Night Shadow

Night Shadow

My night shadow is with me always by my side
It is my honor my glory my pride

My night shadow is light
It shines in the day

My night shadow is my protector
It steers me from wrong

My night shadow is not dark
But all things right

My night shadow is connected to me
Its my soul and my heart

This is my first poem that I am submitting and I hope you all like it.

It was a bit repetitive. I am assuming that a Night Shadow is like your angel but as a shadow. It gets the point across.

First things first, welcome. I think you'll find it enjoyable here.

Okay, now to the poem. I really just could not picture this "night shadow." You do a lot of telling, and simply not enough showing. This can be a major turn-off-er in any writing, but especially poetry. Your ideas are a bit cluttered. Another thing you could try would be making the stanzas longer. The short stanzas, combined with the sweetness of each statement, really does a poor job at developing the atmosphere. And the reiterated "My night shadow..." is a tad bit annoying. Instead of saying what the night shadow is to you, describe it! Be metaphoric, illustrative...do not be afraid to use complex adjectives and adverbs! What does it look like? Remember, in poetry, it's the sound that counts, not the grammar. Some of my favorite poetry would not make any sense at all if it were in any other context. I would also get rid of the rhyming: it is very restraining and does not allow you to experiment with different words.

Here is some specific critique:

My night shadow is with me always by my side
It is my honor my glory my pride

I have a few problems with this. First of all, "by my side" is certainly not the most original phrase, and it sounds a tad bit out of place next to the preceding statement. Secondly, "my honor my glory my pride" just doesn't work for me. Like I said before, utilizing rhyme is very limiting in terms of description. I would put a line break between each of the three ideas.

My night shadow is not dark
But all things right

All things "right?" Sorry, this just not make sense in my mind. Perhaps you meant "light."

My night shadow is connected to me
Its my soul and my heart

"It's," with an apostrophe.

Well, hopefully this was useful. I apologize if I was too critical, and hope you continue writing.

Hi LanaBrown,

Good try for one of your first posts on the site! To be honest, I didn't really understand what this was about, maybe if you added more detail and extended it, you could have something really great going for you! But I feel you're a writer with quite a bit of potential and I can't wait to see your future pieces.

My nit picks - just a few grammatical errors and I've fixed it up in green:

LanaBrown wrote:My night shadow is with me, always by my side
It is my honor, my glory, my pride

With a bit more work, this'll be something! Best wishes for future writing!

RedLeaf