In the Shadows

My attempt at poetry once more. I hope it's alright xD

I’m the person in the shadows
the one that no one knows.
Hidden by the darkness
dressed in simple peasant clothes.

You may not know of me
but I do know of you.
I move around discreetly
leaving not a single clue.

Shrouded by the shadows
I take away the light.
I incinerate your being
yet you don't put up a fight.

Tears cloud your eyes
from my true reflection.
But this is my duty,
my life of deception.

Killing is fairly easy
when I can turn your face pale white.
I am the misfortune fate forced upon you,
The creature of the night.

The words you may have called me
have been used many times before.
This meager task is simple
but it is still my evil chore.

You all come to love life
and the lives of many others.
But the ending is the same
for you and for your brothers.

My life, to be honest
was made only to end yours.
Rather than to open,
I close all of your doors.

I am the dreaded monster
who feeds on human breath.
I am your destiny,
I am your fated death.

I really wrote this in 50 seconds, so sorry. I hope it's alright xD

Of course it is alright.

Anyway! June here! You get my 100th review this month! Yay!

I’m the kid in the shadows
The one no one knows.
Hidden by the darkness
Dressed in peasant clothes.

The first time you showed this to me, I enjoyed it immensely. I love the whole "kid in the shadows" thing. It's been used plenty of times before, but I enjoy it each time it's used because there are so many ways it can be used.

In the second line, I think it would be fitting to stick "that" somewhere in there. The close repeptition of "one" is a little confusing, so, if you change it to "The one that no one knows," it flows a little easier.

Also! Punctuation!

You know the drill, dear! Comma, semicolon, comma, period!

You may not know me,
But I know of you.

Many times,
Our eyes have met;
Simple moments,
I can’t forget.

I usually don't pick a "favorite" part in a poem, but this is most likely my favorite part. I added punctuation in boldedness

Tears clouded your eyes
From my true reflection.
But this is my duty
my life of deception.

Shina! You have a constant pattern of first line-letter capitalization. Take a look at the last line

Shrouded in dimness
I take away the light.
I incinerate your being
Yet you don’t put up a fight.

Somehow, dimness seems to spicy of a word here. I know it's not entirely dark, but still. I accidentally read it as darkness .

Living in this gloom
I become your certain doom. ←
The misfortune fate forced upon you.

I am your destiny.
I am your death.

Okay! How can something become my certain doom? I'm not sure if certain is the right word here.

Also! These two last lines come off rather preachy. They're kind of... flat, but in a strange way I like them, haha. (I know, I can be contradictory, but still) However, I have no suggestions on how to fix them!


*

Anyway! All of those nitpicks were just to bother you, seriously. I could have done without them!

* *

Overall, Shina, I really like this. It's like... a pretty poem. Now, I know poems can't actually be pretty, but still. It's that type of poem where the message doesn't just lie on the surface, yet it's not too hard to decipher. At the same time, it's not a bright poem, but! You're not drearily writing it for us.

I'm not really making much sense, am I?

To speak, great job!

June

Keep it up! And write more poetry!

Hiya angels-symphony!

First of all I'd like to say you've got a great poem here, as June said, it's pretty but dark but you've definitely got a good balance of each going on here.

As for my favourite stanza, it had to be this one:

I’m the person in the shadows
The one no one knows.
Hidden by the darkness
Dressed in simple peasant clothes.

I especially love that last line!

Right on with the nitpicks!

You may not know me
But I know of you.

Personally, I think it would sound better if you just stuck to one of the two phrases used here. So it would be "You may not know me, But I know you" OR "You may not know of me, But I know of you." The repetition will add a more dramatic effect.

Shrouded in dimness
I take away the light.
I incinerate your being
Yet you don’t put up a fight.

Something about the last line in that stanza sounded a little odd, perhaps you may have too many syllables in it? Maybe try rephrasing it to something along the lines of this: "Yet you put up no fight"? I'm not sure

I think June's summed up everything else!

Keep up the good poetry and PM me if you have any queries!

Happy-go-lucky

Hi angels!

