Japan

I feel so ashamed of myself right now. x_x The poem I wrote doesn't deserve to be featured. T_T It was very POORLY written and I'm sorry for that. I hurriedly wrote it last night because YWS was having a free literary work day while I still had to work on my homework. That must've been the cause. I seriously am sorry. All that I could do was change the poem because it is featured...I hope this is better now.



Original words (I didn't mean to offend here but that's what happened. I was just trying to write from a neutral perspective.):

I love this poem, it really describes what they must have went through. I saw it on the news, it was really sad. I can't imagine myself there, in that place. I have never been in an earthquake, though, so I don't really know what it feels like with the earth shifting like that. I really liked your poem.

Very Touching! I Love It! I Posted It On Facebook For Everyone Of My Friends To See! Don't Worry I Gave Credit Thanks For That Poem

~Xiahou Zay

I liked it

Whisperer wrote:The machines flourish and the humans decline.
The youth waits for their bodies to resign.
The work is increasing, the people diminishing.
Now, thousands more died, endlessly screaming.

I love this stanza, i don't know what it is about it, espeacially where it says how the machines flourish and the humans decline. It's the truth ain't it, about how machines seem to do everything now. Really good poem!

It's so touching!!! Great work!!! It really makes me imagine what they feel... I like your poem so much, would you mind if I share it in FB??? If you don't want I surely won't do that!!!

EPIC

Only word I could think of that summed it up. Pretty talented whispie, I must say you've out done yourself this time. I mean who other then you would come up with this;

If we’ll Just Always Pray At Night

?

You absolute genius. I hate you

So, let me get this clear. And straight for myself. In response to the Japan crisis, tragedy, unparalleled type of earthquake and tsunami...you use "ice-cream melts", describe the Japanese as "screaming" as they were dying (by the way bodies keep washing up on the shore, thousands more never to be found, thousands more missing...and you compare land to ice cream?), and you go on to lecture about the circle of life? The natural order of things?

Are you trying to be morally superior? Culturally superior? It's not obvious, and seems to follow no direction except your whim. Worst of all, you use karma, as if Japan has this coming? Just what were you thinking when you wrote this?

Worst of all, you push your own self-held view at the end. This is just a badly planned and executed idea all around, posted on the Internet where anyone can see, including a Japanese citizen/someone living in Japan/etc. Nonetheless, I'll look at this for execution and ability, but you have to understand that anything done in memoriam or to tragedy must bend over backwards to avoid preaching. You fell flat on your face and are being praised for something that is reprehensible. Times like these make me question the "like" system here, but whatever.

I cannot be sure with how they felt,
But I know that they’ll always remember
When the land shook like how ice cream melts
And when it got drowned by raging water.

Bad first line. First, why I? Secondly, consider the Japanese. A culture where the individual is not the focus, but rather a bad thing to stand out and expect singular attention (a saying goes "the nail that stands up is quickly hammered down"). So why are you appealing to "Japan" (is that really a title for this? are you lecturing Japan? figuratively using them to preach? That's how you come off; consider what content and impression actually show)?
Now...the second line is eh, but it's a line starting with "But", a conjunction and that's a big risk, and it's only if the line is powerful and the surrounding lines and themes are working together. I don't see that being so. It's obvious the Japanese will remember this, but ice cream melting? Completely inappropriate considering perhaps over 10,000 people are dead. Dead. 10,000 people or more. And you liken land to ice-cream? Also land getting drowned by raging water...that's cliche and boring, and you should have just typed tsunami and suddenly both of those lines aren't necessary. Be more creative and sensible in your approach to the destruction and horror. Especially when seeing how it might appear to someone with strong feelings.

The machines flourish and the humans decline.
The youth waits for their bodies to resign.
The work is increasing, the people diminishing.
Now, thousands more died, endlessly screaming.

...What are you talking about? This is what I meant above. You've trivializing this. Japan? What does the title, context, and content have to do with this stanza? An attempt to moralize decaying society? Are you trying to talk about socioeconomic conditions in Japan and the work load? Well gee, I don't think the thousands if not millions of afflicted really care right now. Being the worst crisis for Japan since WWII.

Your execution is no better. Machines flourish? So? Humans declining? That's base, boring description, and imagery which seems erratic. The second line doesn't fit in at all, and could be applicable to any country, any time...so where are you going? I'm wondering if you're using this to make a social comment on Japan, or really society as a whole.

And the final line, simply shows to me I'm right, and you're not focusing on the earthquake/tsunami front and center. Disappointing and very rude in my opinion. You need to figure out what the focus and take is in this poem for you. What do you want to say? Why are you writing to Japan? They're aware of what's happened. Now you're lecturing on their work ethic, which they take pride in (your opinion frankly has no place here) and are raised into from childhood. Children in Japan stand out in the rain in school clothes to go to school, or at least used to. I'm pretty sure it's still like that.

Japan is but a country; it is not a continent.
But recall the old myth that was sunken undersea.
When people abuse things that are heaven sent,
The karmic results are what there will be.

Maybe,
If we’ll Just Always Pray At Night,
Things will finally come to light.
Anytime, anywhere, we can learn how to pray.
But don’t look at the future. We must look at today.

