Christmas Day 1914

Just a quick poem I decided to write. I decided to do this because we are studying war poetry in English so I decided to take a shot at it. I am not good with poetry but it’s a try. Dragon Market and Shadow Flight will be up soon my life has become very complicated recently.Strangely the spaces haven’t come through so I will mark them out with a /.
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1914 Christmas Day (If I am correct)
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Christmas day
No time to make the others pay
Only time to play
/
Get out of the hole
Kick the ball at the goal
Don’t hide like a mole
/
It’s fun
No time to make life done
Come have some fun
/
Forget the bombs
Think of the Toms
/
Forget to bury
Remember the Jerry
/
Christmas day
No time to make the others pay
Only time to play
On Christmas Day
/
For any of you who don’t know this is about this event I will explain. It is the day when the English and Germans stopped fighting and had a game of football in WW1. I don’t expect this to be good but hope you enjoy.
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R.I.P all those who died in the wars past and present we will never forget you.

Very interesting subject for the poem, I was interested to see how you dealt with it.

I like the simplistic style of the rhyme but maybe you could include more of a complexity in the phrases and words. In my opinion "Kick the ball at the goal/ Don’t hide like a mole" is a overly simplistic rhyme, which can in some cases work but here I felt, "mole" was in place because you couldn't think of anything which could be substitute. But maybe I'm wrong!

It would definitely add another dimension to the poem if you delved more into the actually topic, you keep very much on the surface. It would be good to hear more about the feelings of these men and what they have, are going through. It would really add to the poem if there was more emotion. This was a monumentous occasion and I particularly get a sense of that. Also, some description of the place would be good to simply make the poem it easier to imagine, especially as the action is so literal.

Forget the bombs
Think of the Toms

Forget to bury
Remember the Jerry

I didn't quite understand these lines; in my understanding, for the game they forgot about the labels "Toms and "Jerries" instead of "thinking" and "remembering" them. Or maybe I misundersood stood how these lines were supposed to read.

I hope I helped, there is so much you could include in this poem, I really think it has potential!

I loved your poem!
It was very interesting. I knew what the subject was originally, so it made me smile.
I particulary liked your reference to 'Toms' and 'Jerry'.

It was really interesting and educational at the same time.
Only thing I found odd, was the use of forward slashes to separate the stanzas. Just leave a bit of space!
It looks neater too!

Thankyou very much for the read,
Woozey

Woozey the Writer wrote:Only thing I found odd, was the use of forward slashes to separate the stanzas. Just leave a bit of space!
It looks neater too!

Strangely the spaces haven’t come through so I will mark them out with a /.

I dont know why but they didn't.

That was interesting. Kick the ball at the goal, I smiled at that part That was, to me, a very important part in England History.... But that's just me.

Good one, You obviously are enthusiastic, (sorry for bad spelling)
Keep writing.

What's the jerrys?

Hi.
That was different, I'll grant you that.

Keep up the writing.
Ben

Hey! Well, this wasn't very well written, but the message you put across was nice. The 3rd section of lines? Well, you used fun twice. Your meter was actually kinda off the whole poem. Work on this! get some better rhyming words, fix your meter, and this could be very good.

--Dreamy

Hey! I see you wrote this a while ago, but I hope you'll still find my comments useful.

I love the idea for the poem! The First World War has always intrigued me, on so many levels - and this is certainly one such an example. It's such a wonderful story against such a horrifying war.

However, I think you could have captured it better - the repetition of the last/first stanza didn't have the effect it should have had simply because the rhyming seemed so forced. I'm not partial to rhyming poetry, but I do love internal rhyme. We really need it to flow naturally because the theme of the poem is so human and so natural, meanwhile it feels that some lines only exist in throwaway forms - "No time to make the others pay" (but why? pay for what?) - and those that really don't say anything much - "Don’t hide like a mole". Inevitably, I think you'd benefit more from some free-verse poetry.

Think about the characters, too. I don't understand who is speaking and who is listening. There's not much element of persuasion going on - let's pretend it's an ordinary private trying to convince the lieutenant to stop fighting. Why would he do that? Why would the listener want to agree - surely, friends have died and a game of football seems out of the question.

There's instinct, and there's practicality. Don't get too worked up on one over the other. Be sure to create real life characters, even in poetry - and that's difficult, but by no means impossible.

I hope I've helped! PM me with any questions.

-Blink

Hello!

It thought that this was a very interesting subject to write a poem with. Hmmm. I think that the rhyme here...

Kick the ball at the goal
Don't hide like a mole

...seemed a little forced. You don't have to rhyme this line, you can change it to something more relevant if you don't.

I think this is very good though so well done. Very original
Nice Job
Keep Writing
~Lydia