Away from everything I believe in
Everything I’ve known since I was young
.
It calls to me
Relentlessly, like I’m a slave to its whims
Like I am someone with no will to stop
But I am not these things
.
It tries to drag me
Away from what I know is right
It uses me for its own gain
And when it awakens, we struggle
To see who will take control
.
A never-ending war inside my heart
Between me and this abomination
This horror is a part of me, yet
I reject and despise it
With all of my righteous thought
.
It invaded and contorted part of my soul
It built a foothold in me that I must shake
In order to win this constant battle
Within me.
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Canary word: Present
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125,034 Literary Works • 672,916 Reviews
Hey! Weymouth here to review this
To start right off, I thought that this was a great poem, it's very full of emotion and because the poem is addressed to this mysterious "It", there is a certain degree of mystery and suspense to it. I am very familiar with the subject of the poem, that voice in your head that tries to change the way you think or act, and I think that you've described and showed this very well. I particularly like the lines "This horror is a part of me, yet I reject and despise it with all of my righteous thought." These lines really speak to the reader about how you feel about this part of yourself.
However, there are some things which I think could be improved. Firstly, some use of full stops or commas would make it easier to read and create the desired flow and the pace that you want the reader to read it at. Also, the periods in between the stanzas are not needed, you can use a line break ( <br> ) when formatting the poem in the publishing center. Also, one other thing I think that you could tinker with is the word "abomination". I'm not a hundred percent sure that it's the right word to describe what you're describing, but it's your choice, you might have a good reason for using it, i'm just saying i don't think it fits very well with the flow of the poem.
All in all, a great piece of writing! I would love to read more of your poems, keep it up!
Hello! That was really great!
Hmm... I have to think about what this all means. It sounds like a religious battle with ones self. But it could be anything. I thought it was lovely, and I had been planning on reviewing it... but I honestly can't think of anything to say!
Keep up the awesomeness!
-Socks
Hi, Crunchman99! I'm really excited to review your poem! I hope that my review can start to live up to the normal quality of your reviews
All right, so what I get from this poem is that the narrator is struggling against themselves to win this battle. However, this poem needs to answer a few questions before it can really get into its stride.
First of all, what is this all important and mysterious "it"? You start every stanza except for one with it, and even in the stanza that explains what it is, we still don't really know what it is. The abomination is a metaphor, yes, but for what? What is dragging the narrator into this battle with herself? Is it some kind of addiction? Is it the voice of self-doubt? In a poem like this, the reader needs context in order to form an emotional connection with it (which is important). So while you're using symbolism and metaphor, the reader needs some clue as to what the concrete part of the symbolism and metaphor in order to understand what the narrator is really feeling in the poem. The raw emotion is there, but in order for the reader to also experience this raw emotion, we need context.
Try to avoid starting multiple stanzas with the same word. I understand that "it" is emphasized in this poem because it is a huge part of the narrator's life, but as I mentioned before, we need a clearer idea of what "it" is anyway. Use more varied vocabulary throughout your whole piece in order to create interest and to clarify what you already have.
The idea of a battle within oneself has become imageless because I've heard it so many times. While it's a nice idea, I don't see any images in my head anymore because the metaphor is so overused. In fact, throughout the whole poem, quite a few cliched images exist. Let me point out to you the ones that need rewriting.
To do this, one must think of what evokes emotions that are similar to this. Perhaps instead of a battle, you could use some storm imagery, or the sea. If you feel less nature driven, perhaps the imagery of a car accident could work. Pick imagery that the reader is familiar enough with so they can visualize the imagery you give them. I doubt that most of your readerbase can really visualize an actual battle that well, since they've never seen one in real life. But the terror of a near car wreck, or the strange tension in the air during a thunderstorm is a real image that you can use to anchor your abstract ideas that your readers can visualize.
While it's totally optional, I suggest you punctuate more in order to keep all of your thoughts straight. I tend to punctuate poetry as I would prose, and I find that the message is clearer. Since there is a great article on this site already written about punctuation in poetry (and I'll throw in a nice one about capitalization, as well), I'll link you to the article. ABC's of Punctuation in Poetry
Capitalization in Poetry
Your line breaks can be a bit odd. In the following lines that I highlight, I suggest moving the first word of the second line to the end of the first.
The first and the third stanza are a bit too similar for my liking. It seems a bit redundant. I think you should take out the first stanza, and just start with the second, as the third stanza expresses everything that you said in the first stanza, but with more information.
So altogether, my advice is to clarify and take out redundant and or unneeded information. I hope that this review proves useful to you! Have a nice day, and keep writing!
Thanks! I have to say, you've succeeded in matching my reviews in terms of length. So good job!
Thank you for the advice, by the way. Like I said, I haven't written much freeverse poetry before, so reading critiques like this makes it a good learning experience.
In addition, I'm trying to learn how to make high-quality reviews of freeverse poetry. I figured posting my own and observing your guys' comments would help me in that area as well.
Clever, eh?
I love this. I could really relate to it and I only have one nitpick. First I'm going to tell you what I liked. I liked how this poem is so easy to relate to. Everybody has this internal struggle, this little voice in our heads that makes us do and think things we know aren't right. It's something I've been struggling with recently. I enjoyed how this poem was simply written to describe a very complex idea. It made it easier to relate to.
The nitpick.
This is very minor, but "To see who will take control" is something of an awkward sentence. I feel like it's just there, and the stanza could've stopped at "we struggle" but that would make the stanza short. So I don't know, it just bothered me. I also noticed that you didn't use periods. Like at all. Maybe it was a stylistic choice, I'm not sure. Other than those, I didn't see any problems.
Great job on the poem, I really enjoyed it!
XOXO,
Gravity
I really like dramatic, war poetry like this, and this one is one of the more interesting ones. I like how you say it a lot referring to some unknown person or thing, and it makes the story two times more interesting. Wouldn't it be cool if you do like poetry chapters on this? I dunno, it joust seems like a cool idea to me. You don't actually have to do it...