Meant to be heard

No promises to strap us down,
no words to bind the free,
he tricks us all to believe
we can get away easily.

But Silence, in his noiseless watch
while guarding harmful truths,
fails to prevent the certain rot
that causes us to lose.

Unsaid, crucial words grow stale
while we, oblivious, go our way--
go on living, quietly wounding
with words we didn’t say.

Who knew but that sly jester, Silence,
what harms come from playing his games.
Too late comes guilt, remorse, wistful wishes,
and too late we see the pain.

--Anna

Hi Anna! June here, and I'm going to review this for you .

I like the way you open your poem! You begin vaguely, and sustain the "unclarity" throughout the first stanza so that when we finish the stanza, we can form a picture in our head about "him" without even knowing who he is.

I also enjoy the way you present this silence to us. At first, I was prepared to have a positive image represented by silence, but! It's coming off as more negative than positive. That's great, dear! Because you're giving us something much more to think about than the words in which this is writ.


The only changes I would make to this, dear, are in the punctuation. I often tell people that an easy, basic poetry-punctuation scheme to follow is this:

,
;
,
.

Or in English; comma, semicolon; comma, period.

Thus, it works with almost all four-lined-stanza poems .

Also!

Too late comes guilt, remorse, wistful wishes,

This line has got a bit of a drag dear. Pay attention to length of your above lines, and see how this contrasts with them.

Remember that length does not only depend on the written length of a word, but it also depends on the spoken length of a word, dear.

But, I loved it, Anna! Gold star for you-- keep up the good work, dear.



June

No promises to strap us down,
no words to bind the free,
he tricks us all to believe
we can get away easily.

Love this poem so far, Anna! I absolutely adore poems with a steady rhyme and rhythm, and so far yours is perfect in that department. I assure you, though; that never lasts.

But Silence, in his noiseless watch
while guarding harmful truths,
fails to prevent the certain rot
that causes us to lose.

Unsaid, crucial words grow stale
while we, oblivious, go our way-- Eep! I was right! This 'oblivious', while a nice word choice, disrupts your flow because it's too long for the rhythm. Perhaps try: while we go our seperate ways
go on living, quietly wounding Too long! Again! This, however, due to syllable funkiness, could be fixed by simply switching around 'wounding' so that it's in front of 'quietly'. See? It works now!
with words we didn’t say.

Who knew but that sly jester, Silence,
what harms come from playing his games.
Too late comes guilt, remorse, [s]wistful[/s] wishes, [b]*sigh* And again. How about just nixing the 'wistful'?
and too late we see the pain.

Wow, Anna, I feel rather unhelpful, because this was really good! I enjoyed how you portrayed Silence as someone to be wary of instead of someone to admire. "Silence is golden", they say. Not here! It's a twist on something well known that changes our perspective a bit.

Besides these little rhythm issues, I wouldn't really change any of your word choices. You've chosen everything carefully, I can tell, so I have no need to harp on about bland description or over-elaborate imagery! I wish I could have been more helpful, but I liked what you portrayed here.

~Evi

Hello Anna! I'm Colt! Obviously I will review your poem.

I love the strong use of stylistic devices, but there could be more metaphors, similes, and personification. A simile is a comparison of two unlike words using like or as (He is as graceful as a flower). A metaphor is a comparison of two unlike words without using like or as (He is a flower). Personification is giving a non-human thing human characteristics (the sea cringed and wrinkled under the boat).

Be careful in the fourth stanza, some lines get too long. Otherwise, everything has pretty much been covered. Bravo!

-Colt

Anna, I have to say I love this. The personification of Silence is surprising and pleasant to the reader & I like the language you use.

I became somewhat wary reading the above comments because I disagreed with some of their suggestions. Here's what I've got:

No promises to strap us down,

no words to bind the free,

he tricks us all to believe

we can get away easily.

I think the wording of the last 2 lines here are a bit awkward. In the third line, shouldn't it be "tricks us all into believing"? But then it doesn't fit as well. And the fourth line seems a bit forced.

But Silence, in his noiseless watch

while guarding harmful truths,

fails to prevent the certain rot

that causes us to lose.

"The certain rot"? This is a bit weird to me. And what does it cause you to lose?

Unsaid, crucial words grow stale

while we, oblivious, go our way--

go on living, quietly wounding

with words we didn’t say.

I would prefer the first line if it read "Cruicial unsaid words grow stale."

Who knew but that sly jester, Silence,

what harms come from playing his games.

Too late comes guilt, remorse, wistful wishes,

and too late we see the pain.

Gramatically, the first two lines don't makes sense, I think. "Who knew but that" sounds like it should have "would" after it, such as "Who knew but that I would stumble across such a great poem!"

Sorry if this sounded harsh, but I really like it! Cheers!

rachel

I like the way it stats off with calmer wording and then it becomes more intense. I also like the way you view the subject. You obviously have strong feelings for being heard.