Young Writers Society

HI again. This is a poem I did this year. And as I always say,read, comment, check, review, correct if necessary. I'd really like some help with this poem. (It's quite small)

*****
*****

I am not ambitious, am just hopeful.
Hopeful that one day my wounds would heal.
Hopeful that one day they'll stop bleeding.

I'm not envyous, am just selfish.
Selfish of my recondite memories.
The ones that lie deep within my heart
and come out at night as a far away nightmare
and as a torment in my teneborus day.

I'm not dreaming, am just wishing.
Wishing for love to appear somewhere
beyond the colorless horizon that once reached
my sorrowfull soul.

I'm not detesting,am just seeing.
Seeing how I viciously kill myself
with the sadistic desire of unbounded oblivion.

I'm not crying, am just falling.
Falling into a reckless insanity
that's destorying the last beam of light
that once entered my lurid being.

pudin.junidf wrote:HI again. This is a poem I did this year. And as I always say,read, comment, check, review, correct if necessary. I'd really like some help with this poem. (It's quite small)

*****
*****

I am not ambitious, am just hopeful.
Hopeful that one day my wounds would heal.
Hopeful that one day they'll stop bleeding.

Okay, so I realize that you're trying to avoid the repetition of "I", but you can't use a weak-verb without a noun placement. Weak verbs, in case you didn't know, are verbs that don't describe a tangible action.

Am, is, are, was, were, has, have, had, be, being, been. Those are all weak verbs, and, since the action isn't tangible on it's own, they require a noun. Try re-working the first line to avoid weak verbs, they make for trite reading.

Second point, the theme of "bleeding wounds" and "praying for them to heal" is really, really cliche. I mean, how many teenagers write about their emotional problems nowadays? A lot.

Sorry if I sound nit-picky, but the repetition of "Hopeful that one day" doesn't work because you've got it starting right from the get-go. Should allow for more time before you choke the reader with repetitive verses.

I'm not envyous, am just selfish.
Selfish of my recondite memories.
The ones that lie deep within my heart
and come out at night as a far away nightmare
and as a torment in my teneborus day.

Spell-check, dear, learn how to use it.

*Envious
*tenebrous

Same comment about your use of "am" without a noun.
Also, do you know what some of those words mean? Tenebrous refers to something with a gloomy feel, yes, but I've never heard it used to describe a day. I don't think it quite works like that. It's like referring to a poisoned apple as "macabre" just because it deals with death.

Recondite means hard to understand, I think you were going for more of a "hidden" feel. If you looked that word up in the dictionary, it may say "uneasily seen" but the word actually means "ambiguous" or "difficult to comprehend."

Last idea:
You seem to be lacking in imagery. Any particular reason? Are you just not a fan of it?

I'm not dreaming, am just wishing.
Wishing for love to appear somewhere
beyond the colorless horizon that once reached
my sorrowfull soul.

Spellcheck... again.
*Sorrowful.

Same comment about your use of "am" without a noun.

Okay the whole "I'm without love, I need it to bring color back to my life," theme is beyond cliche. Try and find a more original theme.

Sorrowful soul sounds emo/angsty.

I'm not detesting,am just seeing.
Seeing how I viciously kill myself
with the sadistic desire of unbounded oblivion.

I'm not crying, am just falling.
Falling into a reckless insanity
that's destorying the last beam of light
that once entered my lurid being.

Okay, those last two were extremely cliche.
Suicide/self-hatred/drowning in tears of misery/living without light.
Yeah, that's all been done before.

Plus, you spelt destroying wrong.

This poem may be salvageable, if you were willing to make a complete 360 degrees with it. You need a new, original theme, some decent imagery, spellcheck, and a dictionary to make sure you understand what words you're using.

Not terrible for an amateur work, but not good enough to warrant praise.

