Two by Two

Kay, so I'm really not much of a poet...
This just kind of came to me today during Algebra and I worked on it throughout the day...so, yeah...
It's about animal rights

They march us in, two by two
I can not breathe, I can not move
It’s freezing cold
They close the door
The engine starts
I’m stuck to the floor
I call out to find my friends
They do not answer
They’re probably dead
It smells so bad it makes me sick
There’s no fresh air
Please make it quit.
They turn off the engine and open the door
The living march out
The dead stay stuck to the floor
They heard us into a little dark room
Out of nowhere I am kicked
I cry, he laughs
Everyone is screaming in fear and agony
They don’t seem to care the men just think its funny
The torture continues, my screams grow weak
My poor, hard life is almost complete
I lay down on the floor in a crumpled mass
A man stares down and he just laughs
I wish I could talk and scream till he bleeds
Doesn’t he understand?
Doesn’t he care?
I look up into his cruel eyes.
Can’t you hear my screaming?
Don’t you see my tears?
I’m just a pig
I want to live
Please don’t let me die

When I was reading it it seemed like a soilder poem, and then by the final lines i realised it was about a pig.. which is a good twist.

They heard us into a little dark room

herd not heard

The living march out

The dead stay stuck to the floor

these lines dont flow very well, maybe use

the dead stay

stuck to the floor.

Overall I like the ending, but the poem needs more imagery and emotion, in the last lines, when you ask if "doesnt he care?" I almost dont care, because the poem didnt really engage me emotionally, maybe you should show rather than tell more.

~Flora

It’s freezing cold
They close the door
The engine starts
I’m stuck to the floor

This last sentence is awkward in the rhyming. It seems like you're trying to hard to make it fit perfectly. Don't worry about rhyming, we've stopped caring since the 50s. Write freely.

I call out to find my friends
They do not answer
They’re probably dead

No offense, but I almost laughed out loud at this. It seems like it wants to be sad, but the way that it is said makes the writer seem rather callous.

It smells so bad it makes me sick
There’s no fresh air
Please make it quit.

Be careful. You don't want to reach directly to the audience. See how there's an unspoken "you" here? You want to try and avoid that thing. It reminds the reader that this is a poem, and they end up stepping back from it rather than being absorbed in it.

They turn off the engine and open the door
The living march out
The dead stay stuck to the floor

Again with the rhyme scheme. If you must, freestyle. It feels like hooves on cement. Duda duda duda, over and over. Rather dry.

They heard us into a little dark room
Out of nowhere I am kicked
I cry, he laughs

This is the best part of the poem. I cry, he laughs--this is very good. You see? No rhyme scheme is good rhyme scheme, in this case at least.

Everyone is screaming in fear and agony
They don’t seem to care the men just think its funny

So by "they" who are you referring to? They (being the men) dont seem to care, and they're showing it by laughing? Or they (being the people) don't seem to care THAT the men are laughing?

The torture continues, my screams grow weak
My poor, hard life is almost complete

"complete" seems out of order here. "over" might be more appropriate, because completeing your life seems like you've come to the end of a long road instead of being cut off short with murder.

I lay down on the floor in a crumpled mass
A man stares down and he just laughs

The repetitive of people laughing makes the whole thing rather silly. I would choose another action of the agressor.

Doesn’t he understand?
Doesn’t he care?

These questions are superflous. Obviously, he doesnt care. Why would he laugh at you if he did?

I’m just a pig

WHOA. Literally or figuratively? I like the way this caught my attention. Awesome.

I want to live
Please don’t let me die

This ending is very weak. Please don't let me die is very simple for the elaborate way he is dying.

I heard this was a war poem. I thought you should read a poem by one of my favorite war poets for inspiration.
[spoiler]Anthem For Doomed Youth


What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?
- Only the monstrous anger of the guns.
Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle
Can patter out their hasty orisons.
No mockeries now for them; no prayers nor bells;
Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs, -
The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells;
And bugles calling for them from sad shires.

What candles may be held to speed them all?
Not in The hands of boys but in their eyes
Shall shine The holy glimmers of goodbyes.
The pallor of girls' brows shall be their pall;
Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds,
And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds.

--Wilfred Owen [/spoiler]


Overall, I think it could use work. I know this is one of your first poems, which is great, because I know the ones to come will be great.
-Medusa.

