Young Writers Society

Ooh, this one is really depressing. I know how positive you are, generally, so to hear the end of this poem -- the denouncement of all of the hopes and aspirations of these people, is really shocking. Their hearts are made of coal? There's no potential for redemption? It makes me wonder what the children's hearts are made of.

I like the philosophy behind this. I really do. It's awesome because it takes a personal point of view to look out into the oblivion of future and unknown, and time rushing on. It tastes a little bit like thinking about environmental issues: how do I save the future for you? It's an important and emotional topic.

However, just hitting the general ideas about a topic isn't really what makes a memorable poem. Do you want to write a poem that hits someone so hard they have to do something about it? Then you need to evoke emotion and understanding UNDER their skin. When you generalize, you activate just an academic understanding of the situation. But that doesn't get in me. It doesn't move me. I wonder what this poem would read like if you brought in a scene or specific characters to give a voice to this same philosophy. I remember one night after watching Ferngully when my dad said he really hoped there would be a rainforest left for me to go to when I grew up. We cried together though I didn't really understand why. Does that move you? Does it fit with the idea you're working on for this? If so, you can see the power of specifics. If not, try experimenting with it yourself. I may just not have hit something that rings with you.

I hope you take another look at this poem. I'd love to talk with you, too, if you have any questions or comments about my review.
Good luck and keep writing, sunshine!

Hello ariana!

First I'd like to say that this is not the first time I've read your poetry. I've reviewed it, and just read it before. That being said, I like where this poem tried to go, but I think it fell a little short from it's goal. The strong point of this poem is that you've begun to single out individual stories and focus in on the small details of something massive which will help people connect with the poem. There's a quote that floats around, "One death is news, one thousand is a statistic." Well, that quote holds true in poetry also. If you're just writing about one person, you can really get in depth with who they are, what they're going through, and the emotions they're experiencing. If you write about many, than you end up writing about things in a less personal manner.

The reason I'm saying this is because your poem has "a father" and it also has "Mothers" which it talks about. When it was speaking about a father, just one father alone in the world who wants the best for his kid, it was personal. It was something that people could relate to and someone they could see. After that, you had mothers, which was a stark contrast from the individual personalized father. Mothers, plural, might make a good scene in your head, a lot of women kneeling on the ground begging together, but it's a statistic. How many mothers does it take for someone to care? Well, more than those kneeling and crying on the ground.

Personally, I think that's a shortcoming of this poem. You start out strong, one father, and move through a massive population instead of continuing to pick out individuals and then saying that this is not the only case.

I would like to see this poem either draw on the father, and move away from saying that he wants the best for his child, to showing how he fights for the best food, or works himself to death for the best child-care, or the best schools, but it's all in good time. Try to stay away from phrases you've heard before, like "we just want what's best for our children" and "day by day" because that's going to lose your readers interest by reminding them of other things.

Aside form that, this poem has a rhyme scheme, but it doesn't, which can annoy people sometimes. Right now it's ABBCDEFGHBBIJK It's a little distracting to just suddenly have a rhyme scheme again after so long without one, and it makes me wonder if there was supposed to be a rhyme scheme and it just botched itself up. I've had poems do that to me before. The best way to get rid of a rhyme scheme, without changing the poem, is to change the lines.

Right now I would love to see your poetry with more consistency in the punctuation because you can start playing with enjambment if you get comfortable putting punctuation in the middle of lines. Also, while I understand the feeling that each line needs to be capitalized, it's not necessary for this poem. Personally I feel like it is necessary when I'm writing a poem that is nodding back to the older style, or an older time, or a poem that is simply in an old structured format. This poem is none of those things that I can see, so giving it a shot with taking away the capitalization might make it look cleaner, and make it easier for this new-age to read it without stopping at the end of every line expecting a period because of the capitalized letter.

Just some thoughts. If you want to read more about enjambment check this out: http://www.poetryarchive.org/poetryarch ... do?id=8102

Hello there, Ariana! =D

It has been ages since I last wrote my review, but I wanted to get started again and your poem was the first one to catch my attention! Hopefully I am not too out of practice and will be able to give you a good and helpful review! Alright, here we go!

This is overall a good poem and I like the story it tells. Poems with stories in them are probably my favorite. You did a good job on that!

The ending of the poem however sounds more poetic than the beginning of the poem. If you could make the beginning of the poem sound just a bit more poetic (a bit more descriptive and some pretty words blabla =P) than this poem would be even lovelier! ^^

I love it that you used punctuation (Woot! 8D) but you forgot a few periods in this part:

A heartbroken father clings to his son

As a father, he only wants the best for his child
He tries to conceal the fear his has for what will come

Mothers kneel on their knees

He tries to conceal the fear his has for what will come

Sounds like a family living during WWII. In the perspective of the German side, that's how I see it any way... Was this published Earlier? I liked how everything just goes together.