Breaking

Hi! I know you're relatively new to this, so I will do my best to take it easy.

You can try to break me,
Point out all my flaws
And try to tell me
That I'm not strong enough to fight.

Right now, my first impression of this stanza is that the flow feels slightly stunted. The best way to check and see if your poem flows naturally is to read it out loud. Trying to read this out loud I find that I stumble over the words, and they don't feel natural to say.

As for the content, it leaves something to be desired. Right now this is a "I'm stronger than I look" piece, which is perfectly respectable. However, you've approached it in a way that is rather uninteresting. I've read a lot of poems about how strong someone is, but they tend to be quite tough. It is hard to work imagery into a poem of this nature.

You can try to break me
Turn all my bones to glass
Shatter my hopes and dreams
And push me all around.

The part that I have bolded is quite nice. I love the image of turning bones to glass. Creating something so fragile out of something so strong... it's lovely. If I were you, I would take this image and expand on it. I am an image person, only affected by something that I can close my eyes and see. Tangible, if you will. The last line in particular here does nothing for me, it feels sort of juvenile and done before.

When you're writing a poem, I think it is important to use images to convey what you're feeling. The bones to glass line does this particularly well, but the rest feels like just words.

But I grew wiser in my years,
I learned all your cleaver tricks
Your words cant tear me down
Your lies don't shape my world.

Unfortunately, this bit feels like it is adding very little to the rest of your poem. It feels repetitive from the first stanza, just a different way of phrasing the same lines. The imagery is absent, which makes it feel weak and lacking. I think, based on your stanza above, that you can really do better than this. You've just got to pull some real raw emotion and images from deep down. Use your feelings and fears to really create a scenario that will move people

You can try to break me,
And throw your names at me.
But I've grown stronger,
I won't fall down again.

Again, same as the last stanza, you've said the same thing but with different phrasing. It could be significantly better, but you've got to forget about telling people how strong you are and show them. Show me how strong you are with some really great images, not just words.

I think you've got a great idea in here somewhere, and with some tweaking and soul searching this could be quite fantastic.

If you need a place to look for inspiration or some more in-depth advice, I suggest checking out our Poetry Tutorial section of the Knowledge Base. It's a really fantastic source for great poetry tips.

Hope this helps!
OverEasy

Awesome! Thanks for all your help. I'll definatly check out the link.

I like the part when you wrote your lies don't shape my world. I am going to press the like button on this and for this being your first post, it is really good and poetic. My first post, not so much. But I like the stanzas and the poetic feel to it. Nice work, and keep posting.

Thank you so much! It really means a lot.

This poem is really good! I think your stuff are always great! Haha!

geekchic wrote:

You can try to break me,
Point out all my flaws,
And try to tell me,
That I'm not strong enough to fight.

You can try to break me,
Turn all my bones to glass,
Shatter my hopes and dreams,
And push me all around. What about, 'And push me around'?
Start a new stanza here perhaps?
But I grew wiser in my years,
I learned all your cleaver tricks,
Your words can't tear me down
Your lies don't shape my world.
. <-- A typo?
You can try to break me,
And throw your names at me. I don't really get this line, perhaps what you're trying to say is 'And throw (nasty) names at me'?
But I've grown stronger,
I won't fall down again.

May I suggest adding an extra, 'I won't be broken again' at the end of the poem, to reinforce your point? LIke this:

geekchic wrote:You can try to break me,
And throw your names at me.
But I've grown stronger,
I won't fall down again.

I won't be broken again.[/center]

Overall, I think this is a fairly good poem.
But could generally be made better.
Good job, anyhoo!

You can try to break me,
Point out all my flaws
And try to tell me
That I'm not strong enough to fight.

You can try to break me,
Turn all my bones to glass,
Shatter my hopes and dreams
And push me all around.

(I'll also suggest that you should start a new stanza here, because it is plain to see that you're beginning a new part/idea here.)
But I've grown wiser in my years,
I've learnt all your cleaver tricks
Your words can't tear me down
Your lies won't shape my world. ("won't" carries a stronger meaning, it's as if the lies don't shape your world, and they will never do so.)

You can try to break me,
And throw your names at me.
But I've grown stronger,
I won't fall down again.

All in all, you have a potential great poem here. I liked themost of it, especially the "Your words can't tear me down / Your lies don't shape my world." part. These lines were the best part, in my opinion.

Keep on writing!

Hi, Geekchic! Nice to meet you.

I like everything that has a this kind of message -- being strong, not caring about what others think, and so on. It's really important to encourage people to such philosophy, and being a literature person like everyone here, I think it's best done with a poem! (Or a song, or a story, but you get it.)

You seemed to stick to quite a basic form of execution: there's not really that much imagery (apart from a couple of more descriptive lines), and it sounds more like a piece of a monologue rather than a poem. Personally, as an occasional poet and poetry reader, I find myself wanting to see similes, metaphors and other poetic devices when I read a poem. Descriptive words and words that you wouldn't necessarily use in everyday speech don't hurt either. We all have our own style, of course, and it needs to be respected. It would just be nice to see you go slightly out of your way to make a poem really that work of art what it's supposed to be.

Just keep reading and writing a lot, and your writing will absorb the experience you get. I know this for a fact, because I used to write really simple and quite boring poems, but nowadays I'd like to think that my poetry is more abstract and less in-your-face than it used to be.

See you around!


Demeter
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