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Young Writers Society



Trampled by War

by TimmyJake


The fields were tall and the grass rose green,

The scent of the flowers drifting on the breeze.

A place of life.

A place where no sound of discord was heard.

A place that never saw the constant strife of war.



A moment of reality spread across the field,

And all throughout this realm of tranquility,

The rumor spread.

War was heading to their fields of peace.

Death and Pain would leave their soil stained.



Grass was trodden down by battle-worn boots,

And flower petals were muddied and cast down

To be trampled.

Crimson fell onto the field from the wounds,

Staining it to the core and changing it forever.



The field never sprang back, but remained lifeless.

The muddied boots had left their field for a time.

Yet essence remained.

The flowers never bloomed in the springtime again,

For both their life and spirit were gone.

How can a flower grow when it has been picked?

Trampled deep down, never to bloom again?


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Thu Mar 06, 2014 5:36 pm
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LeoPenrhythm wrote a review...



Hey, here is a short review of your poem by me. The idea that went on to write the poem was a good one and very well expressed. While at the same time, the vocabulary used in some placed tends to cause a dissonance with the poem at length. for e.g


"flowers DRIFTING on the breeze."

drifting here seems to be an unsuitable word for me. I know that in a poem we usually tend to use words that makes a line "more poetic" by using synonyms of words which we would have otherwise have put in a line. But sometimes we should keep in mind that the use of simple words gives a line a capacity to give the reader a sense of simplicity which is more easily and acceptably digested than using more "poetic sounding" words. So here you can just replace it with "flowing" and can keep it simple. And also, it should be 'in' the breeze rather than being 'on' the rain.

Another line:

"CRIMSON fell onto"

Again, if you read this line you will easily figure out as to why I am pointing out this line to you. Crimson here sorts of disrupts the intended mood of the poem. I know you wanted to use crimson to signify blood, but don't you think the use of the word "blood" would have given it the desired gravity of gloominess and moribund ambience that entails war. Crimson sorts of fictionalizes the idea of war, albeit it also fantasise the idea itself. So, the desired response gets broken in the reading of this line with "Crimson". Also, to note that, it sounds like a name of a person when read. So, in a sense, as I am saying, It reads as if someone fell onto the ground! hehe :)

Also, another line:

"and CAST DOWN

To be trampled."

Here, cast down doesn't seem to fit in the reading of this line. If we go by literal meaning, it seems as if someone threw down the petals and trampled it down! (I wonder if that was what you intended to say)

But, if we go by the dictionary meaning than it seems completely to kill the sensical meaning of the line. Are you here personifying the petals????? For if yes than you would have to personify the flowers as well and that would make your poem a bit complex, abstruse in other sense, for the "scent" would then complicate the entire poem.

Lastly, as I have already touched the idea of personification, my suggestion would be that if you can personify the idea of war in your poem, it will rather give a more direct and sharp comment on the futility of war and its undesired casualties.

just to give you one example:

"Grass was trodden down by battle-worn boots"

instead, you can write it as-

"The grass was trodden by the boots of war"

The use of article can actually help sometimes.

I would also like to talk about the rhythm in the poem, but that is easy enough to make out where it feels broken i.e. in which lines.

So, this was just a small, pedantic review of your poem. It's my personal take on this poem so just felt like sharing my views on it. Hope it proves to be conducive for your further posts. And nevertheless, this is a good poem. Nice job :)




timmyjake says...


Thanks for your review! It was very helpful! :)



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Thu Mar 06, 2014 9:05 am
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Deanie wrote a review...



Heya Tiny Tim... You should feel very honored... You get my 750th review! :D Let's make this one long and special then...

So I remembered how you said I never review your poems and only read them ^^ So in the spirit of hitting that 1000 I'm going to review three of your poems today :D Here goes...

This poem was very good because of it's meaning. I like how you started off with peace, no war, and then in the second stanza show how the ground was now stained. And then lastly you concluded beautifully by using the symbolism of the flower and asking the question to us readers. You showed us how now such a peaceful place was ruined because of what war did to it, and it was a poem that made the reader think about war and whether its consequences were really worth it.

