Young Writers Society

RAPE....
You took away our friendship,
You stole my self-asteem,
You hurt me on the inside,
But barely left a bruse.

I explained it to my parents,
My friends and teachers too,
Said I was playing tag,
Not at the ball feild with you.

I know it was my falt,
Ill never try drugs again,
For again it will not happen,
Being raped by my best friend.

Later dow the road,
It happens four more times,
Three more friends,
And a man I never knew.

All four bring abuse,
More lies to the ones I love,
All because of drugs and beer,
And a bad friend here and there.

Hi... Im new to wrighting about anything other than feelings so.... Well Ive never writen about experiences... go as hard as you wanna!

Hey there!

Okay! You admit you are new to writing this. And I will admit, poetry is a very hard thing to do. The first thing you should do when getting into poetry, is to read a lot of it! That will help you understand how poetry works.

To this, it doesn't work. But I'll explain why, and hopefully the suggestions I give will help you understand and learn how to make it better. All of this poem is telling. Just like in literature, telling is bad. You want to show your reader what is happening, and even more so with poetry, you want them to experience it. Something I think you should do with this poem is pick a single even to talk about. Write it as though it is happening, or perhaps as though the speaker is thinking back to it. Put the reader in the speakers place, and make them feel. Use vivid imagery to describe things (taste, touch, smell, sounds, sights), but don't just describe, make it work together to say something. Be poetic and use metaphor! You don't have to use anything, but it helps put the reader in the speakers place.

In my opinion, poetry should cause the reader to think, feel, or believe something. You need to cause the reader to feel! You need to shake them by the shoulder and say HEY, FEEL SOMETHING! Yes, I'm shouting. ^_^ Get excited about it! Or not. I think reading poetry would really help you, because then you could see what I mean. There are many amazing poets on this site that you can read, rather than buying a poetry book. They include, but are certainly not limited to: Incandescence, Fandilocks, Via, Melja, Sam (though she doesn't have too many of her amazing poems posted yet!) and Caligulas_Launderette.

An old article I wrote that may or may not help you (I'm not sure of the quality of it, haha, It's old!) is Emotional Poetry.

Good Luck! If you have any questions or would like some help on any of the things I mentioned, feel free to pm me. ^^

Okay, I thought it flowed really well for the most part. There were a few spelling errors and some punctuation flaws; but i thought it was really well written. It had great emotion and to me it wasn't to cliche.
Good Job
A thumbs up from me.
Keep Writing

in my honest opinion
ive never liked how sonnets flowed
but this is a good exception
good use of old poetry
flows greatly to make the overpowering emotion of self pity
u need to spell check

To me, it was a bit too telling. Usually, that doesn't bother me, but now I got somehow uncomfortable. Could have been because of the subject, of course. But I think it would've been better impact if you let us guess or conclude that it was about raping. I'm not sure, though.

The flow is good and the stanzas are somewhat equal, which is nice. But there were a few typos; I suggest you correct those. (Like feild --> field, dow --> down, falt --> fault)

Also remember to give some reviews before posting your other work.

Keep on
Demeter

I agree with Demeter. She pointed out a few spelling errors. Self-esteem ends with e-s-t-e-e-m. Not a-s-t-e-e-m.

You took away our friendship,
You stole my self-asteem,
You hurt me on the inside,
But barely left a bruse.

That stanza (above) is okay. It can be better, though, if you change the last line. It kind of ruins the ambience you set because somehow it doesn't flow. Try ending with a different word instead of "bruise." Perhaps use some assonance or rhyme?

I know it was my falt,
Ill never try drugs again,
For again it will not happen,
Being raped by my best friend.

That should be

I know it was my fault,
I'll never try drugs again,
For again it will not happen,
Getting raped by my best friend.

I personally thought getting was a better word than "being."

Later dow the road,
It happens four more times,
Three more friends,
And a man I never knew.

That stanza (above) seemed the weakest--punctuation-wise.

Later down the road
It happens four more times;
Three other friends,
And a man I never knew.

That is what I would change it to. "Other" fits better than "more" does, at least in my opinion.

Synopsis:
- This is pretty good considering you're new to writing :]
- Try reading your work out loud before you submit it. You'll find most of your errors that way.

Hope this helps and don't take all of my criticism personally--
- Summerless <3~

I think you deserve respect for writing about this issue. It's a very hard thing to do.

Although I'll agree with the other reviewers in that you need to stop telling the story and focus more on showing, I will say that I found the poetic voice eery and almost hypnotic. I read it to the very end without my attention wandering. Just try and develop this into something more complex, and then you'll be onto a win.

Welcome to YWS, by the way. I'm usually knocking about the poetry forums so you're welcome to send me any work or ask questions.

Eimear

Heys. Thanks for the advice. I really didnt know about it either, but I guess it was ok.... I plan on posting more poems as soon as possible!!

It really flows well but it's a bit to forward, maybe make people have to think about what it's about it. Maybe add more about stolen innocence and more metaphors, I think it would make it more powerful.


I know it was my falt,
Ill never try drugs again,
For again it will not happen,
Being raped by my best friend.

Like in that stanza don't actually say the word, people will know what your talking about and it will give the poem more. And thank you for writing about this, someone had to.

Alright, over all this is a great poem, but your spelling is (no offense) horrible. I see most people have already corrected you here so I'm not going to go into that.

Instead i want to compliment you. You say you're new to writing things like this, but you write (besides the grammar) very well.

Keep it up, this will take you very far in your life.

I didn't like it but the topic was interesting and maybe you can go back to it if you want and fix it up.

the rhyming is very weird in some spots like this one-
All four bring abuse,

More lies to the ones I love,

All because of drugs and beer,

And a bad friend here and there.


Naming the poem RAPE doesn't really go along with the whole poem.
For example,

"RAPE....

You took away our friendship,

You stole my self-asteem,

You hurt me on the inside,

But barely left a bruse."

Rape is a strong term to use but you are saying that your friend barely left a bruise. Needs to be changed.

this is written very well just the occasional spelling mistakes but that can happen to the best of us. The more you write the better you will get and my hat comes off to you to write about such a touchy subject well done

...is this a true story or are you just using the premise to a dramatic effect.

Hello!


Okay, firstly:

One thing I didn't like about this poem was the fact that you told us it was about you. I think maybe the reader should be able to imagine who it was about themeselves. Secondly, I also didn't like that you told us it was about rape. I think maybe you could've led us to believe that, but maybe not put it out there so much. That was a little vague and cliche.


But, I think you did a good job otherwise!!

~*Hailey,<3