I really have no knowledge of how to nit-pick poems, but I can say this: I thought it was brilliant!
It was more than "all right", no matter how much time it took to write! Haha. That rhymes in an odd way, just saying.

Hey there Shina!

I really liked this and it looks like all the nitpicks have been done, but really I don't see anything wrong with this. Usually, when I review a poem I have to go on about how the person who wrote it is letting rhyme eat up the meaning of the poem, when here, this was executed wonderfully and I was thinking about writing this fantasy romance type story with angels and demons and stuff and this really sounds like one of the characters, Hunter, so this really made me smile.

Favorite stanzas:

You all come to love life
and the many lives of others.
But the ending is the same
for you and for the others.

My life, to be honest
was made only to end yours.
Rather than open,
I close all of your doors.

I am the dreaded monster
who feeds on human breath.
I am your destiny,
I am your fated death.

Having read a few of your poems, I must say that you are a good poet.

*Clicks gold star*

And if you write anymore poems, please, feel free to give me a heads up ^_^

~Angel

Angel of Death wrote:Hey there Shina!

I really liked this and it looks like all the nitpicks have been done, but really I don't see anything wrong with this. Usually, when I review a poem I have to go on about how the person who wrote it is letting rhyme eat up the meaning of the poem, when here, this was executed wonderfully and I was thinking about writing this fantasy romance type story with angels and demons and stuff and this really sounds like one of the characters, Hunter, so this really made me smile.

I thought you would like it, Angel ^^ When I was writing this poem your username came up xD So I decided I would show it to you. Also thank you for the comment on the rhyme scheme and about your favorite stanzas xD It's weird. in this poem the rhymes just came rather than forced itself. It took a lot of fixing, but I think I've almost got it down.

Thank you for the reviews everyone! And June! Hooray for your 100th review. I just want you to read the new editions to the poem! Thanks Rosey for the tip on the consistency. I fixed it

Hi there!
Most things here have already been picked up on, so I'll just let you know I thought this was really good. You have nice flow in writing, but the third stanza doesn't really seem to fit in that well compared to the rest. Apart from that, I really enjoyed this Well done.

Happy Writing!

-Moo

I like your poem a lot and I think you should continue writing poems.
Choosing a favorite part in your poem is not easy because every part is good
I guess mine is

My life, to be honest
was made only to end yours.
Rather than open,
I close all of your doors.

I have a problem with this verse

Shrouded by the shadows
I take away the light.
I incinerate your being.
Yet you don't put up a fight?

This verse contradicts the simplicity of your poem
I can't really seem to get your point.

I've already given your poem a gold star and I will love
to read more from you.

I really enjoyed this poem. I usually don't like rhyming poetry, I find it takes away from the poem, but in this case I found it soo fluid and think it worked well. The imagery was really good, and made me think about what the author was trying to say.

angels-symphony wrote:


Tears clouded your eyes
from my true reflection.
But this is my duty
my life of deception.

I found that to be an amazing verse!

Mad_Moo 25524 wrote:Hi there!
Most things here have already been picked up on, so I'll just let you know I thought this was really good. You have nice flow in writing, but the third stanza doesn't really seem to fit in that well compared to the rest. Apart from that, I really enjoyed this Well done.

Happy Writing!

-Moo

Thanks for all the help guys! Revising this poem has been a lot easier with all of your help. Thanks Mad Moo for the tip about the 3rd stanza. You were right! It was too short to fit in and a little unecessary. But I fixed it and I think I'm good now. but I said that last time which was like 3 edits ago xD Also thank you guys for pointing out your favorite parts.

To me, it's still as good as the first time I read it. Really, I only ever nitpick on a poem when it needs it and this does not need anymore revision, it's good the way it is now. Sorry, if I wasn't of much help but I really really really like this poem, Shina.

Keep writing,

~Angel

Hi Shina! Summer here!

Shrouded by the shadows

I take away the light.

I incinerate your being.

Yet you don't put up a fight.

• Comma belongs after Yet in the last line!

Killing is fairly easy

when I can turn your face pale white.

I am the misfortune fate has forced upon you,

The creature of the night.

