How it really is

You find sadness in the drunken man,
who is asleep in the street,
yet he finds his happiness,
in what makes his heart weak.

You feel sorry for the woman,
who lost her baby girl,
she has a violent disposition,
that baby would have hated the world.

You feel happiness in the summer,
when you're at a white wedding,
the groom will die in the car crash,
not such a happy ending.

You feel tired at the wheel,
of your shiny 4 by 4,
put pressure on the pedal,
and put the roof on the floor.

I'm fed up with reading love poems,
they always make me sick,
because the world is out to get you,
no happy ending, the world is just a prick.

Hiya Retrodisco666! Well, I appreciate the point of this poem, though I'm not saying I agree with it. First of all, who is your audience? Knowing your audience is important in any kind or writing. As the reader, I am confused as to whether you are talking about me or about yourself. You use the word "you" throughout the poem, then at the end you say "I." I have been taught that generallym the writer should never refer to the reader unless it is an instructions manual or something to that effect. You're writing about yourself, right? Isn't that generally what poetry is for? Who's to say I find sadness in that drunk guy or sorry for that gal? I think you get my point.

retrodisco666 wrote:You find sadness in the drunken man,
who is asleep in the street,
yet he finds his happiness,
in what makes his heart weak.

I like the rhyme and flow of this. However, you don't need the commas at the end of the first and third lines.

retrodisco666 wrote:You feel sorry for the woman,
who lost her baby girl,
she has a violent disposition,
that baby would have hated the world.

I like this stanza, but it doesn't flow as nicely as the first one. Your sentences are only separated by commas, so the reader might find it difficult to understand you. You may need to work on your meter a bit. In the first stanza, although there is no definite pattern in the number of syllables per line, the stressed and unstressed syllables flow well. Do you know what I mean?

retrodisco666 wrote:You feel happiness in the summer,
when you're at a white wedding,
the groom will die in the car crash,
not such a happy ending.

The second line here seems kind of random. You're talking about being happy in the summer. Can't a white wedding be in any season? Also, I would change the second "the" in the third line to "a."

retrodisco666 wrote:You feel tired at the wheel,
of your shiny 4 by 4,
put pressure on the pedal,
and put the roof on the floor.

Unless you're talking about math, you should write out four. The rule I've been taught is that you should write out any number up to twenty. One should write out thirty, fourty, fifty, sixty, seventy, eighty, and ninety, but no number inbetween. I'm not sure if this rule is universal or not, though.

I like how you made me think in this stanza. I must admit, it took me a second, but "put the roof on the floor" is quite clever. However, for the sake of flow, I might change "on" to "onto." Haha, on to onto.

retrodisco666 wrote:I'm fed up with reading love poems,
they always make me sick,
because the world is out to get you,
no happy ending, the world is just a prick.

I hate to say it, but your final stanza kind of let me down. I mean, you had this whole nice poem, and then you feel the need to sum it up. No happy ending. The world is just a prick. Though the rest of your poem is pessimistic, it is so in an enlightening sort of way. Your ending here is just plain pessimistic. Remember, not every literary work is ended satisfactorily. Just take the masterpiece Vilette, by Emily Bronte. Who the heck knows what happens there?

Hey! I'm Hailey.


First off, I really liked this poem, for the stated fact that it is different from what you usually read. It flowed well together, and with such little lines, it had much description. The last stanza, you state that the world is out to get us all, which is probably my favorite part of the entire poem because that is very true.

Good job, and keep it up!

Hey retrodisco666!

I liked this poem but I totally disagree. I know that it is your opinion but I didn't like it one bit. I really disagree. I think that it was a bit wrong to say that everything has an unhappy ending. To the actual poem, it was written well and flowed excellently. I didn't like the last poem because I thought it was irrelevant.

MWAHAHAHA!
-RepublicOfCoter(ROC)

Hey, Disco, June here,

I liked where you were going at the beginning. While I think that in terms of structure, you could do better because the meter in the lines is a little uneven, I thought you had great potential until I read the final stanza.

