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Points: 3862
Reviews: 41

Wed Jul 14, 2010 9:16 pm

spiderman says...

There is a boy who lives in a shack
He is very poor and that is a fact

He is never happy and almost never smiles
His attitude is not playful but rather hostile

That boy is now a man and it isn’t strange
That over all these years nothing has changed

He does not cook and does not clean
For at work is where he is always seen

He has one goal, one wish
And that is to be rich

He works hard and buys a mansion
And fills it with expensive things of every fashion

He has a Hi-definition TV that he will never use,
The most expensive suits and leather shoes

Yet he still works overtime day and night
And now his body’s stress ended his plight

He had no one to mourn him or to bid him goodbye
Alone with his untouched possessions is how he would die

He worked for nothing like a robot
His possessions and money remain useless and rot

Any child, man or women can see the man is a fool
He did not follow the golden rule

Working all the time like the man is a notoriety
Living life to the fullest should be your top priority

Title subject to change. I'm not really a poet, but i'm writing this for a magazine. I want to see what you guys think before i submit.

Despite the lies that you're making
Your love is mine for the taking
My love is just waiting
To clothe you in crimson roses

WHISPERS IN THE DARK LYRICS - SKILLET

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Points: 1304
Reviews: 30

Thu Jul 15, 2010 7:37 pm

TalaPaulwic says...

Hey, I don't like poetry, but I feel I may as well review it. It still has to follow the basic rules of grammar... right?

All but one of the verses or sections have no punctuation, this causes a fair amount of confusion when right in the middle of it all I see this.

He has a Hi-definition TV that he will never use,
The most expensive suits and leather shoes

This implies that they are both one sentence and so adding a new line and making it capitalized would imply that it is in face not part of the same sentence.

If they are the same sentence then you don't add a new line. If they're two different ones then you put periods at the end.

Despite this being poetry it still has to follow basic grammar rules. Now unlike most other YWSers I'm not going to point out flaws that takes me six hours to notice. I'm not going to sit here for that long, and it doesn't help you get any better. Any person in the real world would overlook things that I overlook after reading it once or twice.

As for the story of the poem I can say only that it was horribly cliched. There's nothing original about this poem, not in the slightest. (Sorry, I write prose, you're going to get my full wrath on this.) If I had a nickle dollars every time I saw a poem or even a book with a plot just like this I would be able to retire on my next birthday. The "old man that dies alone", there is nothing original about that.

Hey, I hope I don't sound mean. This isn't that bad for poetry.

All I can hear; "I me mine, I me mine, I me mine". Even those tears; "I me mine, I me mine, I me mine". No one's frightened of playing it. Everyone's saying it. Flowing more freely than wine. All through your life; "I me mine".

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Points: 3862
Reviews: 41

Thu Jul 15, 2010 7:41 pm

spiderman says...

Lolz

. Thank for the review.
"As for the story of the poem I can say only that it was horribly cliched. There's nothing original about this poem, not in the slightest. (Sorry, I write prose, you're going to get my full wrath on this.) If I had a nickle dollars every time I saw a poem or even a book with a plot just like this I would be able to retire on my next birthday. The "old man that dies alone", there is nothing original about that."
Yea i guess it is cliche.

Despite the lies that you're making
Your love is mine for the taking
My love is just waiting
To clothe you in crimson roses

WHISPERS IN THE DARK LYRICS - SKILLET

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Points: 12142
Reviews: 91

Fri Jul 16, 2010 9:44 am

Wolferion says...

Cheers!

I'd go and agree with TaulaPaulwic about it being cliche, many of us have heard about it, though many forget. I'm not a grammar focused writer and not any pro at poems, though I'll try to give you the best I can about this.

I'm a person that uses punctuation a very lot, forcing reader to stop where I want him to and read next line while inhaling. We all have different viewpoints, though I was taught to use always use punctuations. In my opinion, you should put coma at the end of 1st line when 2nd line starts with a new sentence without anything to bind it to the 1st ( f.e. and, as ). Your 2nd lines should always end with a dot. It might be new style writing without punctuations, but I harshly refuse it. I'll put some punctuations in your poem below.

There is a boy who lives in a shack,
He is very poor and that is a fact. - It rhymes well, good job. I am hesitant about tenses through the whole poem, so I won't change them. Though I think you should reread this and make sure you wrote the tenses as you wanted.

He is never happy and almost never smiles,
His attitude is not playful but rather hostile. - 'but rather hostile' broke the rhythm here. I know it's real pain to keep the rhythm up and going, but I think this needs a change.

That boy is now a man and it isn’t strange
That over all these years nothing has changed. - Nothing to say here. It's got the rhythm.

He does not cook and does not clean -
For at work is where he is always seen. - I haven't seen For used like this.

