Recession

Spoiler

I'm inexcusably sad at poetry but I love reading it, trying to write it and reviewing it. I kind of played with the idea of writing a recession themed poem and here it is! It's really only a bit of fun and far from, what I hope is the standard I'm at story wise.

So, I understand if reviews aren't really serious. Saying that, critiquing is always appreciated and I'd a love a few encouraging words that display your opinion on the poem. A lot of thought did go in to it saying all of that!

I need help with the brainless and painless lines, I don't like them. They're choppy and horrible, but that's my poetry skills for you!
Enjoy!

I hear my mommy and daddy say,
What will we do, we've got bills to pay?
There's no more sunshine, no more fun
Not a thing that can be done.
Need a house, need a car,
Having no money's gone way too far!

People all across the board,
Buying things they can't afford,
Now the country's in a twist.
Things gone wrong, there's quite a list!
All of this causes stress,
Quite a lot, I must confess!

The world is run by greedy men,
Signing cheques pen by pen,
Our leaders all are brainless
Yet still left feeling painless!
Hope is growing leaner and leaner,
Really spoils are happy demeanor.

There is one thing I wonder,
Might stop us from falling asunder,
Why don't we mint,
Are you getting my hint?
Print some brand new money
Then are days can be sunny!

Lol, okay, yes, this did kind of make me laugh. Sadly all too true, but it's nice when we can laugh about our sh***y economies. (Wow, at first I typed "enocomies." Dyslexic much?)

Now.

First of all, I feel like you break rhythm in stanza three, starting with the third line. Up to that point the rhythm is pretty well established, but there it's suddenly different. There still is a rhythm, but it's different from the rhythm prior, which threw me off. You may want to rewrite the third through fifth lines of that stanza, at least. Such as:

"The world is run by greedy men,
signing cheques pen by pen (my computer doesn't like this spelling of "checks," but clearly you're either British or pretending to be, so I know this is fine),
our leaders all are really brainless
yet still are left completely painless!
Hope is growing ever leaner,
really spoils our happy demeanour (here there's still kind of one syllable too many, but it's not that bad)."

Obviously you don't have to change it to what I wrote (although you're welcome to if you like it), but that's just an example.

I also feel this way about the last stanza.

Plus, regarding the last stanza - I'm sure you probably know this, but simply printing more money actually makes things worse because it causes inflation, which means the money is now worth less than it was before, which means that prices go up even higher, etc. Now, if you were trying to be ironic then this could work (as in, the whole poem is like, oh no, there's not enough money, the economy sucks, and then at the end you suggest something that would actually make things worse rather than better), but if this was meant seriously then I think you need to change that. For a simple change you could even say that all the government does to try and fix things is to print more money, in which case we have another example of their "brainlessness," because in trying to fix things they're making things worse. That way all you really have to change is the first two lines of the last stanza - this is the government's idea rather than yours - rather than the whole thing. There would still be some irony, but it would be recognized as irony rather than mistaken for a serious suggestion.

Also, it would be sadly recognizable and realistic even as it's ironic, because who among us has a government that is not idiotic?

Anyways, fun poem about the crap we're all experiencing right now. Good job, and I hope this review helped.

~Blue

Its much better than most poetry I read here, I must admit, so congrats!
Its a lovely little piece, despite some shaky rhyming schemes, that managed a few chuckles from me. I truly had fun reading this and thanks for the fun.

A serious topic presented in a light-hearted way...well, you did a good job on it, but I still feel a bit depressed, since this is very true.

Kagi wrote:I hear my mommy and daddy say,
What will we do, we've got bills to pay?
There's no more sunshine, no more fun
Not a thing that can be done.
Need a house, need a car,
Having no money's gone way too far!

People all across the board,
Buying things they can't afford,
Now the country's in a twist.
Things gone wrong, there's quite a list!
All of this causes stress,
Quite a lot, I must confess!

The world is run by greedy men,
Signing cheques pen by pen,
Our leaders all are brainless
Yet still left feeling painless! Not sure I understand 'feeling painless'. Is that supposed to mean they don't feel guilty?
Hope is growing leaner and leaner,
Really spoils are happy demeanor. Agreed; this rhythm really changes in this stanza. Also, you spelled 'demeanor' incorrectly. There's no 'u'.

There is one thing I wonder,
Might stop us from falling asunder,
Why don't we mint,
Are you getting my hint?
Print some brand new money
Then are days can be sunny! I think this is meant to be a joke, but as a previous reviewer said, maybe try to make it more clear if this is a serious suggestion or is meant to be ironic.

Very well-written piece, the rhymes are good, none seem forced. The content is very true, and you make your point clearly and in an understandable way. It makes you think, and sums up our situation very well, but is written in a 'happy-go-lucky' sort of way which makes it ironic. (That's a good thing!) Lovely job, on this here!

