Poem of a Soldat

((Soldat- A Russian Soldier.))

Halt, Arise, Awake, Fire,
Where have I risen?
Am I lost?
This forest that surrounds me,
Holds no familiar faces,

Halt, Arise, Awake, Fire,
Where am I now?
Why can't I see?
I hear the voices of ahead,
Telling me to forget and rise,

Halt, Arise, Awake, Fire,
Should I turn back?
Where are the ones I seek?
I see the red,
and the gleaming metal,
pointing up ahead,

Halt, Arise, Awake, Fire,
Why can't I run?
Why am I still here?
I'm losing my family,
But still I must fight,
There's no turning back beyond a certain point,

Halt, Arise, Awake, Fire,
Have I fallen?
Why can't I wake?
The ground below me,
It grows colder,
While above me rests a crooked X,

Halt.....Arise......Awake.....Fire.....Die......


The final stand of the Soldat,
Battle of Moscow in WW2,
Germans vs. Russians,
Russians won, but lost some men.
This is the story of one of the men who fell,
Honor his story.

Note from the Author: Please, don't treat this poem like just a poem. Though it has only been written recentlly by myself, I feel it is already a piece of history. Please, read it carefully and feel yourself as the Soldat.
And please think of this as well. My grandfather was one of the Soldats in the battle of Moscow. He stood and fought while my grandmother was escapeing to Kazakstan in a train that was being bombed as it rode by Nazis. With her, she carried my infant father. When the war ended, she waited for the Soldats to return. They did, but my grandfather wasn't with them. Grandma recieved a letter that he was shot in battle, but later we found out that the true story was that my Grandpa died in a Gulag.

Note to the Author: As most of my professors--many published and well-esteemed poets and writers--have told me, "If you need to explain your piece, you need to rewrite it." From reading, we understand that we are supposed to identify with the soldat; you don't need to tell us. Have some faith in your readers. Explaining simple, obvious things is akin to telling us we're idiots.

Anyway.

1. Capitalization - Why? Why is every word of the first line of each stanza capitalized? I understand that often poets do that to emphasize certain things--and believe me, I'm all for breaking the rules if it works and there's a good reason behind it. This doesn't work, at all. You're trying to hard. If you want emphasis, try using the punctuation to get it across--or better yet, words. The words you use, through most of this poem, lack a lot of strength... but I'll get to that later.

2. Punctuation -
2a) You do not--I repeat, you DO NOT--need punctuation at the end of every line. Doing so shows how amateur your efforts are. Try this: write your lines out as prose, punctuate it the way you would a prose sentence, and then put the line breaks in. Therefore, this:

Should I turn back?
Where are the ones I seek?
I see the red,
and the gleaming metal,
pointing up ahead,

becomes

Should I turn back? Where are the ones I seek? I see the red and the gleaming metal pointing up ahead.

...which becomes...

Should I turn back?
Where are the ones I seek?
I see the red
and the gleaming metal
pointing up ahead.

2b). Avoid ellipses. It's as simple as that. They rarely have a place in poetry. Also, ellipses in the middle of the sentence should be no more or less than three periods (...), and ellipses at the end of sentences should be no more or less than four (....). Never, ever, EVER five or six.

3. Word Choice - It makes sense that using good words makes it more likely that you'll write good poetry, right? I mean, it doesn't guarantee it, but it couldn't hurt--and by good words, I mean strong words. Here's an example: which is more expressive?

"Give it back," she said.

or

"Give it back," she snarled.

To snarl is more expressive than to say, right? So instead of using weak nouns and verbs--"lost," "surround," "familiar," "forget," "seek," "metal," and "voices" are just a few from this poem--replace them with stronger synonyms. You won't regret it.

Okay, thank you for those critations. They'll help me in future poetry. I usually write in Russian, then translate into English, so some of the words may be different.

i think this is great. it is very sad and you show the emotion. you did very well. keep going.

kim

Thank you, Kim. ^^

I commend you for this poem. You've taken a perspective for something that is usually overlooked. I know a little bit about the Russian role in WW2 and I admire the Russian race greatly. Here you have taken a great Russian spirit and honored it through verse. However, I don't think that your last stanza does not belong very much. I think that you're trying to honor your grandfather rather than a poem, and you lose a lot of your momentum when you're trying to overemphasize the historical content. Honor your grandfather and his spirit. The rest of the war doesn't really matter. But your form and grammar was, for the most part, very well and I disagree with Fandilocks. So take pride in what you have done here and pay more attention to the war through the soldier's vision rather than the war.

Thank you very much, Weatherstorm!

Edward Scissorhands,


I think this qualifies as a disaster. The presentation on the page adds nothing. The structure of the first sentence is a jumbled run-on that seems carelessly thrown together, as well as all its sentences following form. The final sentence is likewise a tangled mess that would suck the energy out of any poem where it appeared - not that this piece has much energy to begin with.

I doubt this can be salvaged.


Best,
Brad

The concept is cool, and the emotion is there. What I see though is punctuation errors, repetition, and misplacement.

Halt, Arise, Awake, Fire,
Where have I risen?
Am I lost?
This forest that surrounds me,
Holds no familiar faces,

Why does every stanza end in a comma (,)? The stanzas do not blend together, especially because of the repetition of the "Halt..." verse. Those should be periods at the end of each and every stanza.

Speaking of that repetition. Ugh. Repetition is a literary term, yes, but you've over done it. And the proof of that is when I get so bored of that first line that I skip reading it after the third stanza. I think that you should either keep it at just the beginning stanza or change it each time. Like in the second stanza maybe--"Awake, Rise, Listen, Run." to carry into the idea of hearing the voices ahead. See what I mean?

The last stanza. Weatherthestorm said it earlier. It doesn't fit. In fact, it ruins what poetic momentum you had going. Either erase it and put in an author's note or rewrite it.

This isn't terrible, and it's idea is definitely something that we as a human race should be aware of, but your poem needs help. Go back and revise it, and it will honor the Soldat's memory in a better way.