Young Writers Society

This is the second poem I ever wrote, I wrote it about two and a half years ago... Just want to know what you think, it's free verse...

I dream of the nothingness and of the pain.
Under an unwelcoming shelter of an endless sea of trees,
where the silence is an overwhelming burden to bare.
Where the darkening twilight sends shadows dancing across the earth,
and in the emptiness of night, I search.


I hurry though the dark night without a path.
I run and run, growing frantic with the passing hours,
but still even in the dark gloom of night I search.
I try to go faster but my legs won't move,
and in all my haste I trip and fall to the earth.


As the pain starts to come in waves like lightning,
I find I can’t remember what I was searching for.
The pain becomes unbearable as I realize
that I had nothing to search for;
That there was never anything but the night and twilight shadows.


As the pain strikes its final blow,
I know that there is nothing left for me.
Nothing but the pain and emptiness.
I awake from my dream screaming and I cry,
because the details of my dream are my reality.

Hello SilentRain!

I'm here to review your poem (obviously.)

Grammar: I like to get the bad stuff out of the way. Sorta like ripping a band-aid off. It'll only hurt for a second. I swear.

I hurry thought the dark night without a path

This should probably be "through".

I try to go faster but my legs will not go
And in all my hast I trip and fall to the earth

Might want to change the second "go", it seems too repetitive. Try "move" instead.
Haste--with an 'e'.

As the pain starts to come in waves like lightning

Add an 's' and an 'n'.

Nothing but the pain and nothingness
I awake from my dream from my screaming and I cry
Because the details of my dream is my reality

Last nitpick, promise! You might want to mix it up a little; it was starting to be repetitive with all the nothing stuff floating around. It might work better with "nothingness" being replaced with emptiness or another synonym.
I'd just take out the second "from my". It doesnt' really add anything to the poem, in fact it kind of detracts from it in a way. It will flow much better without it.
The "is" should be plural "are" to fit the noun "details" that it is modifying. That's all!

Once I fixed all of that in my head, I gave it another read and I really, really liked it! I can relate to the pain concept and wishing my reality was not the same as my dreams, so in total it was a poem after my own heart. It was funny, because when I read this, I kept flashing back to the poem I just posted yesterday about the almost same thing. Except of course I have a different style and way of saying things. But enough about me. I especially like all of the dark imagery at the beginning, "sea of trees" as "unwelcoming" and likening "silence" to a "burden". It felt to me like a nightmare, and I've always been fascinated with the macabre of the dream world. Good job! I never would have thought this was only your second poem. Keep up the good work!

Happy Writing!
Bailey

Hey SilentRain!

I'm here to review as requested. As I've mentioned before, I'm not the best poetry critic but I'll try and give you some helpful advice. I'll start off with any grammatical errors that I find.

I dream of the nothingness and of the pain.
Under an unwelcoming shelter of an endless sea of trees,
where the silence is an overwhelming burden to bare.
Where the darkening twilight sends shadows dancing across the earth,
and in the emptiness of night, I search.

I hurry through the dark night without a path.
I run and run, growing frantic with the passing hours,
but still even in the dark gloom of night, I search.
I try to move faster but my legs will not go,
and in all my haste, I trip and fall to the earth.

As the pain starts to come in a wave like lightning,
I find I can’t remember what I was searching for.
The pain becomes unbearable as I realize
that I had nothing to search for;
that there was never anything but the night and twilight shadows.

As the pain strikes its final blow,
I know that there is nothing left for me.
Nothing but the pain and nothingness.
I awake from my dream, from my screaming, and I cry
because the details of my dream are my reality.

Overall

I thought that this was actually a really nice piece of writing, overall. Your wording was very good and I thought that your physical descriptions were effective and you certainly wrote them well. As a whole, your descriptions were actually really well written, in my opinion. I loved the dark imagery that you included in this poem. Like the reviewer above me, I especially loved the descriptions at the beginning. I think the main reason for that is actually some of the words you used. I really adored how you varied your vocabulary at the beginning, which kept the stanza interesting and it didn't seem repetitive. That's actually something that I noticed; your poem eventually became a bit too repetitive. I'll mention that in a bit more detail later on. When it comes to your grammar, you didn't actually have any. There were also a few misspelled words in the poem, as well. For example, you used the word bear instead of bare. When you spell it like bear, it means that you're talking about the animal kind. Remember that! Any mistakes that I did find though, I corrected for you.