I think this is a clever idea.
The thing that i find detracts from the overall piece is the rhyming problem you have. You go in and out of rhyming at what seems like random points and this confused me. I thought the poem was clever and whitty and the twist at the end was very intelligent. Only i found the problem with rhyming meant it didn't flow properly.
if this was fixed it would be a superb poem!!!
I especially liked the part
"They turn off the engine and open the door
The living march out
The dead stay stuck to the floor"
I think it is very heart felt and meaningful. You really convey the cruelty and brutality of the whole affair in a gripping way!!
I will look out for and review other poems and stories of yours!!
Dan

I liked the poem I thought it flowed well overall but there was one spot in the middle where it sounded a little awkward when read a loud (most likely because the rythming stopped:

They heard us into a little dark room
Out of nowhere I am kicked
I cry, he laughs

That was pretty much the only spot that stood out. Great poem and keep up the good work

First off, and don't be offended, but do take this to heart: PUNCTUATION! I know caps isn't pretty, but nor is a poem that has no indication of pause whatsoever. So put it in there! even though you don't consider yourself a poet, you can follow the basic rules...
Second: can not can be written as cannot or can't.
Third:...I don't know. Everybody else has picked through already. So do what they said they know just as well and can say it just as well as I can. So try it! Even not-very-experienced poets can improve their work.
Cheers!
--Voxina

Hello there!
Thanks for reviewing my piece.

I like this poem a lot, especially because it has purpose!!
I will do a step by step review...

tnme22 wrote:They march us in, two by two
I can not breathe, I can not move

To add variation, you could let these two lines stand alone.

tnme22 wrote:It’s freezing cold
They close the door
The engine starts
I’m stuck to the floor

The word "stuck" seems juvenile, without a definite meaning. Consider a substitute. "Pressed", maybe?

tnme22 wrote:I call out to find my friends
They do not answer
They’re probably dead
It smells so bad it makes me sick

The last line is too long. Try "the smell makes me sick."

tnme22 wrote:There’s no fresh air
Please make it quit.

If you are going to use punctuation, you should use it throughout the entire piece.

tnme22 wrote:They turn off the engine and open the door
The living march out
The dead stay stuck to the floor

Is the repetition intentional? If so fantastic.

tnme22 wrote:I look up into his cruel eyes.

The word "up" is not necessary here.

tnme22 wrote:Can’t you hear my screaming?
Don’t you see my tears?

For the sake of parallelism, the first line should read "can't you hear my screams?"

One last thing that I found distracting was how you dropped the rhyme scheme halfway through.
If you are going to use a strong pattern like you did in the beginning, you should probably stick with it 'till the end.

I love the message behind this, and you approached it in such an interesting way.
You might want to tweak the ending a bit, make it stronger.

Again, I love the animal rights thing.

PEACE
BABANUUK

A clever poem. I wasn't sure what it was about until the end, then it made total sence. I loved the bleakness and fear expressed by the pig, especially in the lines:

Out of nowhere I am kicked

I cry, he laughs

Everyone is screaming in fear and agony

They don’t seem to care the men just think its funny

The torture continues, my screams grow weak

My poor, hard life is almost complete

I lay down on the floor in a crumpled mass

A man stares down and he just laughs

I wish I could talk and scream till he bleeds

The layout of the poem was a bit odd in places, but other than that, a fine effort.

This is a nice poem, but it needs more describing, because there is too much narration and not enough showing, like said before...

What I also noticed is

They heard us into a little dark room

The heard needs to be changed to herd, like herding cattle.

The rhyming is very good, and overall it is very well written.

You have a really nice topic and you expressed it in a very nice way. I love the topic about you wrote, no one actually writes on these kinds of topics so it was a really good decision and as you said you are not that much of a poet, seeing that you did a great job.

They march us in, two by two

I can not breathe, I can not move

It’s freezing cold

They close the door

The engine starts

I’m stuck to the floor

I love this part. It is really good. It is very straight forward, I think that is good. It shows the emotion behind the writing.

I call out to find my friends

They do not answer

They’re probably dead

It smells so bad it makes me sick

There’s no fresh air

Please make it quit.

