No longer a poem!

No longer a poem!

I really liked it! It was intense for a poem about wanting to be saintly. Very strong wording, which goes well with not wanting to go to hell. I liked the image it gave me. Good job!

Hi,

This flows nicely.

I'd avoid the archaisms by changing "afire" to "on fire " and "has not to do" to "has naught to do." I'd also cut the commas after "pray" and "say".

I'd also take another look at:

"Every night I pray,
To taste and feel the fire
that I walk through everyday."

because it doesn't make much sense in the context of the poem. It seems that the speaker wants their past burnt away and wants to feel fire but doesn't want their soul set on fire. This is unclear.

Also in the context of the poem fire made me think of hellfire and in a poem where the speaker is praying to God to save their soul, fire is used in a very confusing way, seeming to be a positive thing while also fearsome. I'd clarify this.

An interesting theme which could just use a little cleaning up.

Hope this helps,

Jas

HI THis poem was short but very powerful! This is the way I interpreted it: You are asking God not to send you to hell even though you mess up? Help me out if I'm wrong? But I did really enjoy it... and by the way, if you accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and Saviour (not to sound to religoius here, just trying to help out) then you will go to heaven But if you're really confused, speak to someone at your nearest church, preferably, baptist, methodist or penticostal xxx

Hellue! For being such a short poem it certainly grapsed alot and held both power and emotion. It had a great flow and rythm and yes.. this was really quite good!

I agree with Jasmine that "on fire" sounds better than "afire" though.

Also, Jas mentioned this part sounding out of place;

"Every night I pray,
To taste and feel the fire
that I walk through everyday." - and I must agree. Which is sad, because I really like the sound of these lines and it sounded so good when that last line lay itself on my tongue. I think it sound like though, that even though he prays to rid himself of his past, he still wants to have a last taste... yet you say he does walk through fire every day? What fire? The fire of his past.. or just a hell of his own.. I don't really get this and then to make me even more confused.. you say "Don't set my soul afire" so... loads of fire, what does what and which fire do you want? eh.. I may be mumbling, hope you understood what I was coming at ;D

Overall I must give this 4½/5 spider since for being so short it was wicked good and powerful! Great punctuation, amazing rythm and flow.. yeh, there wasn't much to complain about but why don't you clarify the fire thing and perhaps consider changing "afire" to "onfire" !?

Good Luck & Keep Writing

// Demoness

here as requested

you create a really nice rhythm here, and I like the evenness of your lines. That's more or less as deep as I'll go with you, because I don't have as much experience of poetry as I do with prose, but I'm supposed to be studying it for my A levels (HA good luck me...)

I have a couple of grammar suggestions for you:

Dear god I am a fighter,
I scream and cry and say,
Don't set my soul afire,
Every night I pray.

This is kind of the climax of the poem, so make sure I know this! I'd punctuate it like this:

"Dear God I am a fighter!
I scream and cry and say;
Don't set my soul afire,
Every night I pray."

Suddenly, to me it seems much louder on the line you're describing as being screamed and cried, and then the semi-colon creates a pause and a calm for the next line, which is almost like a plea. Adds a bit more atmosphere

Now my final comment is completely subjective and I want to say first that (as previously mentioned) my experience of poetry is small and my taste is probably not great, so I don't want you to take offence from this or anything. Promise? OK. I just thought that the powerful nature of the feelings you were trying to convey could have been made more vivid, because as it is it's a little bland - maybe that only seems like that to me because I've been studying Wilfred Owen, who really loves his descriptions of war wounds with nice graphic detail (mmmmm!) or maybe it's the very firm way you break up the lines... like it seems quite disjointed because you've got it so perfectly put in iambic pentametre? I'm not sure - it's late, I got my results today and they were a bit odd so I'm all over the place psychologically........ but just something to think about, possibly, maybe, not necessarily.
I did like it. Honest