Good luck in your future ventures.

pudin.junidf wrote:HI again. This is a poem I did this year. And as I always say,read, comment, check, review, correct if necessary. I'd really like some help with this poem. (It's quite small)

*****
*****

I am not ambitious, am just hopeful. cut the 'am'
Hopeful that one day my wounds would heal. cut the 'hopeful' and the 'would' should be 'will'
Hopeful that one day they'll stop bleeding. Cut the 'hopeful' and 'that' I'd say 'And one day they'll stop bleeding'

I'm not envyous, am just selfish. 'envyous' is spelled e-n-v-i-o-u-s, and cut the 'am'
Selfish of my recondite memories.
The ones that lie deep within my heart
and come out at night as a far away nightmare 'far away' is just one word, faraway, and I'd rephrase this to be more like 'and come out at night as faraway nightmares'
and as a torment in my teneborus day. cut the 'as' and 'teneborus' is spelled t-e-n-e-b-r-o-u-s

I'm not dreaming, am just wishing. I'd replace the 'am just' with simply and a comma at the end
Wishing for love to appear somewhere cut the 'wishing'
beyond the colorless horizon that once reached
my sorrowfull soul. sorrowful has one l.

I'm not detesting,am just seeing. I'd cut the 'am' and replace it with 'rather,'
Seeing how I viciously kill myself
with the sadistic desire of unbounded oblivion. wow. very poetic!

I'm not crying, am just falling. I'd say 'I'm' instead of 'am'
Falling into a reckless insanity
that's destorying the last beam of light
that once entered my lurid being.

All in all: very sad of course, but powerful nonetheless. I love the way you describe the emotion by saying that you're not _______ the whole 'not' just gives it more of a melancholy air. Well done!
The edits I made (0ther than spelling) are just suggestions. It gets a bit repetitive, try doing something like the things I tried.
I think it's a decent length for a poem. Sad poems, in my opinion, anyways, do better as short pieces, as long ones may become simply depressing or dull. I'm guilty of writing a lot of long, sad drawn out stuff that I really just wrote for the sake of self expression.
Well done! Some of the spelling, well, I'm in the US, I don't know if in Nigeria you spell things a little differently.
Keep up the good work!

The adjectives and the descriptions in this poem were rather lovely, although I'd like to make just a couple of suggestions. : )

May I propose the idea of eliminating the "am"s in the first line of every stanza? I feel as though it makes the sentence sound incomplete and awkward, although I'm not one to talk.

I also think that I might be nice if you omitted the periods, because they make it sound as though the first sentence in each stanza is a statement, a complete sentence, and the next is just a fragment. The omission of the periods would surface the fact that the fragments are intended.

As you've probably already noticed, "envious" and "destroying" are spelled as typos.

I write this with the acknowledgement that you have poetic licence, and may, by all means, completely disregard my comments.

Pretty good! The main problem I found was that you use a lot of unnecesary words that just gunk up your poem instead of making it better. I think that if you changed or deleted a few of these words, the poem would be a lot better.

For example, instead of saying "I am not ______, am just ______," which doesn't seem to flow properly, perhaps you could reformat such lines to read "Not ______, but _______." Also, you could delete the word repetition at the beginnng of each line. I rewrote the poem, along with my suggestions (in bold), below. Feel free to ignore whatever you want.

I am not ambitious, but hopeful
That one day my wounds will heal.
That one day they'll stop bleeding.

Not envious, but selfish
of my recondite memories
[s]The ones [/s]that lie deep within my heart
and [s]come out [/s]emerge at night as a [s]far away [/s]distant nightmare
and as a torment in my teneborus day.

Not dreaming, [s]am just [/s]but wishing.
[s]Wishing [/s]for love to [s]appear somewhere[/s]finally appear
beyond the colorless horizon that once reached
my sorrowfull soul.

Not detesting, [s]am just [/s] but seeing
[s]Seeing [/s]how I viciously kill myself
with the sadistic desire of unbounded oblivion.

Not crying, [s]am just [/s] but falling.
[s]Falling [/s]into a reckless insanity
[s]that's destorying[/s] that destroys the last beam of light
that once entered my lurid being.

Like I said, ignore it all if you want. Anyways, I really liked the poem and can't wait to read more. Keep writing!