touch, taste, sound, everything you can think of to put the reader in the poem.

I'm not sure what to suggest, since this poem doesn't have anything worthy to be scrapped and used in a rewrite. So I suppose I can say read more poetry. That's the only way you'll learn to improve.

I kept waiting for this to get interesting, but it really didn't. I'm having a hard time even coming up with a review/critique. It wasn't, like, eye-sporkingly bad or anything, although it would've been a little emo if it felt like there was any emotion at all. That, of course, is exactly the problem.

I didn't feel scared or lost or hopeless or any of those things. I didn't even get that usual "ew, rivers running with blood" feeling. ('Cause frankly, rivers running with blood is gross. Your poem, however, did not make me feel grossed out.) It didn't make me feel anything at all.

I think it should be rivers, not lakes, in "[t]he street were flooded/[i]n lakes of blood." It's just a personal preference, but it seems to make more sense.

Apart from reading more poetry, like Claudette said, try reading more vampire fiction and folktales. (Try to stay away from modernist vampire stories if you're going for scary; think Dracula, not Lestat.)

edit: Y'know, I just realized the irony that a poem about vampires would be named "dawn," since, traditionally, they can only come out once the sun goes down. Maybe have "dawn" be the last one (it's a set of three, yes?) if that's the one in which the vampires are overthrown.

scuse me whilst i stomp up and down in agony of cliches THE IMAGE OF DRACULA HAS RUINED THE GLORIOUS VAMPIRE NAME!!!!!

now that i've finished that, although what you say is true, Vampires do have an aversion to light, the 'Dawn' is refering to the dawn or begining of the age, rather than the actual time of day

i'm sorry about the spacing, it has now been edited and was the fault of copying it straight off fictionpress

i'm also sorry that you feel nothing with this poem, but perhaps i only feel something in it because i have suffered from a depressive illness in the past and had been studying Guernica in class when i wrote this, i expect that the first time i ever see Guernica i will cry, but that's just me

i think you could find something in this poem if you looked hard enough, and i will post the next poem soon

Isn't Dracula one of the original vampires, or at least, the "classic" vampire? How'd you mean it's "ruined" vampires?

Anyway, I understand that "dawn" here is symbolic, but I think it would be more impressive and powerful if you titled the poems in reverse, if that makes sense. So, Dusk, Night and Dawn for the rise, zenith and fall of the vampires; it would be the opposite of Dawn, Day and Dusk for humans. Just something to consider.

Oh, and I hate to have to do this, but:

Nate wrote:Also, do not take any harsh criticism personally.

We're only trying to help.