He has one goal, one wish
And that is to be rich. - I'd honestly go with 'He has just one wish'

He works quite hard and buys a mansion
And fills it with expensive things of every fashion. - The rhythm goes well here, I was just bugged with the fact second stanza is longer. I even think putting 'quite' before 'hard' might help a bit. Also I thought about using 'Then' instead of 'And' in 2nd stanza to avoid repeating 'and' second time in one stanza.

He has a Hi-definition TV that he will never use,
The most expensive suits and leather shoes.

Yet he still works overtime day and night
And now his body’s stress ended his plight.

He had no one to mourn him or to bid him goodbye,
Alone with his untouched possessions is how he would die.

He worked for nothing like a robot,
His possessions and money remain useless and rot. - A long second stanza. I'd cut it and go with 'His possessions remain useless and rot.'

Any child, man or women can see the man is a fool
He did not follow the golden rule - The rhythm feels a bit odd here. Also, I think there should be 'was' instead of 'is', but then after looking at the whole poem, I'm confused with all the tenses.

Working all the time like the man is a notoriety,
Living life to the fullest should be your top priority.

I congratulate you at keeping the rhythm most of the time, it's not as easy to do as many would think. As about 'cliche', it's really hard to avoid. If you want to mention something about human life, there's always a way to show it through different means like special events, something that isn't repeated often. It's really tough to describe, though I know all it takes to avoid at least a bit word 'cliche' is to see something from different eyes or different viewpoint and give it your touch of adjectives.

Spoiler! :

I hope I helped at least a bit, good luck!
Kyou

~Don't beg for things, do it yourself or else you'll never get anything~
-Formerly Shinda

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Points: 1510
Reviews: 37

Fri Jul 16, 2010 1:10 pm

smashles says...

Hey hey, it's smashles here to review!
Okay so first up it's got a very good storyline to it. He sounds like a very lonely man.
Secondly, you need to think about the rythm of the poem. There are some bits that have much less syllables than others and it sounds odd. Try to keep it the same.
Well, that's it from me.
Smashles out.

We all have moments of desperation, but if we face them head on, that's when we find out just how strong we really are. - Mary-Alice Young, Desperate Housewives

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Points: 33318
Reviews: 382

Sat Jul 17, 2010 8:57 am

Galerius says...

Hi spiderman,

I don't know the nature of the magazine, but I do believe that this piece will be put into the recycle bin by the editor.

spiderman wrote:There is a boy who lives in a shack
He is very poor and that is a fact

As opposed to what, a lie? An opinion? Why does this even matter?

Your entire poem continues with brainless rhymes like this, and it makes the reader feel as if you are treating him as a child, patronizing him. It's okay to do simple and cute rhymes when you're writing for young children (10 years and younger), but I'm assuming that this is for an older audience.

Your first point of order is to get the rhyming out of your system. Start creating poetry that revolves around the union of theme and imagery without working with such mundanities as "smiles/hostile", "clean/seen", "use/shoes", "night/plight" if you ever want the reader to take your work seriously. Good rhyming will come later, but for now, it's only a liability.

And,

Working all the time like the man is a notoriety
Living life to the fullest should be your top priority

This is absolutely arrogant. Don't ever use pithy pie-in-the-sky morals to close a poem again. It never helps and never makes the reader think of your poem more positively.

Hope that helped,
Galerius

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Points: 8231
Reviews: 214

Sun Jul 18, 2010 1:01 pm

Prosithion says...

First off, I liked it. It has some pretty ingenious rhymes in it.

Couple quibbles though. Your lack of punctuation was already addressed, so I'll skip it, other then pointing it out.

Also, some of the lines seemed to force the rhythm, which kind of disrupted the poem's flow.

I think that after a little tweaking and reworking, this thing might be magazine ready.

Cheers,
Pros

"wub wub wub wub. Now Zoidberg is the popular one."

"Computer... Captain's musk"

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Points: 2011
Reviews: 38

Mon Jul 19, 2010 7:43 pm

thatboy says...

erm, ok spiderman. the poem was good and it gave off a good message, i've got to sya though that the syllables were all over the place, i know you said you weren't a poet and i understand that but you really need to brush up on those; usually, when poets are making a poem that rhymes, the amount of syllables on ach line is almost the same as the others, this keeps the poem flowing correctly to give the greatest affect. on a good note however, the poem did have some nifty rhymes in it. and i thought that was really good considering you're not actually a poet. so like i said before, alot of lines need adjusting to fit in with the syllables and some, not all, but some of the rhymes need to come across as being less forced too.

on the hole: a good poem with a good message but does need a bit of editing. any more advice, or any problems, make sure you pm me.

thatboy

It's not what life makes of you;
But what you make of life.

Gender:

Points: 3862
Reviews: 41

Mon Jul 19, 2010 9:39 pm

spiderman says...

Thanks for the reviews guys. I'll try to quickly fix the grammar

Despite the lies that you're making
Your love is mine for the taking
My love is just waiting
To clothe you in crimson roses

WHISPERS IN THE DARK LYRICS - SKILLET

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