Well thanks for the obvious about Japan, you've finally reached your title topic, so what do you do? Oh, you're going to allude to Atlantis...and use symbolism and introduce Karma as if Japan did something wrong. What? This is really quite amazing. You use one of the worst natural disasters of all of recorded history, and moralize it to "man better learn to value now" and try to teach a lesson. A moral amongst tragedy. Really?

I hope you learned something from this and realize how you need to remove yourself from your work. I'm not sure you even have a speaker here, instead your own voice. You have to remove yourself. And really, opinions and morals, avoid them. The Grimms? Sure, they got away with it. Not in this day and age.

Never, ever let a Japanese person/citizen/national see this by the way. Ever.

Hope this helps.

Hey Whisperer!

I don't really like this. It sounds like you're accusing Japan of being ungrateful and bad and you made it sound like the Japanese deserved what happened. I mean, I love prayer and whatnot, and I think that prayer can be extremely helpful in getting through things. But I think sometimes bad things just happen -- no karma needed -- and that it's not about God being cruel or whatever, but rather because bad things just happen. And you can pray all you want, but bad things will still continue to happen. In the end, I think prayer helps us to get through things rather than causing the things.

Just a couple of thoughts.

I like it when people raise awareness for those in need.I love the Just Always Pray At Night.Take in mind whjat Snoink said.

My god this is terrible. How is this featured? It is obvious that you are completely under educated about the events that are occurring.
1) Your similes! What!? Ice cream is a terrible simile! It was a magnitude 9 earthquake!
2) Scream in terror?! That is against their culture. They are still organized. It is disrespectful to show fear!
3)Why are you going into karma!? What have they done wrong? As far as I'm concerned, WW2 was the last thing they did wrong, and I think hiroshima was their karma!

While the poem itself was so-so, the facts were pretty far off. I'm sorry. I would go into a full crit, but I'm on a blackberry.
-WU

Before I get on with my review, I would like to note that this is another in an interesting pattern where only those who like the work find it, and subsequently "Like" it and review it, making it featured and exposing it to the greater YWS population, who sees it for what it is, and wonders how on earth it could have been reviewed. The people who liked this most likely saw something about Japan, with something about praying at the end, which played to their sensibilities as presumably someone who cares about Japan, and probably, though I don't like to stereotype, a Christian.

Anyway, on to the review.

I cannot be sure with how they felt,
But I know that they’ll always remember
When the land shook like how ice cream melts
And when it got drowned by raging water.

I'm never a fan of a forced rhyme, but especially not when it results in something like this. Also, you said "with" when you meant "of".

Now, thousands more died, endlessly screaming.

I think people have been too hard on this line. Endlessly screaming, while perhaps not a brilliant choice of genius words, is descriptive of how the poor people who were drowned or crushed presumably felt, and I wouldn't be surprised to see them in a more tasteful and well-spun poem on the subject.

I've been soft so far, because it's apparent that you didn't actually mean to cause any offense, and this is well-intentioned. But here, the poem just plummets.

In the third stanza, you suggest that Japan did something to offend God, which then resulted in the earthquake. This is reminiscent of Pat Robertson's abhorrent and superstitious comments on Haiti, saying that the Haitian leaders renounced God and cursed the entirety of Haiti. It also utterly removes any sympathetic tones your poem might have had.

In the fourth stanza, it hits rock bottom. You are 17 years old. Why would you ever do this? You have the emotional maturity to see how wrong this is, do you not? God is the absolute last thing you want to bring into an overarching, all-encompassing poem like this, for a simple reason we can illustrate here:

1. Does everyone believe in your God, or even any God at all?
2. If no, do not assume that they do, especially not when their country has just been devastated by an 8.9 earthquake, which given that the Richter scale is logarithmic, ranks the earthquake in Japan as 90+ times worse than the 7.0 Haiti earthquake. (Every increment of 1 is 10 times more powerful than the last increment, thus 9 is 100 times worse than 7.)

How could you possibly think this was a good idea? I repeat, you are 17. When I was 10 I understood these basic principles of religious belief, primarily that not everyone believes the same thing.

In the fourth stanza, nowhere do you mention Japan. You have abandoned any pretenses of wellwishing for Japan, instead making a childish acronym, then having to force yet another rhyme to make it click with this acronym, then advertising your religion and insisting that if everyone would pray, something good would happen.

You finish off the poem with one final forced rhyme, which is really just something that sounds good, but when you take a closer look at it, it makes absolutely no sense in context. I refer of course to "But don’t look at the future. We must look at today.", which is, obviously, the exact opposite of what you want to do, just from even a technical sense.

Do you realize that people here on YWS have not only been angered, but actually offended by this poem? Deeply offended, and very angered?

~Aet

<3

Don't stress too much, okay?

What Nutty said. <3

Hey, it's ok. Like I said, you obviously didn't do it intentionally, and you fixed it besides which. I honestly don't hold any hard feelings, even when I was writing my original critique I wasn't really angry, I was thinking of it more like a debate. Plus, your reaction is more than was necessary and makes me feel kind of bad about the whole thing. Don't worry about it.

~Aet

This one is obviously better!!! Oh my God I'm sorry too, I really didn't think about all those things that others have written and I'm sure that you didn't think about it either, you haven't done it intentionally' so don't be so sad ok!! anyhow the line about prayer was really very exciting and great!!! keep on writing and don't be disappointed ok!!!