My only real critique for you is the fact that I found this piece very repetitive by the end. Throughout the poem, all that you were really talking about was how the voice of the poem was searching for something, getting lost, being scared etc. To begin with, what were they searching for? Why were they scared? What were they scared of? Why did they get lost? Do you understand what I mean? Instead of just saying that you were lost, afraid, lonely, searching for something, tell us why. Maybe the voice of your poem is scared of getting lost? That would connect two of the feelings together. If so, describe why she's scared of getting lost? Is she scared of losing herself and who she feels she is? Is it because she feels trapped in the world? What about her searching for something? Is she searching for a person? Or maybe she's searching for her true self but is too afraid of what she'll find? Do you understand what I'm trying to say? Don't just write us a poem, tell us the story behind the poem.

I don't actually have anything else to say. I don't know much about poetry at all, really. I've basically given you my opinion on the poem as a whole. Although I felt that the poem was quite repetitive, I really did think that this was well written. You had a good amount of effective descriptions, especially when it came to the dark kind. All that you really need to do is to polish this up a bit.

Keep writing,

xoxo Skins

Wow...just wow. This is really good and the only thing I could find.."not particularly appealing" to me was this:

I try to go faster but my legs will not go

I thought "wont go" would sound better there, but it's your choice. Overall, this piece was far better than I could have ever imagined. Well done and keep it up!

SilentRain wrote:I dream of the nothingness and of the pain.
Under an unwelcoming shelter of an endless sea of trees,
where the silence is an overwhelming burden to bare.
Where the darkening twilight sends shadows dancing across the earth, Yes, I know it is a dream, but does twilight really make shadows dance. To they move in such a way that it is correct to say they are dancing? I don't think so, if you agree change it. If you don't leave it as is.
and in the emptiness of night, I search. You start to say night and dark to much here. You should change them in most cases, but the last time you could just take out the word because gloom pretty much means darkness.


I hurry though the dark night without a path.
I run and run, growing frantic with the passing hours, When did hurrying become running?
but still even in the dark gloom of night I search. I don't get this the person has been searching the whole time and it has been twilight or night the whole time. Twilight does not last for hours, so for hours to have passed it doesn't make sense to say "but still even in the dark of night..." because the person has been.
I try to go faster but my legs won't move, Hmmm this is better than the word go, but saying that someones legs won't move makes me think they are completely still. Maybe you should choose yet another word maybe obey?
and in all my haste I trip and fall to the earth.


As the pain starts to come in waves like lightning, Lightning doesn't come in waves... I think this would sound better each time like lightning...
I find I can’t remember what I was searching for.
The pain becomes unbearable as I realize
that I am not sure this word is necessary and it seems to break up the rhythm. I had nothing to search for; I know you probably meant for it to, but this seems kind of repetitive... maybe you could change it up a bit more.
That there was never anything but the night and twilight shadows. I thought there were no twilight shadows anymore and it was night!


As the pain strikes its final blow,
I know that there is nothing left for me.
Nothing but the pain and emptiness.
I awake from my dream screaming and I cry,
because the details of my dream are my reality. I really love this ending.

Besides that everything I have to say has already been said by the other reviewers.

I hope I helped,

A. S.

I think this poem would work better if there was some kind of pattern. Some of the lines in it seem very out of place because of the lack of structure. I really like the idea and the message but it would work better if your message was on a leash instead of running around.
Good Work
XO Change

Hi I am not going to correct any grammatical error since all the other people have done so. For it to be your second poem I actually like and I think it has a quite good flow.

I really like this stanza:

I hurry though the dark night without a path.
I run and run, growing frantic with the passing hours,
but still even in the dark gloom of night I search.
I try to go faster but my legs won't move,
and in all my haste I trip and fall to the earth.

I like the descriptive language that you use:

where the silence is an overwhelming burden to bare.
Where the darkening twilight sends shadows dancing across the earth,
and in the emptiness of night, I search.

I don't really like this part though:

As the pain strikes its final blow,
I know that there is nothing left for me.
Nothing but the pain and emptiness.
I awake from my dream screaming and I cry ...

I think that you used the word pain too much and that kind of ruined the flow.

Overall I enjoyed reading it, good work