sight unseen

the tall buildings and paved roads
are built atop repression.
never once can we imagine
what lies below this world.

ignorant to what's before us,
we look, but we don't see.
we believe that we have everything
unaware that we have nothing.

our advances take us backward
until we make full circle
for it's the blinders that hinder our peripheral vision
until we crash into the cement wall
between the here and there.

he said that we have everything
but that's impossible.
for in all my life, all i will ever know
is that i will never see.

Hello Ina! I'm June, and I'm your critic for now! I'm going to review this.


This "wowed" me. I am completely impressed with your usage of words here. It's simple, yet it flows very well and possesses such a deep meaning. I have two nitpicks! Nothing serious, dear:

1) The word "perfect" in the last line of your first stanza gives us a slight drag. "Perfect" is silently spoken to us in the above words, so if you dropped it, you would still have the same, crisp meaning to it. I think it flows a bit better without it when you read it aloud.

2) In the last stanza, you use the pronoun "I". "I" should always be capitalized, even if the rest of your work is uncapitalized. I know Edgar Alan Poe seldom-- if ever-- capitalized his I's, but it's the proper thing to do.

However, if you leave both of what I just pointed out, it's fine. The grammar and structure of a poem gives the reader a certain impression of the poem, but it's not necessary to be strict on, nonetheless.

I love this poem. I recently did a brief history check on the history of my town, and tried to write a poem about it. This poem is exactly the words I was searching for-- it's beautiful. It speaks to us about those who came before us who wronged and were wronged; perhaps buried beneath where we sit today. I absolutely love this. The lowercase letters, and the shape of the stanzas gave a certain, isolated feel to this poem. I can almost feel that in this, you, the author, was trying to convey a point to the reader, the point being that you do not agree in anyway with those who have wronged in history. That point came across very clear and strong.

Amazingly brilliant job. I love it.

100/10. Gold star for you.

Keep writing! You have a talent!

June

Hiya! Nice work here. Just one thing:

our advances take us backward
until we make full circle
for it's the blinders that hinder our peripheral vision
until we crash into the cement wall
between the here
and the there.

I find this doesn't flow very well. Mostly it's the mix of long and short lines. I'm not exactly sure how to break this up, but I'd look at this stanza again.

Capitalization- Usually you capitalize the first word of each line. Other then that, well done!

Overall- This poem is really, really nice. I love the theme of living in a facade and knowing it.

Keep it up!

Very interesting indeed, I am impressed. I agree with June about your choice of style - I'm not always a fan of lowercase poetry [though lots of people seem to use it] but here it suits your poem perfectly. I don't know whether you intended it, or if you just weren't paying much attention to punctuation, but either way it's a real and surprising strength of this piece.

The poem is very spare. There's no excessive imagery or language, nothing that stands out particularly as beautiful or exceptionally clever from the poem - this isn't a bad thing, entirely the contrary! If the majority of poems are beautifully painted pieces of furniture, for example, this piece would be an old one stripped right back down to the original wood, revealing something unexpected. If you revise, keep it that way - don't be tempted to throw in anything too large and spoil the slightly skeletal effect.

My only fear with this poem is that you get caught up in your system of oppsites too much for the poem to be as effective as it has the potential to be. The "advances/backward", "everything/nothing", "look/don't see" phrases [among others]are very clever, but it IS a device that's been used a lot before - I think it's the only even slightly unoriginal aspect of the poem. It's fine to have it in there, but just be aware that you may want to explore other options of expression to give this more variety?

Anyway, it's not really a major nitpick, I think this is very well done indeed - keep it up, I look forward to seeing more from you!

Hello, I really enjoyed this. It was great, really makes you think.
The first two stanzas flow really well, but I found that when you get to the third one, the rhythm gets kinda messed up, this stanza:

ina wrote:
our advances take us backward
until we make full circle
for it's the blinders that hinder our peripheral vision
until we crash into the cement wall
between the here
and the there.

But then it all flows nicely again. My only other comment would be regarding the last two lines

"for in all my life all i will ever know
is that i will never see."

I think that a comma would help the flow if you put it like this "For in all my life, all I will ever know"

Other than that I like it

springrain2693 wrote:Hello Ina! I'm June, and I'm your critic for now! I'm going to review this.