• Does the third line sound wordy to you? Can you sustain the same meaning if you drop "upon you"?

You all come to love life

and the many lives of others.

But the ending is the same

for you and for the others.

• Ask yourself if the repetition of "others" will bother your audience .

My life, to be honest

was made only to end yours.

Rather than • open,

I close all of your doors.

• See where I stuck that bullet point? I think the flow would be a bit easier if you stuck "to" there, dear.


* *

Okay! So! I really like what you changed here. You've made the poem longer, and more substantial, but! You still lacked punctuation! I think that this poem really needs it, dear, so that we know when to pause and when not to.

It's like, singing a song when you just have the lyrics and no rhythm. The singer isn't going to quite get it the way the author wanted it, right?

Well done, though! I really like it. Keep it up!

Shina!

I am here! No doubt about that, of course. However, I am on a time crunch. I'm not sure how much I'll say before I have to bust out of here for school. But I read the poem, and I want to make my comments before I forget. xD

Grammar

Not much grammar as punctuation. There are commas and such you can play around with. Remember that commas are not used just for pauses. They are usually there for a reason. Such as the comma after yet comment -- I would disagree 'cause grammatically, that's incorrect. It would go before it if there was more sentence to it. xD So I would rid myself of that comma.

And poems aren't always capitalized in every line. However, with sing-song poems like you have here, it didn't bother me one bit.

Structure

I notice you start off as a lonely and creepy child in the shadows. Well, not necessarily a child, but a peasant. And then we jump to a monster. I think this works fine. It's sort of a surprise! because the beginning could go with either a lonely child or a monster. It's brilliant story-telling. The reader expects one thing, but something else results. It's pure genius, and you really did nothing wrong in that respect. In my opinion. ^^

Some of your stanzas felt a bit choppy, however. Like... you didn't know what to put there, so you went to Rhyme Zone, found a word that rhymes, and somehow put it in there so you can move on. xD *experience* I'm a musician, and I have an internal metronome. When there's a poem with a rhythm like this here, I can easily catch the glitches. It happens more around the middle verses though. Like:

Tears clouded your eyes
from my true reflection.
But this is my duty
my life of deception.

It sounds forced, and the poem could really do well without it anyway. It doesn't tell us anything new. Unless you can fix this and make it work better, I would just scrap it. There are other verses or points of the poem that are similar, so be sure to look back and ask yourself, "Do I really need this? Does this make sense? Does this sound natural or forced?"

My life, to be honest
was made only to end yours.
Rather than to open,
I close all of your doors.

Another example of a stanza I didn't like 'cause it didn't smooth in with the rest of the poem. If you wrote this as a simple paragraph instead of with line breaks, it should still make sense. Keep that in mind when going back to check these clunky spots. ^^

Subject

Again, I like the monster thing. However, I have one thing to suggest: Don't go overboard.

You start off with this creepy scene with the poor peasant kid/person. It gives the poem an eerie atmosphere, and it makes the reader think. But when you get to things like "I like to kill you when your face turns white," the reader goes, "...huh?" It kind of jumps out of no where and doesn't make total sense -- some but not complete.

Overall

I think this is an awesome beginning to an awesome poem! Really, I like the idea. All we have to do is perfect the details. If you have any questions, feel free to PM me. ^_^

Keep writing!

Jabber, the One and Only!

Shina
Kirsten here, to do the first of your eight prize reviews, lol. Anyway, seeing as this is meant to be long, indepth and actually good we better get started. (I'm talking about the review btw, not your poem. xD)

My attempt at poetry once more. I hope it's alright xD

No sorry, it's not all right, it's great!



"I’m the person in the shadows" I like this as an opening line, it doesn't astound me or anything, but it drags me in. That said, to some people it may astound them, the reason I say it doesn't astound me is that I'm not particularly interested in the person in the shadows yet evidently this will improve as the poem goes on. As an opening line though, I like it.

"the one that no one knows." O.k. I'm going to be extremely picky and annoying. The only thing I don't like about this line is the repetition of 'one', this line evidently carries meaning and importance to the poem, so we need to make sure it does so. Content wise it does, you just need to improve the word choice a bit. That said, it is a bit hard to fix, synonyms for no-one? They're a little... lacklustre, the unknown one? Lol, it doesn't have the same ring, so just leave it. Yeah... I'm probably going on about nothing.

