Young Writers Society

Many tears make the pool
The pool of insanity
Which holds the empty
and the soulless in its grip

It feeds off of my blood
Which rolls drop by drop
From my wrist
Into its open abyss

The pain which dwells in me
Comes out through my lips
Making the pool’s mixture
A black toxin

So much hatred running deep
From my fingertips, which skim the water
makes the pool
deathly addictive to drink from

And I drink from it daily
Cupping my hands greedily
For my thirst is unquenchable
And my pain is unceasing



This is a poem that I like...to some degree. But it just doesn't capture the gothic picture of a girl leaning over the pool, like, addicted to it. How can I make it more effective?

I thought it was pretty good. Except you use the word 'drink' way too many times; it sounds clunky after awhile. Other than that, i liked it. I can't really think of anything to make it more effective...

This poem seemed like you tried to dedicate it to one image. Don't. Good poetry comes from your heart, not your mind. Relax when you write and don't worry about capturing the "right" image. The image in your readers' minds will be different from yours, so you shouldn't try to make it all the same. Otherwise, your poem is as boring as the day is long. Instead of devoting a poem to an image, devote an image to a poem. A girl staring at a pool as though she is mesmerized is a good image, but whenever you try to explain why she is, to your audience, some of the original resplendor we retain is lost to the expository notes. I think you should incorporate this image into a much broader poem, instead of writing about an image. Poetry comes from the heart, not the mind.

I liked this poem alot the imagery was lovely ( well you know what I mean lol ) however it feels a tad forced I don't know I maybe wrong... Maybe explain the girl a little like how she looks bending over the pool? sorry I know this wasn't much help lol but I did like it alot

So much hatred running deep
From my fingertips, which skim the water
makes the pool ____> THIS LINE FEELS OUT OF PLACE TOO SHORT.
deathly addictive to drink from

hope I've helped kind of.
Love wu x

All right...I'm sorry to say, I don't like it. I'm not a fan of that kind of style, really, the way some pieces seem to clunk out there while other parts seem to actually run as sentences...I'm big on sentence strucure, on flow of something as I read it.

Many tears make the pool
The pool of insanity

Do you have to repeat pool? It seems like you wanted something there that meant pool, couldn't think of anything, and so put pool again. While doing something like that later on in a poem is sometimes effective, if you do it too early it puts the readers mind into a certain set.

Also, could I get some punctuation? The way you have it set up, my mind just isn't focusing on where everything should be. I had to go back and add commas and periods to read correctly outloud. A poem shouldn't force a reader to re-read it several times just to understand it.

It feeds off of my blood
Which rolls drop by drop
From my wrist
Into its open abyss

Not seeing any original imagery here. Blood from a slit wrist falling into an abyss...how many times has that image popped up in a thousand othe poems? Seen it, liked it, saw it again, got bored with it.

The pain which dwells in me
Comes out through my lips
Making the pool’s mixture
A black toxin

The first part, eh, so-so. Nice roundabout way of sayig you screamed, but it's so...bland. It 'comes out'? You make it seem like 'oh, here's pain...now what do I do?' Put something more...emotive in there. Make the pain have to fight its way out of your soul! I like the second part, though once again, 'making' is a rathe blaize way of putting it. Some more descriptive words would make this awesome.

So much hatred running deep
From my fingertips, which skim the water
makes the pool
deathly addictive to drink from

I agree with Wulie on the third line of this one. It's too short for the rest of this stanza, and you repeated almost the exact same phrase from the stanza just before that. Once again, 'make the pool', unimaginative, no emotion, just sitting there. I like the change from running deep to skimming though, nice contrast, yet it fits wonderfully. Also, the other stanzas have an almost sentence structure, yet the way you word this one makes it clunky. You go from 'ing' to no (I forgot the name of what you call those things on the end of words! Ah!) to 's' to 'ly' to nothing again. Keep the wording the same!

And I drink from it daily
Cupping my hands greedily
For my thirst is unquenchable
And my pain is unceasing

Ok, you called it addictive, yet you make no more reference to how addicted the girl is. Say something about how she NEEDS to drink. Just a little though from me, how about switching greedily and daily? Kind of changes regular descriptives to something a little more out there.

There ya go, a critique. How I helped!

thanks you guys so much for the crit. And here's something I wrote with the same imagery in mind...but different. I don't know if I like it or not.


Insanity

It is a dark pool
inky black,
crimson red
with open jaws to feed off of the hopeless
made of tears
drowned in blood
a black toxin
to all who touch it
drink of it and die
slowly, painfully
as it eats your sorrow
holds you captive
as though you are shackled to its surface
like the many others who lie beside you
around the pool
their fingers skimming the water lustfully
their eyes circling the dark woods
you never would have found this place
if the darkness hadn’t led you here
through the moss-laden grounds
amidst a haunted forest of ethereal beings
calling your name
calling your name...
and you must come
when it calls your name
it is your fate
hold onto it, grasp it
you cannot let it go
cannot let it go...
your red lips now part the waters
as a vampire preying on blood
you need the poison
and you are blind to your reflection
to your gray eyes, once so bright
now circled in black
to your face, so pale, so deathly
shadowy and gray
you can only drink, addicted to its sweet scent
like the deteriorating bodies all around you
only drink, and waste away.

the blood and the pain and the pool of tears
pain pain pain
angst



thats what i got out of this. do you listen to linkin park?

nope.
that was like...a sort of half-awake thing where I saw myself looming over the "pool of insanity."

i liked it...but yeah it seemed a bit forced. i know what you're trying to get at, but i really had to ponder over the concept instead of being smashed in the face with it. you kind of...directly spell it out instead of surprising the reader, you know? however, i love the idea. it just needs a bit of sorting out.

This is absolutely magnificent...

Catching the attention of the reader right away is a skill that is very nice to have.

You, apparently, have mastered that skill.

Very nice poem. Short and sweet. I enjoyed it more than you know.

oh, thanks. That's cool. doesn't mean much to me so I didn't think it mean anything to anyone else. sweet...

Many tears make the pool
The pool of insanity

The repetition just didn't workhere...

Eh...I didn't really like it... I wanted to, but I didn't...