*Warning* This review will suck because I know sod all about poetry.

Okay, so I like the whole idea of this poem. It's not your every day kind of theme, which makes it seem more original, and I think it has a nice length to it. Sometimes I find that poetry can be pointlessly long or annoyingly short, but for the subject of this poem, I think you've done a good job on the length. Like the others have said, I like the way you turn a subject that is rather depressing to a lot of people completely anti-depressing and lightly humorous. This would be good for lifting the spirits of someone who's feeling low, I reckon. So yeah, I think you've done a nice job here overall.

Hope is growing leaner and leaner,
Really spoils are happy demeanor.

Print some brand new money
Then are days can be sunny!

You seem to have used the wrong kind of 'are' here. They should be 'our' rather than 'are'. I assumed that was what you were trying to say. You'd use 'are' in sentences like, You are a funny guy, I don't think those shoes are the right size. Whereas you'd use 'our' in sentences like, Come and look at our new bags, Our coach said the team's improving loads. Those may have been a typo mistake because I myself often make silly mistakes like that for some reason, but yeah, take note of that.

I agree with what BlueAfrica said about the last stanza of this poem. You may have done so on purpose, but the mention of printing more money solving all of the financial problems seems rather odd. New money = less value. If there were a million 100 dollar bills in the world, then the value of dollars would shoot down. You know, inflation and all of that jazz. I'm still not sure if you put that last stanza in to really emphasize the fact that the government are brainless e.t.c. or if you put it in as a genuine suggestion of how to fix the problem because, well, it would certainly not fix the problem and only make it worse. Judging by the attitude of the stanza, I have a feeling it's the second one. I can't be sure though. I think you need to make it clearer. BlueAfrica has already said all of this really, so I don't want to repeat everything. Just something to think about, eh?

My only other critique is about the flow and rhythm of the poem. I don't know if it was just me, but at times, it felt like the rhyme was forced. The last line, for example. It really feels like you threw it in there just because it rhymed with the line above it. I think that the other reason I'm not keen on it is because it's kind of cliché too. I mean, we've all heard the 'days will be sunny!' kind of thing before, so I would have liked for you to have come up with something more original.

What I noticed the most about some of your rhymes was that they felt out of place, which is why I think they felt forced. Take the line you have about causing stress. The line that follows seems like it's just been put there to rhyme with it. In the first line, you say how it's causing stress. Automatically, we assume that it's a lot of stress, right? Then you go on to more or less say what you've just said: that it causes a lot of stress. Does that make any sense? It just felt a bit... pointless, I guess, to me. Don't use a rhyme unless it comes naturally into your head. There's nothing with non-rhyming poetry, you know. In fact, I tend to prefer that kind of poetry because it often seems more real to me.

Negatives aside, I don honestly like this. I think you've done a good job with the theme, I like the narrator's light voice in this, and I think that it's a really neat poem overall. Oh, but as a side note, could you put your spoiler at the end of the poem next time? I always used to do it, but then I was a good boy and stopped. This is just a personal thing, but I'm not keen on reading spoilers before reading the actual poem, especially if they involve dissing the writer. It automatically puts ideas into my head and it often effects my overall view of the poem because of what the writer has said about their work... err, make sense?

But anyway! Good job!

Keep writing,

xoxo Skins

'Know what this reminds me of? The Blood Brothers.
We're currently studying it in my drama class and... this sure does remind me of that.

I hear my mommy and daddy say,
What will we do, we've got bills to pay?

I don't know why. Maybe it's just the style with which this is written.
But whatever I sure can tell that it's from a little child's point of view. This kid sounds naive, and kinda' lonely too.

Need a house, need a car,
Having no money's gone way too far!

I don't really like that part so much :\ It's a little out-of-sync...
But this poem is good! You seem to just be playing around with this poetry at the moment. Just getting used to the different ways that it can flow and feel. And that's good, too...



But, yes. I like your poem and I sure do think that you have the "potential" (I hate that word) to write some really creative stuff.

Reading your poem, I'm suddenly reminded of my geography class, and how my teacher said that we should "Spend during bad times, and save during good times." Of course, ending the war would help, too. Anyway, this was kind of a fun poem to read!

The world is run by greedy men,
Signing cheques pen by pen,
Our leaders all are brainless
Yet still left feeling painless!
Hope is growing leaner and leaner,
Really spoils are happy demeanor.

Okay, one thing I noticed in this stanza, though, with the demeanor line, did you mean to say "Really spoils OUR happy demeanor." ??? Because otherwise those last two lines didn't really make much sense.
Overall, fun poem, great job!