Death

Scraped. Sorry.

Hi! *waves cheerily* I'm Aussie and for being new to poems that one's not bad at all. Here are some thoughts to take with you as you rework this poem (which I strongly recommend that you do).

Death, one could say, is the thing in iife that brings out the purest most undiluted emotion we possess. I don't know if you've ever experienced the death of a love one (I haven't, but I have talked with good friends and experienced the death of someone not too close to me) but it makes you ache. You find yourself sitting awake in the middle of the night, unsure how long you've been up or what you've been doing since then. But you're thinking of her, the person who's died. And then you're crying again. You live in a pitch-black maze, never sure of where the exit is, certain that every step carries you further and further from the departed one.

You chose to write your poem in rhyming couplets, which is a format that in my mind is really constricting and therefor hardly ever successful. You're trying to squish a world of emotion into this little tiny rhyme space and that doesn't work here. Try free writng, with no rhyme or rhythm. There's a good article on it on YWS.

Something you'll see a lot of if you've been around the poetry critiquers for very long is the old adage, "Show don't tell." Give us images that will burn into our souls forever. Show us the dead girl's cold, hard eyes on a porcelain face, Show us how much you loved her. Why should I care that she was all you had? Make me care.

These are just a few things to think about as you go back over the poem. PM me if you have any questions, and definitely read the articles on YWS about poetry. I'm sure they'll be helpful. It also helps to read other people's poems and their critiques, because in all probability they apply to your work too. COngrats and keep writing!

-Aussie

Normally I'm an evil reviewer, but since I'm not so good with poetry, I can't be as mean...-.- you got lucky, boy...haha

It's a bit straightforward to me. Find a synonym for sad, especially. Also, if you're going to do a rhyming poem, you need more rhythm. And I didn't really feel any emotion. There's nothing there but words. "K, ya'll, this girl that I knew, she like, totally died. Like, completely died. Man am I going to miss her." You need a few more connotative words there. Especially if you're using an emoticon...I really can't take poetry seriously that has a smiley at the end...haha.

uh...hoped I helped. I'm not a great poetry reviewer...haha

For being so new at poetry this is great. It wasn't long so bear with me here. I felt a small conection of emotion but not as much as I would have liked. The person that is spoken of in the story seem so important, like part of a story. Do tell. Who was she? What was she to you? Why should the reader care about you're loss? Good lukc and keep writing.

-Max

all in all it wasn't that bad (especially since your new at poetry) the only thing is some of the rymes were :-/

She made me glad when I was sad.

... it was just kinda.... i don't know the proper adjective... obvious maybe? i don't know it just seems like (wow) to rhyme glad with sad...

She was like a goddess With her prettiness

it jsut sounded kinda akward
but seriously... i really thought this was good
i did like the poem ^__^

I really didn't like much of anything about it, to be honest.

First off, the title is a real clunker. It's not really anything imaginative, but I can see people being drawn to a poem called death. You need to create a title that appeals to a wider audience. Not just... death.

My next problem were your overly forced rhymes, it seems as though you just left the other elements of poetry to the wolves just to squeeze those rhymes out of simple words. Some really obvious forced rhymes were:

Because she was all I had

She made me glad

when I was sad.

It's just unimaginative. It's dull, and I really don't get the emotion you're trying to convey here.

Your rhythm fell of in numerous places as well. There was one line that really stuck out near the end of the poem.

She made me love

when I was deplored of it.

and when I was angry she got rid of my snit.

There's probably about 5 or 6 extra syllables in there that just don't go well with the other lines.

The biggest sin committed here was your lack of imagery, it was show and tell, without the show. Your inexperience with poetry really screams here, and I would recommend going over some poetry guide articles and reading some poetry (I like Robert Frost) before delving into the genre of writing a bit more.

Hope this helps!

*Locked*