"Hidden by the darkness" I'm thinking maybe the language here is a little too simple? Perhaps the word choice could be a bit more formal? Hidden by the darkness... it conjures up beautiful images in my mind, I just think that perhaps it deserves better diction in this particular line.

"dressed in simple peasant clothes." Who decides what simple peasent clothes are? Ha, I'm very biased when it comes to expressions like these, I hate stereotypes, especially in writing. Peasents probably don't all wear the same, they are all under different circumstances, whether slightly different or completely, therefore they would probably just wear what they could find. If they live in different places they will be finding different clothes, if that makes sense. I'm going off in a tangent, aren't I? Poetry wise I think it's fine to be left though.



"You may not know of me

but I do know of you." I would nix the do. It reads better without it (and flows better too) You may not know of me but I know of you Yes, I definitely think it reads better. Haha I like these lines, they kind of creep me out a bit, but I like them.

"I move around discreetly

leaving not a single clue." I like the rhyme, quite subtle. It's not too obvious and doesn't seem like you've been sitting around for hours trying to come up with words that sound the exact same down to the very last syllable or like something you've been straining over. A natural rhyme.



"Shrouded by the shadows" I love the imagery here, I can see this scene vividly.

"I take away the light.

I incinerate your being.

Yet, you don't put up a fight." This is one of the first parts that I began to question this poem's meaning. At this point I realised that it has a deeper meaning than what is apparent on the surface, and I adore poems with meaning. At first I imagined this stanza to signify a story like Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier. In case you've not read it, it's about a young bride who marries an older man, his perfect wife has just died and basically everyone hates her because she's not like Rebecca *his dead bride* (who turns out to be quite different from their original assumptions)
It reminds me of a family member, or for that matter anyone, being eclipsed by someone presumed 'better' than them. Yet... yet I think there's something I'm missing here, not sure what but there's something. xD


"Tears clouded your eyes

from my true reflection." Really wonderful line, I absolutely adore it.

"But this is my duty I'd put a comma here.

my life of deception.



Killing is fairly easy

when I can turn your face pale white.

I am the misfortune fate forced upon you,

The creature of the night." Seriously Shina, your rhyming scheme is great I love it.



"The words you may have called me

are words used many times before.

This meager task is simple

but it is still my evil chore.



You all come to love life

and the lives of many others.

But the ending is the same

for you and for your brothers.



My life, to be honest

was made only to end yours.

Rather than to open,

I close all of your doors.



I am the dreaded monster

who feeds on human breath.

I am your destiny,

I am your fated death." I like the ending too.

The poem
O.k. I really liked it, The poem started off with a child? Yes I think it is a child, as the poem develops so too does the child. We see the child become a monster, a killer. Almost like a life story rather than a short poem. Right, this is kind of hard to explain but I will try:-

The person starts off as a child, fairly young and possibly naive. They then go on to become a monster, as it stands, that's it. If we were put in that situation would not we have feelings? I think that's the way to improve this poem, make it more feeling centred.

We, as humans, aren't going to be able to suddenly become evil without any regrets, any thoughts? That's probably the biggest problem I have with this poem, I can't empathise because the character doesn't seem real. Doesn't she have any regrets or remorse over what she's done? Does not she fear for being found out, or for having to kill more?

You need to let us more into her mind, then we'll understand better and we'll empathise.

my opinion
I love the poem. You used wonderful imagery and descriptions, your character certainly intrigued me, I just want to understand why she does what she does, does that make sense? I think I've got too many doeses, okay, I've confused myself now
The rhyming scheme is great, it seems so natural and easy, very well done, I don't think I'd be able to do it

Anyway;
well done
I loved it, and if you do decide to pursue any changes, tell me so I can come back and re review
Feel free to leave it as it is too, because it's currently very good, just work on it a little bit. You are also free to disagree with me, chances are I'm wrong, or you don't agree with me. It's up to you.
x