Choke

Just a poem I made up whilst in English. The lack of punctuation in places is deliberate and I hope you enjoy it
I know it is slightly long but it reads quite quickly.
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Sweat
on our brows
Sweat
from the fear
of what is to come.
Sweat
from the labour
that we are forced to do.
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Fear
of every gun shot
Fear
for our children
and for our families.
Fear
that we will not make tomorrow
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Uncertainty
as we are told to undress
Uncertainty
as we are pushed in a room
and alone we are left.
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Hope
that we are about to be clean
Hope
when we see taps on the ceiling
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Panic
as they shut and bolt the door
Panic
as a hiss fills the room
Panic
will we soon meet our doom?
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No water comes from the taps
but the hiss carries on…
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Realisation
of what is happening
Realisation
as strangers around us fall
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Desperation
as we clamber over the bodies
Desperation
as we try to escape the fumes
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The vapours close in,
the chokehold strangles, chokes.
A hand reaches out toward the ceiling
hoping for a pocket of air.
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Peace
as our final breath grows old.

Very nice, I like it. Powerful, Emotional, I could feel 'choking' at the end. The holocaust is always a hard topic to write about, it's hard to capture something so powerful. Good job, keep on.

Jenni321 said it all already lol. But you spelled realization wrong. You spelled it r-e-a-l-i-s-a-t-i-o-n

Layla wrote:Jenni321 said it all already lol. But you spelled realization wrong. You spelled it r-e-a-l-i-s-a-t-i-o-n

Keep in mind, Layla, that different countries have different spellings. That's the British spelling.

As for the poem itself, I think the main problem with "Choke" is that although it's about a powerful and emotional event, it doesn't make me feel anything. You use the words of the emotions and expect the reader to feel them and think about them because you present them with an abstract and open idea, but it would be more effective to use words to evoke those emotions. The words themselves don't do that.

For example, for panic, you can use words like 'trapped', 'bubbling', 'flickering', 'wide-eyed', or describe rats, running in circles, time running out -- whatever makes you panic, or whatever made the subjects of this poem panic, but describe it in a tangible way. You can do that by using comparisons to other situations. So, they're panicking about how they're going to soon meet their doom. So, are they panicking like a man who sees the needle glide under his skin, knowing that it's not empty? Something like that? Most people are afraid of needles, and discussing that will give them that genuine emotion. I don't feel anything if you just say "panic" at me.

Let me know if you have questions, okay? ^_^

-Hannah-

Thank you for all of your comments, I will keep them in mind and edit it this but I will post it as a different topic so that this one is still there.

Wow, this is arealy emotional poem! It is very good for a first draft especialy when you did it at school. It covers a dark subject but you have given it the respect it deserves. I hope that in your redraft you add some similes or metaphors- they realy add to a poem. Also I realy like your use of personification. I shall look forward to reading more of your poems, they are very good.

Hi Lydia1995,

None of this makes any sense, and the reader is left wondering whether you actually used your mind to write this poem or whether you wrote down vague "feelings" and "emotions" and then tied them together using a sad background just to squeeze a few tears out of the audience. It doesn't connect the reader to... anything. There's no emotion. There's emptiness, a feeling of apathy. Is this really what you wanted to convey?

The format gets old fast. Sweat, Fear, Uncertainty, Hope, Panic, Realization, Desperation, Peace. So what? All you've told us is that these inmates have these feelings. We already know that. A monkey could discern that. What you need to do is actually drive home these points by making some kind of comparison that strikes the reader's comfort spot and takes him out of it. How can you make this distant situation relate to something close to your audience? There are a million different ways, and you've used none of them. Think about it and apply it.

In addition,

Hope
that we are about to be clean
Hope
when we see taps on the ceiling

They feel hope at taking a shower? I doubt that hygiene would be so important to the inmates of this camp as to be designated its own feeling. There are more critical issues to worry about.

Panic
as they shut and bolt the door
Panic
as a hiss fills the room
Panic
will we soon meet our doom?

No water comes from the taps
but the hiss carries on…

This didn't even happen. The gas that was thrown in was not transferred through the pipes but was thrown in, via canisters, by a soldier from the outside Get your facts straight.

Hope that helped,
Galerius

Lady, maid my day!

Thank you all for your comments

ThePowerOutrage thank you for your comments, I will try to include some more metaphors and similes in the next draft

Galerius thank you for your criticism, I will look more into developing this poem in further drafts. I'm sorry that I got that wrong, we were discussing it in English and that was the way my teacher described it to us. I also think that there was hope and relief because they thought that a shower was all that was going to happen to them, thats where I was coming from with that. I appreciate your comments and I will try to work on conveying more emotion.

Rulani I'm glad you enjoyed it

~The Holocaust is a very tough subjet to write about, but you definently did it justice! The last line is a great finish! Good Job. I love it!

Thank You Storm