Young Writers Society

Hello there! I really love this poem, it gives us that pop of reality we all need. However, I do not agree with the person below me, I feel like religion, nowadays, only has bad aspects. My favorite line is "we the people are to blame for our own demise." This is so true. We all have a say in how our life goes. I love this piece. Keep writing!

You only discuss the downfalls of religion. You should devote an entire verse to all aspects of society, government, social/racial/gender ideologies, family life etc. You're being way to metaphysical about your objections to the world. Complaining about people judging others and complaining about the way people feel. That is pointless, criticize actions.

Don't go a tenth of the way, dismantle everything. You want a new start right? Then you have to tear down the old, all of the old.

YOu only discuss the downfalls of religion. You should devote an entire verse to all aspects of society, government, social/racial/gender ideologies, family life etc.

Don't go a tenth of the way, dismantle everything. You want a new start right?

Hi.
So I think this is a very philosophical piece, and obviously it won't apply to everyone, but you've done a very good job of promoting the human race in a good light.
Not necessarily that accurate, but... intriguing.

Religion has become toxic.

There is no home left here.

The scripture you read has been branded with lies.

We have sinned, although we have denied,

I pray for the day we are counted as equals,

as one,

will that day ever come?

Hey Scarlet~

As requested I'm here to give you a review. As I believe this is the first poem of yours I review, I'd like to request that you note I'm pointing out things that I see, and I tend to be highly critical. I'm critical of a lot of things, including published work, so even if I do say something could be better or worse, It's just my opinion as a fellow poet, and may not be your style.

With disclaimers done, let's get into the critiquing sandwich.

I do think that you've got a good idea here. You've developed a couple points that I feel like you've developed mostly as thoughts, and these thoughts are either highly pessimistic just by nature, or you've actually put quite a bit of time into constructing this argument. Of course, the argument I'm seeing in this poem is that while we are living by what we believe is morally good, we are all injured souls, and need to rethink what is moral.

One of the larger parts of poetry is to use imagery to support messages as true through allowing the reader to develop the conclusion itself. Just like in crafting a story to tell about how wrong it is to be prejudice, a poem can be handled the same way. For me, this craft is lacking in the poem as we don't get many images to grasp.

We do get short glimpses into the reality such as "poisoned the watering hole" and "there is no home here" but these things are still rather in the abstract and are relatively common phrases. You also use "How could we have been so blind" which I'm sure I've heard in at least one movie. These sorts of cliche lines might have given you an image, but I encourage you to expand on them if you do keep them. For instance, blindness is not a condition one can get rid of in most cases. If you've got cataracts, are you really blind, or just visually impaired? This can pose an interesting debate with the phrase which I would expect a poem to go into, especially if you're arguing that we have the ability to heal, as you seem to be doing.

The other prominent image is the missing home, but if "home" refers to the place where you feel comfortable, you may not need one physically, and also what is left behind without a home there? It doesn't become a void because there is no home, so what is left, and who is looking at this place without their home? These sorts of questions can really help develop a poem beyond the surface of cliche lines and create something unique out of reused lines.

Onto a couple nit picks:

Two, to, and too. You use to and too wrong, mostly because you missed using too all to-gether. [get it? to-gether? like to gather but together >D because, you know, "to".]
Just as the word too has too many 'o's in it, it is used for an excess of something. "too ignorant to see" would be the proper phrasing.
To do, to be, to gasp, to grow, to [verb] is usually the set up with to. To usually sets up an infinitive, so when you hear split infinitive, you're actually looking for something where TO is separated from it's verb: to bracingly gallop, to happily skip, to exuberantly and unwittingly fall, to-with a running leap- barely, just barely, miss. In your case you have
to heal, to feel, to claim, and to see.
Of course, people say not to split infinitives, but this poetry, give it whatever spice you want, just remember that too many tos is two too many 'o's missing ^.-

Your sentence structure is poor. Stop thinking like a line is a sentence and start thinking like a sentence is a sentence. Each sentence needs a subject, and a predicate.

Leaving humanity corrupted and torn apart.