I know that you were probably going for that effect, but I felt that the final stanza destroyed everything that you built up previously, and because of that, it made the poem seem like a fallen effort to me.

Prior to the final stanza, I'm still not sure if you've worked an adequate style into your stanzas. When you introduce the story to us, and then give us the "ending" at the end of each stanza, I feel that for each of these you could have aligned them better, made them more uniform to how the others are structured, dear. In one, you have that one "would have hated", but in another you have "not such a happy ending", while yet another "finds happiness" and while variety is good, I think you could have kept a tense or a style to the final lines of the stanza to make this work better together.

So, I think this could use a revision to sand down the rough edges. I enjoyed the first few stanzas, but the last stanzas really took away from what I thought of this.

Keep writing,
June

Hey hey! You shall have my first review of the day

You find sadness in the drunken man,
who is asleep in the street,
yet he finds his happiness,
in what makes his heart weak.

I love what you're trying to say here but I think it needs a little work. It took me a second read to realise that you meant alcohol or drugs in your last line. It's a little vague and there's not much here in the way of visuals. It would really benefit from more colour and bolder statements. Also, pairing rhyme with rhythm makes for a really good poem. Here you've got 9 syllables for your first line, 7 for the second, 7 for the third and 6 for the last. I'd suggest aiming for a 9, 7, 9, 7 rhythm. It would improve the flow, especially if you could keep it running through the whole poem. For example, that third line could be something like: 'yet he finds a broken happiness' and then adding another word to the last line would be easy.

Another suggestion that applies throughout the poem is your choice of wording. To make a greater impact, you should choose stronger, more visual words and words that have a harsh or grating sound. Alliteration and sibilance are both great techniques. You should keep them in mind, especially when you want that sinister tone. If we take your second line:

who is asleep in the street,

What does this really say? What's so bad about sleeping in the street? Oh we can think of all the horrors association with that, being a vagabond, being homeless. It's not actually said here though. You should consider each word of a poem carefully, you don't get many so make it a good one. Using is (the verb to be) seems like a waste here. You could have lays or even better lies which would be ambiguous and also suggest dishonesty. Then consider asleep. It's quite a peaceful word, soft sounding and doesn't produce any bad thoughts for me. But if you were to change it to abandoned, it evokes more pity and emotion. It creates a stronger image. There's better words and if you spend more time on this you'll think of them.

You feel sorry for the woman,
who lost her baby girl,
she has a violent disposition,
that baby would have hated the world.

This stanza wasn't as strong as the first. It felt a little too simple and not wordy enough. I'd like to see a verb tagged on to woman, maybe lone, cold, lost. Also perhaps pity would be a stronger word than sorry? It's less used and has a stronger sound. Letters like p and b are known as plosives and are louder, more effective in poems like this. Soft sounds give a lilting tone which doesn't quite fit with your words.

You feel happiness in the summer,
when you're at a white wedding,
the groom will die in the car crash,
not such a happy ending.

I'm not sure if I like the change around here. Before you was looking at a negative followed by a positiove and now the other way around? It's a little jerky and confusing.

You feel tired at the wheel,
of your shiny 4 by 4,
put pressure on the pedal,
and put the roof on the floor.

This was over-simplified for my liking. The last line seems to make a joke of it and there's just not enough of the right words for this to really make people think. It's a bit like one of those corny rhymes you get in birthday cards, not at all like the first stanza which I really liked. In all honesty, I think you should cut this stanza completely and start it again. Maybe even just go back to the first and wipe the rest clean.

I'm fed up with reading love poems,
they always make me sick,
because the world is out to get you,
no happy ending, the world is just a prick.

The ending doesn't do your beginning justice. It's stronger than your middle stanzas and would perhaps fit better into another poem but doesn't work here. I liked the seriousness of your first stanza much better than this jokey, casual tone.

Anyway, I hope this helped a little!

Heather xx