The Flames of Hope

bluewaterlily wrote:This is one of my first attempts at poetry. Since I have nothing else to say, here it goes:

Dark clouds hover above my head
They follow where ever I tread
There is no day, only night
Yet the flames of hope are my light
Love this first stanza. It sets the tone and there is wonderful imagery.

Nothing but turmoil and strife
But I have to get on with life
It seems like I'm the only one there
Though a faint flicker of hope still flares
Nice consistency of rhyme.

My faith rattles and shakes
My soul sighs and aches
But through this journey I have learned
That the flames of hope forever burn

Though times are tough, hope is at my side
To forever be my shining guide.


What do you think? Like it? Hate it?

This was very nice. The theme is sweet. There is nothing bad about this poem at all. Great job!~Ballerina

Thanks, Ballerina. Glad you enjoyed my poem so much.

I really liked it. You should try more poetry!

Hey, blue! I was really meaning to comment earlier, I read it a long time ago. I kept saying 'i"ll do it next' and never got to it. xp but, I'm here now!

bluewaterlily wrote:
Dark clouds hover above my head
I feel as though I should be dead
There is no day, only night
Yet the flames of hope are my lightThis is a very good stanza. You can tell the mc's emotion clearly.

Nothing but turmoil and strife
But I have to get on with life
It seems like I'm the only one there
Though a faint flicker of hope still flares Sudden emotion change o.0 Not emotion, but like his feeling about his life. I feel like he just got a lot gloomier or something. But it works. It adds depth, i think.

My faith rattles and shakes
My soul sighs and aches
But through this journey I have learned
That the flames of hope forever burn0.o such an amazing stanza!

Though times are tough, hope is at my side
To forever be my shining guide. I think shining isn't the right word. It doesn't fit. maybe my faithful guide or something.

Overall: This is an amazing piece! You should write more poetry, blue.You have very meaningful stanzas with incredible depth for the poem's length. Keep writing!

~dragon

Thanks, Kyle and Dragon. Glad you enjoyed my poem. I'll try to write more poetry.

I love it. You really can tell that you believe in what you say, and this descirbes so many people I know that don't give up. You should definately keep writing poetry. And that's saying a lot from me considering I'm not a huge fan of poetry.

Thanks, Bats. That really means a lot.

I love your poem! I like that you are very discriptive yet you keep some parts to yourself, leaving it with mystery and wonder. The reader now can let there mind wonder and put there own experiances to it and connect with it more. Keep writing! You have talent!

Thanks, Lily. I'm glad you liked my poem. Thanks for reviewing it, It was real sweet of you.

Hey bluewaterlily, CaptianRandom here.

I loved this poem. i suck at rhyming and in poems it just flowed, which mine never do. It was very good, i can;t really explain it, we should just keep it at VERY WELL DONE, good job, keep up the good work!

-CaptianRandom

-Many crystals with many emotions

It's great! First of all, great rhyming. Secondly, I love the constant use of descriptions and details (for a poem). Thirdly, great flow.

Two nitpicks though.

My faith rattles and shakes
My soul sighs and aches

These two lines are great except that if you faith would rattle and shake, I would assume there was a conflict in the beginning of this poem, which I don't clearly see. That's just my opinion.

But through this journey I have learned
That the flames of hope forever burn

Amazing. I think if you would ended your poem here it would have been better. Plus I don't feel that these lines flow with the two above them.

Good work. Keep this up.

Thanks for the review, Toe.

I do like it but I feel it could be improved. For example, I feel you could have used some similies in this case to help readers identify your hardships and hope.
Brook

I do like it but I feel it could be improved. For example, I feel you could have used some similies in this case to help readers identify your hardships and hope.
Brook

I'm here as requested. I can see that this already has a lot of reviews, so I may be quite repetitive xD

The first thing I'm going to tell you is that since this was a first attempt at poetry, it was actually not that bad. There are a few things I'd like to point out, however. (As there always are. )

Number one being the use of rhymes and the flow of your poem. It wasn't bad in some parts, but there were definitely areas where the flow broke up:

bluewaterlily wrote:Dark clouds hover above my head
They follow where ever I tread

The first line two lines are probably my least favorite here. The flow is automatically broken before it is established. It's the second line, it doesn't have enough syllables. It's a quick fix if you add 'me' before 'where ever.' Although, if you can think of anything better, that would be good, too.
One more thing is that dark clouds hovering over heads is a bit cliché, so watch for that.

bluewaterlily wrote:There is no day, only night
Yet the flames of hope are my light

For the last part of the stanza, it's the exact opposite. The first line is the one that seems too short. Or, maybe the second line is too long. (I like the first line, so we'll go with the latter for now. ) You could easily fix that by omitting the 'my' before 'light' in the second line. Somehow, that pops a bit more to me, anyways. Really, it's up to you on how you fix this, though.

bluewaterlily wrote:Nothing but turmoil and strife
But I have to get on with life

This was one of two things for me: It was a bit on the choppy side, and didn't really have much 'flow' at all. It also sounds a bit too angsty for my likings, but I'll elaborate on that a little later.

Now, I'd just like to talk about the rhyme-scheme in general for a second. It's a cute scheme, but I find that forcing your poem into rhyming will both a) ruin the flow [because you can't use a line that will keep the flow running smoothly unless you can find one that rhymes, which isn't always the case. Especially if you want to keep the rest of the line as it is] and then b) limit your imagery. Basically for the same reasons that they ruin your flow. You have to use certain words, and finding words that don't turn the line into a cliché is often difficult. Now, rhyming definitely isn't wrong, but it's something you have to be careful with and that you definitely don't need.

Now that I'm done with pointing out the flow errors, I'd like to point out a bit of the imagery-typed things.

There seemed to be a mixture of clichés and decent images here. The first one I want to talk about is the

Isha wrote:It also sounds a bit too angsty for my likings, but I'll elaborate on that a little later.

bit.

Now, angst in poems isn't always a terrible thing, BUT... if you're going to be angsty, you need to give us a bit more than a couple lines and dry remarks. You're hurting, the emotion is clear-- but a bit too blunt. You need to work around this, weave some nice images and fresh phrases off of it.

The first line I pointed out, I also pointed out that it was a cliché. (Which I should have done down here, but oh well.) Watch for things that sound too familiar, things that you know have been done before. Or, don't use phrases that you know exist already. What I find helps get around cliché lines is thinking OF a cliché line, and then thinking of synonyms or a way to twist it into something new.

But, as I said earlier, since this is a first for you in poetry, it's pretty decent. (Better than a lot of 'firsts' that I've read over the years. ) It has potential, it just needs a bit of tweaking here and there.

Hope this helped (and I apologize if some of it seems a little ramble-y xD)

xoxo
~Ish