So, the poem is great by meaning. And the form matches it too, showing us the three stages and having two stanzas for the horror when the actual war is happening.. But what could really work here is having more poetic techniques, to emphasise the points you're making in some places and just add to the rhythm and appearance of it in general. I'm going to try and take it stanza by stanza.

The fields were tall and the grass rose green,

The scent of the flowers drifting on the breeze.

A place of life.

A place where no sound of discord was heard.

A place that never saw the constant strife of war.


First two lines = perfect. Not a thing to change, because your using the field where it all happens as a key thing here.

Then you go on to use the repetition of the word 'place' which is fine. But you obviously point out that a war has never been here. I think that's fine, but if you really wanted to step it up, you could continue the wonderful symbolism you have at the end and start it here. Use the flower as the mourning sense of the war. So instead of saying it never saw the constant strife of war, perhaps say how there were flowers that grew, and peace that tangled itself in the trees and settled into the very soil or something. Use alliteration here as well (you know, when all the words start with the same letter or something. Like a place full of peaceful puppies which was only an example). Maybe the letter 'p' would be good here for it, seeing as you already use place a lot.

I really like the second stanza so I wouldn't change anything there. If you want you say how the soil would be stained, but if you wanted to add to it you could refer to the symbolism of the flower (I know, again?) or maybe just how we're using nature in general here. By saying that as the soil is stained they'll be uprooting the peace as if it was a filthy weed to get rid of something. Or maybe that's overdoing it. Up to you ^^

And flower petals were muddied and cast down

To be trampled.

Crimson fell onto the field from the wounds,

Staining it to the core and changing it forever.


First line is fine... sounds good to me. When you say 'to be trampled' it seemed a bit too short and sudden. Maybe to trampled underfoot and squashed by soulless bodies or something? Puts more focus on the amount of dead...

The third line has just a bit of awkward wording. Crimson is referring to blood, I assume? So maybe: crimson fell onto the field from bleeding wounds, instead of using the 'the' and being more direct. Also, maybe mix it up from using staining the last time, because I feel like it's been used recently from the previous verse? Maybe you could refer to the murder here by saying, I don't know... stabbing into it's core or something?

And of course, for the final verse, there isn't a thing I would change because I love it's conclusion so much <3 And how it ends on a question...

This was pretty long >.< I kind of took the poem apart bit by bit, but do bear in mind that this is all just suggestions, and only suggestions, that I kind of made up as I writing this along. It's your poem and it's really up to you what you want to do with it. I have another two reviews like this write! On to the next...

Deanie x




timmyjake says...


Thanks for your review, my friend! :D Mucho appreciated. :D



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Sun Mar 02, 2014 4:28 pm
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deleted5 wrote a review...



Hey timmy! Alex here to review your poem!
I really loved this poem! You had loads of very effective and original imagery and ideas in it! My favourite line was:

The flowers never bloomed in the springtime again,

For both their life and spirit were gone.

I loved how this bit had a double meaning. Not only the literal that nothing ever grew again but it's also meaning that the war was never forgotten and it's effects will still be felt forever.
There's not really anything wrong with this! I only spotted one thing that could be improved in my opinion:
Grass was trodden down by army boots,

It feels a bit wrong to have a noun there where you could have some really interesting imagery or adjective there. I think "army" seems a bit to plain and you could have easily had something interesting to describe the boots.
Overall, lovely poem! Very nice concept and imagery! *drops like*




timmyjake says...


Thank you for your review! I will change that! :D



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Sun Mar 02, 2014 7:21 am
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secretemogirl21 wrote a review...



hey
Nice poem good work. I really only have one thing wrong with it( this is in my opinion so you don't have to listen) but the last two lines do they both need a ? mark
Now I'm sorry; that all sounds horribly rude and make your poem sound like it isn't very good. It really is. You've got a great start which I really enjoyed, it just needs some polishing--and don't most poems? I hope you keep writing because I really enjoyed this!




timmyjake says...


Thanks for your review! I will work on that!




"Don't tell me the sky's the limit when there are footprints on the moon."
— Paul Brandt