Young Writers Society

Crying,
For all these hard times.
Screaming,
At this wall of memories.
Falling,
From the cliff of your existence.

We’re lost in a sea,
Of indecisive love.

Crying:
That’s what I do now.
Screaming:
That’s how I speak.
Falling:
That’s when you need to be my hero.

Save me now,
Before I shatter completely.

Hmmm. Your poem lacks power. I suppose in part it is because of the fact that structure you have.

The way you present your ideas is:

Action ----> Event

But what happens is you have a simply expressed action, such as screaming followed by an elaborate description of what your screaming at ("this wall of memories"). The problem with this is that we don't have events to back up the emotions, the state of mind. We have emotions and there directions which makes it difficult for your audience to become interested because you're simply telling them what your character feels followed by descriptions at what its directed at, yet never why. Audiences are little kids, they always want to know why or to think they know why.

Also, I think you try too hard to come up with fancy descriptions. The cliff of your existence? First of all, it's a big mouthfull and secondly it just sounds so strange. Don't try and make poetry sound as complicated as possible with "cliffs of existence", just go with what says what you want the best. And that line obscures the meaning rather than makes it more accessible because it doesn't appear to be too relevant to your saving.

Purpose wise, you're in need of saving. I don't know why you need saving and I don't know by who (except by a hero) and if you expanded upon one of those routes you might be able to make the poem less about telling your emotions and more about showing them.

I agree with everything that Mad's said. The poem lacks punch. Hmm, let me try and explain. Alfred Lord Tennyson wrote a poem very similar to this except it was about grief, a very strong emotion- called 'Break, Break, Break' The reason the poem was so acclaimed was that the poet showed us that emotion, and tied it into a clear event that the reader could visualise. We could see the rolling waves, real and metaphorical, breaking over and over again, the speaker with no control whatsoever over the process.

Now- let me use an example of where you tell instead of show:

Crying,

For all these hard times.

Look at that again yourself. What does this say? Exactly. It says exactly what you've wrote. Poetry, however is about whispering your message as opposed to shouting it. You can use imagery to show us, as well as other poetic devices such as metaphors, similes, personification, assonance you name it. Us readers love that kind of stuff. We lap it up. The best thing about poetry to me is when I can spend ages thinking about a poem saying 'what did they really mean by that description? How many different levels did it have?

Right now, your poem's message is very much at face value. What you see is what you get.
In some places it is quite self- indulgent, and by that I mean you've simply wrote it for yourself. You need to think about how your work is going to affect your readers. Reader's care about literature because it speaks to them- a word, a description is surprisingly unique or funny or the characteristics of a person reminds them of someone they know. This line here doesn't speak to the reader because A. It's a cliche B. It's too vague:

We’re lost in a sea,

Of indecisive love.

Also, the speaker is trying to show their weak side by saying that there in need of a hero. This turns me right off because through the law of literature I immediately think of the speaker as a girl who is weak and powerless. Real life isn't like that. We are weak in other ways- so tone it down.

Save me now,

Before I shatter completely.

This is overly-dramatic to the max. I would suggest re-working this to make it a little less emotional and more gripping, shocking. Shock the reader. Really do, it's fun as well. I hope you don't think I'm being overly harsh because I've a secret vendetta against your poetry, I do like certain aspects of this, but I would love to see them developed as well as your poetry. Good luck,

Eimear

Yay! I get to critique your poem. Now, quickly! I am considered one of the brutal critiquers of YWS. Why? Because I am really really picky on what I like and what I dislike. So if you stare at my critique and think, "Wow, she's so evil," then just know that you're not alone... a lot of YWS thinks that too. But! I will try to help you as best as I can and (I hope!) my comments will be somewhat inspirational and helpful as well.

So! With that long-winded introduction, let's get to the meat of the poem, shall we?

The first thing I noticed is that it really had a lack of... emotion for us. And that's slightly weird for me to say, because it was obviously written with a great deal of emotion. But it doesn't really affect me, and that's why it's slightly odd. You're telling us this very personal stuff, about how you cry, about how you scream, about how you fall. But you're not giving us, your lovely (or unlovely, as in my case ) readers any reason to really care about this. For instance!

Crying:
That’s what I do now.
Screaming:
That’s how I speak.
Falling:
That’s when you need to be my hero.

The question that we readers wonder is how can we be the hero? It is hard to save people from something completely abstract. We don't know how to save the narrator from the "hard times" (whatever those are) or the wall of memories (what can those be?) or the cliff of our existence. So you have these very abstract imagery, and yet we, the readers, are supposed to feel like we can save the narrator from this fate that she finds herself in.

My favorite part of the poem, actually, was this:

We’re lost in a sea,
Of indecisive love.

This is something we can envision because seas, to us, are something concrete that many people can be saved from. And I think you can really make this poem shine by going off of this metaphor of love being a sea and of you being lost in it. In fact, that would be really really awesome and you should totally do that.

So cut out the abstract stuff... that is not helping you create any effect. Instead, make it so that the reader can relate to it by giving us a concrete image. Make us feel like it's possible for us, the readers, to "save" the narrator from this sea of indecisive love. This can be a really cool poem. Make the most of it!

I'm with Eimear and Snoink on this one: you can give us as much emotion and feeling as you like, but in a DRAMATIC poem, you need to connect events (Narrative) with emotions (Lyric). Events give conflict which leads to a resulting emotion; conflict, thus, is what makes drama dramatic.

If there's no shared experience, no connection, to hang your feelings on, the reader won't relate to those feelings. Case in point:

'Crying:/That's what I do now.'

Crying is an emotion; there's no event to tie it to except the idea of being 'lost in a sea/Of indecisive love' - and even this is rudimentary. You tell far more than show. Providing events and building the effect on the cause is a great way to filter the emotions, thus SHOW the reader what you mean.

Here's an example, developing your 'sea' image.

'He is a boat running away
To distant lands;
Helplessly
I hack at the water,
Tear into the blue
As if Nature cannot
Deprive me of my
Lifeblood yet.'

In fact, as Snoink says (or alludes), you may wish to open up this image into an extended metaphor for your piece. This would be far more powerful than a list of things with clauses pointlessly tacked on that don't allow the reader to find the meaning. Trust your audience and trust your story.

I know that this is a common problem for novices but don't worry. Keep rewriting and editing and I'm sure this poem will be great!

Small but important point before I sign off: you don't need to end many of your sentences with commas, colons or full stops. They effectively break up your action into lots of chunks and makes for very mundane reading. Learn to love enjambement; look at my example.

Good luck!

Gahks



(At the moment, I give this piece 3/10. With a bit of effort and perseverance, it could well be a 7!)

You need more describing in it
show don't tell
You need more power to it
I know you could fix it and I could be a great poem

i LOVE it. it screams 'true poet' at me. i will look into your other works to see if you are as much a genius as i think you are. i love the imagery and analogies, they remind me of my own thoughts. so this is also why i like your poem, because it reflects to me, the reader, on a personal level. everyone loves a poet who can relate on a personal level, that's why i won't consider someone a real poet until they write an actual poem with actual emotion.