This "wowed" me. I am completely impressed with your usage of words here. It's simple, yet it flows very well and possesses such a deep meaning. I have two nitpicks! Nothing serious, dear:

1) The word "perfect" in the last line of your first stanza gives us a slight drag. "Perfect" is silently spoken to us in the above words, so if you dropped it, you would still have the same, crisp meaning to it. I think it flows a bit better without it when you read it aloud.

2) In the last stanza, you use the pronoun "I". "I" should always be capitalized, even if the rest of your work is uncapitalized. I know Edgar Alan Poe seldom-- if ever-- capitalized his I's, but it's the proper thing to do.

However, if you leave both of what I just pointed out, it's fine. The grammar and structure of a poem gives the reader a certain impression of the poem, but it's not necessary to be strict on, nonetheless.

I love this poem. I recently did a brief history check on the history of my town, and tried to write a poem about it. This poem is exactly the words I was searching for-- it's beautiful. It speaks to us about those who came before us who wronged and were wronged; perhaps buried beneath where we sit today. I absolutely love this. The lowercase letters, and the shape of the stanzas gave a certain, isolated feel to this poem. I can almost feel that in this, you, the author, was trying to convey a point to the reader, the point being that you do not agree in anyway with those who have wronged in history. That point came across very clear and strong.

Amazingly brilliant job. I love it.

100/10. Gold star for you.

Keep writing! You have a talent!

June

thanks! i agree with your first suggestion very much and i will fix it. (: as far as capitalization goes, i kept it that way because it's just the way it was when i wrote it down quickly in ms word. i had planned on fixing the capitalization later. thank you very much your review!

Rosey Unicorn wrote:Hiya! Nice work here. Just one thing:

our advances take us backward
until we make full circle
for it's the blinders that hinder our peripheral vision
until we crash into the cement wall
between the here
and the there.

I find this doesn't flow very well. Mostly it's the mix of long and short lines. I'm not exactly sure how to break this up, but I'd look at this stanza again.

Capitalization- Usually you capitalize the first word of each line. Other then that, well done!

Overall- This poem is really, really nice. I love the theme of living in a facade and knowing it.

Keep it up!

thank you! that is exactly the theme i was trying to go for, i'm glad it was interpreted that way!

backgroundbob wrote:Very interesting indeed, I am impressed. I agree with June about your choice of style - I'm not always a fan of lowercase poetry [though lots of people seem to use it] but here it suits your poem perfectly. I don't know whether you intended it, or if you just weren't paying much attention to punctuation, but either way it's a real and surprising strength of this piece.

The poem is very spare. There's no excessive imagery or language, nothing that stands out particularly as beautiful or exceptionally clever from the poem - this isn't a bad thing, entirely the contrary! If the majority of poems are beautifully painted pieces of furniture, for example, this piece would be an old one stripped right back down to the original wood, revealing something unexpected. If you revise, keep it that way - don't be tempted to throw in anything too large and spoil the slightly skeletal effect.

My only fear with this poem is that you get caught up in your system of oppsites too much for the poem to be as effective as it has the potential to be. The "advances/backward", "everything/nothing", "look/don't see" phrases [among others]are very clever, but it IS a device that's been used a lot before - I think it's the only even slightly unoriginal aspect of the poem. It's fine to have it in there, but just be aware that you may want to explore other options of expression to give this more variety?

Anyway, it's not really a major nitpick, I think this is very well done indeed - keep it up, I look forward to seeing more from you!

thank you. i do not usually write poetry, though i am trying to broaden my scope of writing, and i shall continue to search for more variety. the opposites theme was mainly inspired by a tale of two cities by charles dickens, which i have just finished reading for class, so i guess it rubbed off on me :F i will try to find something more original to make it sound less... contrived? not sure if that's the word i want. thanks again.

knFrance wrote:Hello, I really enjoyed this. It was great, really makes you think.
The first two stanzas flow really well, but I found that when you get to the third one, the rhythm gets kinda messed up, this stanza:

ina wrote:
our advances take us backward
until we make full circle
for it's the blinders that hinder our peripheral vision
until we crash into the cement wall
between the here
and the there.

But then it all flows nicely again. My only other comment would be regarding the last two lines

"for in all my life all i will ever know
is that i will never see."

I think that a comma would help the flow if you put it like this "For in all my life, all I will ever know"

Other than that I like it

thank you, i will try to fix that stanza up a bit to make it flow better. also, thank you for the comma idea, i will implement that.


thank you everyone for reviewing! (: