His Smile

His smile,
Still caught in the front of my mind,
Can't move on,
from what never was,
thinking of him,
brings back
a pain to terrifying to describe,
and yet,
the darkness will lift,
at the sight of him,
the pain will subside,
as he says my name,
but then,
as soon as he is gone,
the feelings return,
the pain returns,
and I feel like sinking into a blackness,
and never rising again,
only his smile,
can heal this pain.


--- Please be nice, this is my first poem, and I had to get it out.

It's nice. You need a rhytm though. It has to rhyme. I liked it though, cause it showed your feelings. How about some imagery though? Like his smile brighter than sunlight? You know what I mean?
=]

Hmm, I first would kindly correct JustDance - while many people prefer rhyming poetry, it is not a "rule" that poetry must rhyme. If free verse is your thing, go for it!

First, meaning. What do you want this poem to say? We understand that the speaker of this poem is hung up on this guy, is really in pain without him, just wants to see his smile again. But...we want to know why. Readers take very few things for granted; we want to know why there is pain in the first place, why this person could take away the pain, and most of all we want to know why it's significant. What should we walk away with? What should it make us think about--relationships, emotions?

Second, melodrama. Things become melodramatic when 1) the emotions outweigh the events for no apparent reason and 2) the emotions are told, not shown.
1. It's a little hard to understand why such apparent emotional pain could be caused just by not-seeing someone. That's not to say such an emotion could never be justified, but, tying into meaning, why on earth is the speaker "sinking into a blackness" just because the young man in question is not present? We need to understand the scope of the event to understand the scope of the emotion. It's like saying "Mary cried for days when her pie came out poorly." We might say, "Well, that's odd, why would you get so upset over a pie? Well, maybe if we understood that Mary was baking that pie for a big pie competition that she'd hoped to win her whole life, we could understand why she was in tears.
2. What I just said ties into this. Part of showing emotion is showing the cause for it; another is describing it rather than just saying, "sadness," "happiness," or "pain." These are such vague words and, as a result, hold little meaning. Rather than having your speaker say "pain" three times in one poem, spice it up! (Don't get too wordy, of course, but think of an interesting way to describe how your speaker is feeling; draw from your own experience.)

Third, imagery. JustDance mentioned this, and rightly so. Dwelling entirely on emotions can make for a rather uninteresting poem for your reader, for the reasons stated above. We need a foundation to build on; we need something to hold on to while we think about the deep stuff. Give us a place or maybe an image to describe the way the protagonist feels.

Best of luck with your future endeavors!
-Colleen

hi there i know that this is your first poem and that

you dont want to be criticize,but i really think that

there is no chronological order in your poem

which cause confusion to the readers


don't worry girl my first poem had been criticize

by some of the member's here it almost made

me cry it seems that they said those words just to hurt you

or just to put you down

but afterward you will realize that they just

say those comments for your own sake..

they want you to know where you make mistakes

and i think it's thier own way of motivating us to do better next time

keep writing those poems.... someday we can be great poets


cheer up......

wow, this is really sweet. I really enjoyed it.
Thank you for sharing it.
Well I think that your biggest problem is that there were wayyy too many coma's where there should have been periods. Yea, and I totally suck at grammer, but that much I do know...that there should be more periods. Lol. Well, anywho heres what i think needs 2 be changed....


His smile,

Still caught in the front of my mind, (PERIOD)

Can't move on,

from what never was, (PERIOD)

thinking of him,

brings back
(UMM, I THINK THAT U SHOULD MAYBE PUT THIS LINE UP BESIDE THE LAST ONE, WITH NO COMMA BETWEEN IT. IT SORT OF TRIPPED THE FLOW READING THAT, FOR ME.)

a pain to terrifying to describe, (maybe instead of the word "describe" u could say, "A pain to terrifying to face." But if you don't like the way that interprets, then forget what I say. This is YOUR poem, you should be happy with it.)
and yet,

the darkness will lift,

at the sight of him, (again, bring this line up to last one, w/ no comma)

the pain will subside,

as he says my name, (PERIOD)

but then,

as soon as he is gone, (the, "But then" sort of throws of the flow, try wording it, "But as soon as he is gone." Just a thought, there.)

the feelings return, (this is repetative u say, "return" twice. try mixing the two sentances, "The feelings return; as well as the pain." or "The feelings of pain return. something like that.)

the pain returns, (PERIOD)

and I feel like sinking into a blackness, (You said "And twice in a row. Try starting the first line, "I feel like sinking into a blackness and never rising again." Although you might want to find a more poetic sounding word for blackness u can find words that mean the same thing on something like theasarus.com or however the heck u spell that word. LOL.)

and never rising again, (PERIOD)

only his smile,

can heal this pain.


GOOD JOB! I liked it. It was really sweet. It's good, but I think that it needs some polishing. Don't worry about it though, most writings do. I know mine always certainly do. Well thats all the things i can think of, hope this was helpfull.

dont worry im not gonna b mean

i think the whole point of this site is not to cruely critizize but to help one another since we all share the same passion in writing!!

now, on to the poem.

really i dont like to tell others how to write and stuff b/c maybe the author was trying to protray something in the style of his/her writing. but, like many said, yours needs a little bit of organizing.

it slighly messy poems dont bother me as much as some people, but im sure you want to appeal to all readers so i suggest some tidying up and organization of ideas.

your pain you are mentioning in this poem is sort of throwing me off...im not sure what happend but maybe you should either describe the situation or how/why his smile makes it all better.

maybe you want to keep some mystery to it (a similar thing happend to me with my 1st poem 'A secret place', every1 wanted more description of the place and i wanted it to b a mystery partially b/c i had no clue what it looks like and b/c i wanted the readers to use thier imagination!) but after past experiences i realized leaving too much out of the story makes it harder to understand. that could be one of your problemos!

hopefully this helped and you can use the suggestions on your next piece or modify this one!!

p.s. : its true your poems DO NOT always have to rhyme. although rhyming poetry is very common to us and i am personally a fan of it, its not a rule. just make sure your pieces have a nice rhythm and flow, then your good to go! (see i told you i was a fan!! )

Who is this guy? I want to meet this fellow. Wish I had someone to make me feel that way. One thing though this guy also sounds as if you need him to survive. You should let him leave so you can find yourself.

WOW YOU MAKE ME WISH MY SMILE WOULD BE THE SMILE THAT CHEERED YOU UP NICE POEM