Who am I

Candle lit fires
Stars in the sky
The sun in the morning
A carousel in the moonlight

Dreams upon a mountain
Animals that speak
Buds that bloom in the winter
Eagles that fly

Sex on the beach
Love in the midnight hour
A sensual touch
Romantic dinners
A kiss that lingers forever
A refreshing moment
A walk to remember
A beautiful awakening

I am none of these.

A tear from a freckled face
Blood dried on the pavement
A little boy who is lost
A woman that cries
A whisper in the silence
A longing that never goes away
Solitude everlasting
Hopes and dreams faded

A mountain that crumbles to pieces
A boat never paddled
A storm upon the oceans water
A lighthouse in the distance

Love never kindled
A battle within
A desolate heart
A glass that breaks

I am all of the above.

XavierJohnson123 wrote:Candle lit fires
Walks in the park
A carousel in the moonlight
Sex on the beach doesn't fit well..the flow of the poem is hurt here.

Dreams upon a mountain
Animals that speak
Love in the midnight hour
Women that weep much better.

[s]I am none of these.[/s] You should put this verse in some of these stanzas here. For itself, it doesn't do much of an impression.

Buds that bloom [s]in the winter[/s] too long. It's working fine without that.
Stars in the sky
Romantic dinners
Strangers that walk by or without that?

The sun in the morning
Eagles that fly
Refreshing moments
Joy in the night It's not really a rhyme ...

[s]I am also none of these.[/s]

Pain in the winter
Frustration in spring
Meaningless sex
Shadows beneath the surface What's with that sex? Whenever you say that word you mess something up...lol

A tear from a freckled face
Blood dried on the pavement
A little boy who is lost
[s]A[/s] whisperS in the silence

A longing that never goes away
Solitude everlasting
Hopes and dreams faded
A mountain that crumbles to pieces There's NO rhythm here.

A storm upon the oceans water
A boat never paddled
Love never kindled
A glass that breaks
naaa...rhythm here is also cut into pieces..
[s]I am all of the above.[/s]

You have 3 major problems:
-rhythm
-punctuation - see in tutorials
-you aren't connected with the subject. Tell us who you ARE, don't tell us who you AREN'T...

Hey, how're you doing? *shakes hand* I'm Evi, nice to meet you.

So, I like this, actually. Your list is very passionate and uses good abstract objects without straying too far from your subject. However, my main problem is that this poem is just that: a list.

It's hard to keep the readers' attention when you're rattling off random, seemingly unconnected items. I must say this-- the items are majorly cool. Really, I love the one about a carousel in the moonlight. You have some beautiful images popping into my head, which is good. That's the goal, right?

Yes, but the goal is also to keep your reader gripping to your poem, desperate for what comes next. In a poem, you don't have to worry about flat characters or a boring plot; you just have to keep us interested. I'm terribly sorry, dear, to tell you that I wasn't particularly captivated.

"So, Evi, what do I do?"

Here's where everything is only a suggestion. I think this would be so much better with rhyming, but then again, I always love a good rhyming poem. However! Here, I think you really could benefit from a good steady rhyming pattern. Rhyming is a great way to keep your reader interested-- it makes your poem smoother, and has your reader wondering what your rhyme is going to be. You already have objects that rhyme on here-- moonlight, night, etc. It wouldn't be too hard to shuffle these around a bit to get a consistant rhyme.

But what if that doesn't tickle your fancy?

Draw parallels

So, a great way to cleverly insert some extra meaning is to draw parallels between your lists. You have two columns, basically: I am this, and I am not this. You have four stanzas of 'I am not', and four stanzas of 'I am'. Here comes the brilliant part.

Connect them.

For example, you start with a candle-lit fire in your 'I am not' section. If you go down to your 'I am' section towards the bottom, you can have the first 'I am not' be something about darkness. You have fire/light, and you have darkness. If you do this for all of the lines and stanzas, that would be so epic, but if you only did it for a few, I think that could work also.


So, it's quite possible that the above suggestion made no sense. If it didn't PM me at once and I shall explain further. I liked this poem; the concept is wonderful, really. It just has too many loose ends, methinks. Connecting it all would tie it together and give us more of a complete poem.

Ya?

Good luck, and see you around!

~Evi

I love this so much that I'm almost beside myself. The images are beautiful.

I think it has some problems, but every suggestion I come up with would take away from the distinctive feel you've already created. So I think the best changes would be a few things concerning word and order, nothing too drastic.

Here's what I got.

You have 2 stanzas, then you say, "I am none of these." Then two more stanzas and then you say, "I am also none of these." I really hate that sentence because it is so prose-ish. It has no place in this beautiful poem. Last you have 4 stanzas and then you say, "I am all of the above." I would suggest putting all 4 of the stanzas of what you are not together and then putting "I am none of these." Does that make sense? Cut that boring sentence and make the poem symmetrical, so to speak.

Buds that bloom in the winter

Stars in the sky

Romantic dinners

Strangers that walk by



The sun in the morning

Eagles that fly

Refreshing moments

Joy in the night

Some of your stanzas have a little bit of a rhyme. Is that intentional? Like here, sky, by, and fly. I think it sounds a bit silly when the rhyming isn't uniform. I would break these lines up so the rhymes aren't near each other. Or if you want to go for rhyme, make it uniform (I like it without the rhyme.).

Some of your lines get a little bit prose-ish too. "Meaningless sex" and "A longing that never goes away" are two of my least favourites. I would rewrite them to make them more lyrical, perhaps.

Pain in the winter

Frustration in spring

Meaningless sex

Shadows beneath the surface

Actually, I think if you inverted the order of the last two lines, it would sound better and you wouldn't have to change "meaningless sex."

My last suggestion is to play around with the order of the lines to see if maybe a different order would make a better flow.

A storm upon the oceans water

A boat never paddled

Love never kindled

A glass that breaks

I love this stanza. So nice.

Bravo. Really well done.

rachel