This part here I think you are trying to show how the animals feel when they are carried/shifted from one place to another. I like the use of words and the rhyme scheme.

They [s]heard[/s] herd us into a little dark room

I think it should be that herd.

Out of nowhere I am kicked

I cry, he laughs

Everyone is screaming in fear and agony

They don’t seem to care the men just think its funny

The torture continues, my screams grow weak

My poor, hard life is almost complete

I lay down on the floor in a crumpled mass

A man stares down and he just laughs

I wish I could talk and scream till he bleeds

Doesn’t he understand?

Doesn’t he care?

I look up into his cruel eyes.

Can’t you hear my screaming?

Don’t you see my tears?

I’m just a pig

I want to live

Please don’t let me die

This whole thing here connected strait to my heart. It shows how bad people behave with animals. They don't really care about how the animal is feeling. I think this poem brings out the emotion of the animal and this poem makes people realise that what they do to animals is not really good. Overall this poem had a good rhyme scheme and a very good topic. You demonstrated the whole thing really well. I like it.

Keep writing

- Anshita

Hi Carly! =]

I like your poem --- it's very nicely expressed, with a lot of emotion. You did say that you weren't much of a poet, so I was really surprised when I read this, because it's really good.

To be honest with you, the topic (animal rights) is a bit uncommon. I think I've only read about 2-3 poems about it (including yours). But anyway, this poem gave me a vivid impression, probably because you described the feelings of the poor pig (I am never going to eat pork again) and that you conveyed the brutality of the humans killing the animals in cold blood so simply, yet so vividly. It's really obvious that you give a lot of hard work into it~ ^ ^

They turn off the engine and open the door
The living march out
The dead stay stuck to the floor
They heard us into a little dark room

The comparison between the living animals and the dead ones was pretty good, but I think it would be better if you wrote:

The living shuffle out (because I think that the animals marching out gives me the feeling like they wanted to and that they were willing to be slaughtered.)

Also, I think you should use "herd" instead of "heard".

Out of nowhere I am kicked
I cry, he laughs
Everyone is screaming in fear and agony
They don’t seem to care the men just think its funny
The torture continues, my screams grow weak
My poor, hard life is almost complete

Again, the comparison between the pig and the man (one cries while the other laughs) was excellent. Also, the lines about the pig screams going weak and that his poor life is almost complete was pretty good. The rhyming scheme was excellent, too.

Doesn’t he understand?
Doesn’t he care?
I look up into his cruel eyes.
Can’t you hear my screaming?
Don’t you see my tears?

Obviously, the man doesn't care or even understands what the pig is going though, because the men thought it was funny to hear the poor animals screaming. That's why I think the two lines (Doesn't he understand? Doesn't he care?) can be omitted.

I hope that my comments were helpful~ ^ ^ You did a great job!

Keep up the good work! =]

-Rosie

Okay, I'm here for reciew no. Two! First of all, I like this: very much. The first few lines have nice flow, and they work well together with the original song. However, there are a few things after that which need to change. On the last line of the first verse, you say I'm stick to the floor. I think that this would flow better if it was just "I hit the floor"
I said that your rhyming scheem was lost after the first few lines. This is because you use longer sentences, and your rhyming schedm has changed.it's a good idea when you ate first writing poetry; if you label all of the lines in the first verse. By putting an a, b, or a c there you can tell which lines rhyme with each other.it's also a good idea to write down a quick note on how many syllables there are in a line, too. This will help to keep the flow going.
Anyways, I am certainly not the best at peotry here, but those are a few things that my English teacher todo the class to help with writing poetry. And I have really bad grammar in this reveiw, aswell, because I am trying to type it up on my new iPod touch. Just try and gt the flow and rhyming achrem food, because the plot and reason for writing are alredy amazing!

It would be better if you told it was a pig at the start because it sounded like an army poem, until the very last lines when you finally told your readers it was a pig, and it it's herd not heard.

Nice Rhyming. The problems I saw was that you didn't put periods at the ends of the sentences ,and this part doesn't really go together very good"They heard us into a little dark room
Out of nowhere I am kicked
I cry, he laughs ". It stands out a little.
You did a good job on describing whats happening.
You should keep writing poems.

it's good... is this your advocacy?? to save animals' lives?? hope through this people might be aware that even animals have right to live. god bless!