Young Writers Society

Another Day Awake


To the man who looks in the mirror
and only sees his face,
Staring blankly back upon himself,
then leaves without a trace

To the man who forgets who he once was,
who forgets the battles fought,
He purposely deceives himself into thinking
all those battles were for naught

To the man who once felt happiness
and saw beauty in this life,
now he sees only the vile, filthy truth,
all the sadness and the strife

To the man whose words were once known to be
sharper than a double-edged sword,
whose lips now sealed from years of waiting,
his vocals never to strike a chord

All this for the man who would give up his life,
allowing you his soul to take,
If only just to let you have
Another day awake

this is good, but some of the rhyming seems forced at places.

He purposely deceives himself into thinking

all those battles were for naught

you go from having 12 syllables to 6.
fix it and the poem will flow a lot smoother

Loved this! It was great!
You captivated the reader (at least me) and I'm hard to captivate. When I see a poem that has the same format every stanza and every stanza starts with the same line, I would usually return to the forum. Not this one.
Keep on the good work!

The poem seems tight and as if it was rushed through. Try reading it alloud(so spelled that wrong...) it always sounds better hearing instead of reading it, but either way it was a very nice poem.



This was my favorite

To the man whose words were once known to be

sharper than a double-edged sword,

whose lips now sealed from years of waiting,

his vocals never to strike a chord

Okay... Let me think.... I liked the poem the words were good and your letareture is really good. But I didn't get what was the poem about. Can you PM me and explain? or reply?

Hi lordgluzman!

I don't really know why I wrote this poem. When I wrote it, I wasn't actually thinking about it at all; I just kind of let the words come to me on their own.
But that doesn't help, huh?
Hmm... *thinks*
I guess this could be about a loved one, like a father or granfather, who lost his family and how that's changed his outlook on life.
But that's just my interpretation. I'll let the readers come up with their own


*anti-pop

Hello! You asked me to critique this, and finals are over, so to celebrate, I'm totally looking over your poem. And that was totally not a run-on sentence.

To critique this, I'm not going to get totally nit-picky on you. That is, I could totally say, "Oh, that word doesn't fit!" for the entire critique, but that's really not the point of poetry, is it? The point of poetry is be a snapshot of life. Your goal is to make this a proper snapshot of life that rings true with your reader. And this is what you want to do.

So note that there ARE instances where your poem fumbles and doesn't quite sound right. It'll look right when you read it on the computer screen, but when you actually try to vocalize it, it'll stumble out and sound awkward and terrible. Normally, I'd do a video critique to show you it, but I lost my voice, so woe! But read it out loud to yourself and see what sounds funny. ^^

OK! Now on to the real critique!

To the man who looks in the mirror
and only sees his face,
Staring blankly back upon himself,
then leaves without a trace

First of all, I like how you dedicate this to the common man, in a way. That's cool because there are so many dedications to the exotic and such that many times, the common man gets ignored. So this gets points for the introduction, definitely. When we read this, we wonder, "Who is this man who looks at himself in the mirror?" And this brings to mind a couple of images. Mirrors are usually used as self-reflection, and that can definitely bring forth a number of interesting images that you could use as a basis for the poem. First of all, by having a man, a common man, look at a mirror, it indicates that he has a level of understanding of himself. And the fact that you're seemingly dedicating this to the man that is capable of self-reflection, this seems like this is a good thing. That's why the next lines baffle me. When you say, "and only sees his face" this invokes the image of Narcissus staring at the pool of water. Except then this man stares at himself blankly and then leaves. Let's ignore the cliched image of "without a trace" (it really adds nothing, by the way), and focus on the enormity of what you're saying. You're dedicating this to a purposeless man who, though he has the ability of self-reflection, can't or will not do this.

THIS IS BIG.

So when we see this, it's a slightly stunning image. Why does is the poet dedicating this poem to such a loser? is the first thing I wonder. That's what I want, nay, need to know. So what do you tell us afterwards?

To the man who forgets who he once was,
who forgets the battles fought,
He purposely deceives himself into thinking
all those battles were for naught

To the man who once felt happiness
and saw beauty in this life,
now he sees only the vile, filthy truth,
all the sadness and the strife

To the man whose words were once known to be
sharper than a double-edged sword,
whose lips now sealed from years of waiting,
his vocals never to strike a chord

So, basically you're just repeating yourself over and over again, except in a less poetic way with less poetic imagery. And a lot of those lines are really awkward besides. (Once again, read it out loud!) And that's probably not a good thing. I know that what you're doing is you're emphasizing that this is to a purposeless man who has been driven down to defeat and submission. Pink Floyd's song, "Dogs," is actually the one that comes to me now:

Deaf, dumb, and blind, you just keep on pretending
That everyone's expendable and no-one has a real friend.
And it seems to you the thing to do would be to isolate the winner
And everything's done under the sun,
And you believe at heart, everyone's a killer.

...it sounds a lot better in the music, trust me. ^^

The emphasis and repetition, of course, can be a really good thing at times, especially when the images associated with it are completely vivid and real. Your use of the mirror was awesome, but the rest of your descriptions involved a much more abstract things, which isn't as poetically powerful. So definitely pull out the solid verbs and nouns. You'll like yourself better for it. ^^

And then! Your grand finale. Let's go over that a little. Since this is seemingly a dedication, I expect a huge, magnificent grand finale that makes all these stanzas AWESOME. For instance, if I dedicate something to my dad, I would say this:

To my Dad, for his continued enthusiasm and unwavering confidence of my writing ability. This is for you.

And then I would give him a short story and poetry collection for Christmas! So I dedicate the collection to him. Simple! And I would make sure the collection would be outstanding for him, just because I want the dedication to stand out that much more.

So what is your finale?

All this for the man who would give up his life,
allowing you his soul to take,
If only just to let you have
Another day awake

...I don't think this is really the most powerful ending you can have.

Give us something to make the build up worth all of this! Maybe you give him advice. Maybe you tell him something lovely. Maybe you tell him something that will make his purposeless life worthwhile again. I don't know. But don't dedicate something to this man and not give him anything in return. That would be rude. ^^

So yeah... that was kind of a rambling critique. I guess this means that I want you to rewrite your poem? XD No! But at least you have an idea of what direction you can take and such. So! Look over my advice and pick out the parts that you like, and go crazy with it. Editing is lovely and you can definitely make this into a lovely piece of poetry with a little tweaking.

As usual, if you have any questions, just PM me.

Hope this helps!