je souhaite

je souhaite

Two people threw coins
into the recesses of a wishing well.

One wished for love:
the love that doesn't die,
true love and life love and all love
that doesn't override but complements.
For happiness and hope and
life to come forth out of that.

The other wished for death,
which is something more easily found.
Something attainable because
death doesn't lurk around corners or
come when you least expect it or
have catches and flaws (except

to say that that's all it is, a
catch and a flaw);
death doesn't make you doubtful
or insecure.

Except to say,
where does the end actually end.

Hey there!

Okay, first off, I liked the title as I just adore the French language.

Secondly, I've been critiquing poetry all week and I'm kinda getting the hang of it so hopefully this will be helpful. All poems have a degree of greatness, some can be defined as great right off the bat, while others still need a little spit and shine. I loved this, I really did but it's not appealing as some poems on. The appeal is what is important. It has everything to do with emotions and the way the poem is executed.

Execution:

1. Formatting. I believe in stanzas. I always have and will continue to unless the poem reads right in a style like this.

2. I know that poems are not stories but you want your first line to really draw the reader in. Most people won't even read a poem if they are turned off by the first line. This is a major part of execution

3. Flow is also another important part of execution. Now when I say flow, I don't mean that it has to rhyme, I just mean that if your words were blown up by say a atomic bomb or something, then everyone would be able to put it back together perfectly and it would look right.

for love, for love, for love, for love:
the love that doesn't die, that is
true love and life love and all love

Flow:

1. You never ever want to repeat words over and over again in a poem. I am sure you have a reason for writing this, you were inspired by something. That inspiration does not have one face because nothing has one face ( not in a literal sense.)

2. Now seeing as though this is not an emotional poem and it's a story, you want to make this appealing as I said before. Like a story, this poem needs to have a prominent beginning, middle and end.

3. Remember flow is all about execution and execution is all about the appeal.

The other
wished for death,
which is something more easily found.
Something attainable because
death doesn't lurk around corners or
come when you least expect it or
have catches and flaws

This was the strongest part of the poem and I'd kinda work my way in front and behind this, you know?

Though I think it would right like this:

The other wished for death,
which is something more easily found.
Something attainable because
death doesn't lurk around corners or
come when you least expect it or
have catches and flaws

Stanzas are your friends.


All in all, I think you are off to a good start. Please do expand on this, I think it has potential to be something greater.

Thanks for the read, and if you have any questions, feel free to PM me.

Keep writing,

~Angel

Hi kissthewitch. Your name reminds me of a QOTSA song called "Burn the Witch", but I guess it's the exact opposite in this case. XD

I thought the beginning line of your poem was the strongest, not only because it was descriptive and gave us an action to focus on, but that action conveyed so much more than the action itself. The fact that two people were throwing made me think they were in love, but unsure, which the recesses of the wishing well gave me the impression.

Your second stanza sounds really lovely and the tempo and all that stuff about flow is good. But I found the actual words themselves to be difficult to wrap my brain around. I think that last sentence of the stanza could be replaced with something more substantial and meaningful.

To start the third stanza, I would go with the repetition of "One wished for death" instead of how you have it phrased. The second line doesn't do much, but the rest gives a nice visual, and helps give us an idea of what kind of person this is.

I thought the end was a bit off from the rest and kind of catchy. I suggest eliminating the last stanza and keep the second to last as the last. The "end" thing is good and you can even bring back the wishing well metaphor as an "endless" sort of idea.

I loved the way you put both love and death, don't we all want one or the other? The way you ended it at first caught me, because you won't tell who got their wish, and I like the wording you used to tie off the end of the poem, but still leaving it open for thought and speculation by the reader.
I still can't get it out of my head.

I enjoyed reading this. In trying to guess which person got his wish, I feel like Vizzini from The Princess Bride saying "I can clearly not choose the wine in front of me... So I can clearly not choose the wine in front of you." It's a good puzzle you've made. At first I thought death must have been granted, because you talked more about it than about love. Then, for that same reason, I decided that love must have been granted. And it seems like love was granted because it said that death doesn't make you insecure like love does, so it would be the poetic thing to grant the wish that is more harmful... anyway, this isn't making sense anymore. At this point, I haven't got a clue which wish was granted. Do you know in your head?

So about the poemmmm...

I love the opening.

One wished for love:

the love that doesn't die, that is

true love and life love and all love

and doesn't override but complements.

I feel like the "that is" at the end of the line is just dead. It doesn't seem to flow. I'd just stick it onto the next line. At first I thought you had misspelled "compliments" but now I think you mean complement as in "go together" and not compliment as in "praise." : )

For happiness and hope and

life to come forth out of that.

I think the word "that" here is confusing. I'm not sure as to what it modifies. And it feels heavy at the end of the sentence.

One person got their wish.

But I won't tell you which.

Personnally, it threw me off when an "I" got thrown in at the end. It felt like unnatural insinuation of the author into the poem. But I think that's just me. There's probably nothing wrong with it.

I don't know if this crit has helped. But well done, anyway. I like your stuff.

rachel