You Could've Stayed With Us

hey guys! Something I wrote just now, and I hope you like it!

Why should you be the one to leave!
Why could it not be me?
Why did you steal away with him?
In the beachhouse by the sea?

Why did you give in to pressure?
Why didn't you stay with us?
Why did you take the dare to jump?
And give in to your lust?

Why did you think you were so brave?
Or that what you did was right?
Why did you take the risk?
On that warm, summer night?

Why didn't you say no to him?
Was it persuation in his speech?
How could you not have seen the rocks?
Right next to the shimmering beach?

And so, my dear, we say goodbye,
And we suffer through much pain,
And with these last departing words,
We will meet again.

~Sarah

It was great. As far as I could tell you even managed to spell everything right( hey, why can't I do that?) It was very...emotional, I think that covers it.

I like the substance of it. Its nice short poem with a lot of emotion condensed into that space. But I think you shouldn't have stopped revising where you did. I think the whole

"And so, my dear, we say goodbye,
Because of the battle you did not win,
And with these alst departing words,
We will meet again."

thing makes it suffer. Its easy to make again roughly rhyme with something that ends in in. Everybody does it, especially when it comes to writing lyrics. But that doesn't mean its a good thing. Try trying to rewrite that verse in a way that works better. Good luck on your writing.

This feels less like a poem than an angry letter broken into lines.

Which isn't necessarily a bad thing. But since you avoid imagery, choosing instead to focus on a plain narration of what happened, I was surprised and frustrated by how confused this left me; about the person this is addressed to, about the speaker, about the man involved. Not every poem needs to be full of metaphors and beautiful things, but if you are, instead, going for more of a straightforward narrative, you need to make what happened fairly clear, and fairly compelling, and while there are nuances hinted at in some of your lines, they're so fleeting as to be completely inadequate for the task of catching the reader's attention.

I think the rhyme scheme really limited you here, to the extent where instead of expanding naturally on what happened and how it happened you just rehashed a few times and then wrapped it up with a general sort of farewell sentiment. I suggest you either give yourself more room within the rhyme-- longer lines, and more stanzas, to allow for a richness and depth of story, or else drop the form for now and perhaps come back to it later when you're happier with the content.

Hey there! I'm finally here.

So, my first overall thought of this is that it seemed a bit 'pushed.' I can understand where you're coming from, but I'm not quite sure if this is the right way to say it.

For one, you never really have a conclusion, or any kind of answer to your fifteen something questions within this poem. I have to admit that htat was the number one dislike that I feel towards this piece. I love it when poems leave me with some sort of hope, or even some sort of conclusion. For this, I feel like it should have a 'to be continued' line at the end. I suppose it's just my crazy perfectionist ways of thinking. Anyways, time for the actual review.

Quotes 'n' Comments

Why should you be the one to leave!

As an opening line, this isn't too appealing. For one, it screams 'teen angst' which is a major clichéd concept when teenagers are writing poetry. It seems as though this poem is about summer or spring-break romance. I get that it is an interesting concept, and don't worry, we've all written on the subject. However when dealing with a topic that is so widely used, you need to make sure that your poem is different from the rest. Right now, I don't see anything that separates this from the rest of them. You should start with your opening sentence. Invite us in. Don't ask us a question, or state an exclamation in this case (even though the exclamation mark really should be a question mark), tell us something. Give us a hint to what has come. Maybe you should try to tell more of a story with this. Say how they met, and how it got to the point that your speaker is asking all of these questions.

And we suffer through much pain,

I have to say that this poem completely confuses me, but lines like these just threw it over the top. Why is it 'we' instead of 'you'? It seems as though your speaker has a lot of hatred or shame towards the other character, so why are they suffering together? In the beginning, it seemed as though these two characters were separated by a guy, however in the end it seems as though they are together again. You skipped the part when they made up. It would strengthen your poem if you included every part in this story.

Punctuation and Structure

So, sorry to be blunt, but I hate the punctuation in this poem. Almost every line ends in a question mark, and most sentences are simply constructed, which means there are no complex sentences. So not only did you have no variety in puctuation, you didn't in your sentence/line structure either. In non-technical terms, this means that every one of your lines sound the same when read. This means that nothing is going to stand out when people read your poem, which is not what you want at all. Try joining some sentences together, and try to find other ways to convey your tone and your point across to readers.

Overall

Overall, this was sweet, and to the point. It really just seems like a novel condensed into one simplistic poem. But, with a few adjustments, this can turn into a beautiful poem. I would really suggest working on your hook, the first few lines that 'grab' your readers in and make them never want to stop reading, your sentence structure, your grammar, and your imagery. That was something I failed to talk about above. At the moment, I can't picture this. I would like some sort of description of the interactions between characters themselves. It's fine as far as setting goes.

Keep writing!

Classy

ps. sorry if there are any grammar/spelling mistakes. I had to do this review in about ten minutes, and I don't have time to go back and edit. PM me with any questions/comments!