Poem of the Prisoner

16 posts1, 2
User avatar
Gender Female
Points 900
Reviews 268
Hello Lord Gluzman!


We'll start with the bad, shall we? And then we'll go on to the good. :)

First things first, your structure. This poem has no definite form, or pattern. You start with four-line stanzas, have a couple of those, then switch to 5 lines, stick there for a bit, then switch to 8, and then back to four. Then you have 6, then 8, then 7, then 8.
There's no pattern there at all, no consistency. You need to decide whether you're maybe going switch back and forth between two lengths, maybe make your stanzas gradually longer a line at a time, or something, that you stick to throughout the entire poem.


Next we have your rhyme scheme. I want to point something out that I cannot stress enough: rhyming is not essential to a poem. This may or may not be something you are aware of; but regardless, there are many poems which have no rhyming whatsoever.
Now, that is not to say that you shouldn't rhyme. But in this poem, you have problems with your rhyme scheme. As with the structure, your problem is consistency. You throw in a pair of rhyming lines here, and there, sandwich a whole bunch of non-rhyming lines in the middle, and say "ta da! A rhyming poem!" Unfortunately, it's not that simple. If only, if only. What I said before I will say again: you must have consistency.
Tell yourself, 'I will have two rhyming lines, one not, then two rhyming lines. New stanza. Two rhyming lines, one not, then two rhyming lines,' and so on. Or any number of other patterns, as long as you stick with one and only one.

There's one more thing about rhyming I'd like to discuss. I mentioned that is not necessarily necessary, no? Well, this is true. When you rhyme, it is often difficult to come up with natural-sounding rhymes, rhymes which do not sound forced, rhymes that just happen. In quite a few cases here you have no difficulty with that. But there are a few trouble spots.
For instance:
From the chest of the cage stone
My eyes are blown
"My eyes are blown." What does that mean? How does it fit? I cannot see how that line connects with the lines on either side of it, let alone the whole stanza.
My neck gets broken
But I forgave myself and that’s a token
Ending on a rhyme could work well, but you have to have the right word. "...And that's a token" just sounds awkward because it's such an odd word. It could fit the context, but it has to work really hard at it. If you can't come up with a better word that rhymes, just get rid of the rhyming there.
Look over your rhymes and make sure they flow as smoothly as they possibly can, and that they make sense.


Now just a few other things to point out.
Punctuation - As this is a longer poem, I would suggest that you not leave punctuation out, the way you have done. It doesn't add anything to your poem except a very high risk of confusion in your readers.
Spelling - You have the word "right" twice, but each time you spelled it "rite", which is incorrect. You have the word "find" twice, but each time you spelled it "fined", which is incorrect.


As I hear the fathers say
My child you did the rite thing
The second line needs to be in quotation marks.


I hear him say
My child you did the rite thing
Don’t be scared of death
You will soon be with me
I forgive you because you forgive yourself
The four lines after the first one need to be in quotation marks.


I hear a guard say
Tonight your execution will start
The second line needs to be in quotation marks.


I see a soul saying I forgive you for killing me
'I forgive you for killing me' should be in quotation marks.


I hear him saying
My son start praying
The pain will fade away
But you most swear
That next time you make a decision you must care
The last four lines should be in quotation marks.



When we were kids
We played pushing in the snow
Life flew fast like the white predator crow
We did mistakes and forgave our selves
This stanza doesn't really seem to fit with the rest of the poem. I can see how it is connected with the theme, but you don't do anything with this idea, don't complete it. You have this one stanza mentioning how it was then they were children, but the next stanza talks about something completely different. I think you could probably get rid if this one altogether. Or, if not, develop it more. Spend more time on it.


Now. :) Aside from the things I mentioned (most of which are very easily remedied), this poem has a depth and intensity to it which is wonderful to read. Once the structural problems are taken care of, the content of the poem will shine through much more brightly.

If you'd like me to take a look at this at a later time, just PM me. :)

Good luck!
"Half the time the poem writes me." ~Meshugenah



Don't tell me the sky's the limit when there are footprints on the moon.
— Paul Brandt