Young Writers Society

A/N: This is a rough, forced attempt at a rhyming poem of more than 4 lines for wisemann's poetry contest.



Eager to restrain us, it rises, an ugly recess,
blocking us, monsters, programmed to daily observations,
drowning and drenching us in the waters of stress,
overtaking us, soaking our sponges of motivation.


Lacking confidence; a teary blend of saline
hinted with the notorious signs of depression
an elegy for difference, lack of routine—
change is impossible, even in discretion.



The empty rise-and-fall of night and day
a piggish attempt to pressurize and relax;
waves and bouts of anxiety, dancing away,
fading on these long, rough tracks.



Classified in ranks: the labored and unlabored,
undistinguished in uncalled punishment;
those ease despised and those ease favored—
together as one, weep the songs of hope and lament.


These endless days are numbered; the end is near,
it’s a patient wait, impatient on fragile ropes,
the unknown lies ahead, mysterious, a delivery of fear,
We’ll be there soon with these dying hopes.

Hi springrain,

springrain wrote:Eager to restrain us, it rises, an ugly recess,
blocking us, monsters, programmed to daily observations,
drowning and drenching us in the waters of stress,
overtaking us, soaking our sponges of motivation.

Already this poem is too pretentious, as if you're the narrator talking down to the little folk who don't understand "true" literature and concepts and so you feel you need to dumb it down by adding useless - and sickeningly obvious - metaphors/personifications on every word. "Waters of stress"? "Sponges of motivation"? What is this? Too simplistic and way too shallow. Take out every metaphor in this stanza and replace it with phrases the reader actually has to think to understand. Waters of stress can be just waters; if you hint enough at what the water really is, it will make the poem that much more pleasurable to read.

Most phrases are decent (as in, they worked but there was nothing particularly dazzling) but some really stand out as ugly beyond what is acceptable. The entire second line is an example of this. It's like chewing glass. "Programmed to daily observations"? The pretentiousness factor comes into play here again - now you're loading ideas with words that are extended too high for their value - and it just sounds bad. Read it out loud, then scrap that line and tighten what you're trying to say.

This is a subjective comment, but take it into consideration anyway: too many syllables packed in too few lines. The stanza sounds constrained like it's being walled and is clawing to get out, but can't. I'm counting 14 syllables average per line, which is personally too much for me to enjoy reading in one stretch before another line starts. Split it up and don't worry about how it doesn't match the look of "conventional" poetry. However, like I said, others may differ in opinion.

Lacking confidence; a teary blend of saline
hinted with the notorious signs of depression
an elegy for difference, lack of routine—
change is impossible, even in discretion.

Why "saline"? Why not just put "salt"? Again, you're elevating this up to a standard that's becoming a little unwieldly.

"Notorious signs of depression" just went the exact opposite direction of the rest of the poem's tone, leaving the reader even more confused. Now you're just describing without describing, taking something bland and changing it to...a different type of bland. But that doesn't erase the fact that it's not interesting to read nor thought-provoking. Just change it to "depression", seriously.

Elegy for difference is overblown. "Look, elegy is a death speech and when added to difference, that must mean that the subject is becoming too uniform and losing diversity! Har, har har!" You're adding nothing new to the theme and what that says is beings said a million times in the same stanza. Take it out.

The last line, like I already pointed out, was said before, so why are you repeating yourself and wasting the reader's time? Remove it and replace it with something - anything.

The empty rise-and-fall of night and day
a piggish attempt to pressurize and relax;
waves and bouts of anxiety, dancing away,
fading on these long, rough tracks.

You just used a whole stanza to convey what could be said in one word: meaninglessness.

...why? I have a suspicion that you're following the format and physical attributes of typical poetry - that is, even stanzas, rhyming, etc - to the letter much like the helots you supposedly abhor.

Classified in ranks: the labored and unlabored,
undistinguished in uncalled punishment;
those ease despised and those ease favored—
together as one, weep the songs of hope and lament.

Very unappealing to read. This is like a lecture, honestly, not a poem. Your poem is a roller coaster; one stanza is full of imagery and no content, while another stanza, such as this above one, is the exact opposite. The only semblance of imagery here is "song of hope and lament", and by this point in my critique you should know why it also needs to be taken out and replaced.

These endless days are numbered; the end is near,
it’s a patient wait, impatient on fragile ropes,
the unknown lies ahead, mysterious, a delivery of fear,
We’ll be there soon with these dying hopes.

And cue end of poem with eye-rolling morality. This was a bad ending; it wrapped up the theme of the poem verbatim without presenting it in a closing light nor tunnel at the end. You're writing poetry, not an essay. Please re-format the conclusion as such. Also, as basically every other stanza in this piece, imagery is askew and at times non-existent, which makes the reader feel as if he is being sat down and spoken to sternly without having to think about anything being said.

In general, I don't know what you just did here, but it does not work at all. Please put this aside and try again. Sorry.

Hope that helped.

Chill, Galerius. Lol.

I liked this Juniper, the message was good and the imagery was even better .. The only thing holding this back was your rather strict adherance to rhyme and rhythm: Rhyming with any sort of meaning behind it is damn tough, especially when the meaning isn't about love (love poems just rhyme - dunno why).

If you do choose to rhyme you can't make the work too had for yourself by choosing more obscure words to end your lines. This means that when you have to rhyme that word later on, you often need to use another obscure word which isn't neccessary or even entirely relevant. So your poem sounds forced because you are constricted by such a rigid rhyme scheme. (like depression-discretion in the first stanza: discretion sounds forced.)

I also didn't like the way you used simile: ".... of ..." like 'waters of stress' and 'sponges of motivation'... It is telling us something you should be 'showing: with more seamless metaphor. And too many extended metaphors can sound cheesy.

I gon't agree with Galerius in that saying a single thing in a stanza is a waste of time: a lot of the times it is nice to extend on the imagery to get a more rounded feel.

Other than that, Galerius has pretty much covered it, except the rhythm is dodgy in places, especially the last stanza.



I likee Juniper.

I loved it June. Loved. It. But since when is June known to write something I don't love?

OK, I found that you had a nice flow, rhythm, and structure here, though I couldn't quite grasp the main topic of what it was about. Not to mention, some lines I didn't understand at all. This line, for instance;

a piggish attempt to pressurize and relax;

isn't pressurizing and relaxing two totally different things? I was confused. Along with other lines too. It might be just me and the big words though, lol.

So! That's all I have to say. No nit- picks (which so rarely happens, I always have at least one nit- pick)

Keep writing! Seriously!

~April