It twists deep into my tangled roots,
Tightens its grasp on my soul.
Dark unease blooms, and flows through my veins--
Poison is taking its toll.
***
As a smothering agony builds
Sending tendrils to my heart,
Acrid stems creep down into my lungs
And tear my bronchi apart.
***
A crooked branch needles up my throat
Piercing my lips with a gash.
As the pain of silence rips my core,
My mind crumbles to ash.
***
Gnarled roots puncture crimson organs,
Bruises stain my skin with blood's name.
Tangled vines creep upon my weak face
And sanity bursts into flame.
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Canary word: Present
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125,012 Literary Works • 672,842 Reviews
Hi there whatchamacallit, Morrigan here to review your poem, as requested in the Gryffindor forum!
Man, it's been a long time since I've felt this way. Emotional poetry is such a great way to get those feelings out of you, isn't it?
Something I really like about this poem is the lack of repeated vocabulary. Every adjective and noun you use is fresh throughout the poem, with a few exceptions (which is totally fine).
The main thing I recommend is deciding on a meter. There are some spots where I was really getting into the rhythm, only to be tripped up by the following line. The simplest solution to this is for you to read your poem aloud to yourself, and see which lines sound awkward. It helps to really emphasize the stressed and unstressed syllables.
A stressed syllable is naturally louder than an unstressed syllable. Try to keep the rhythm consistent throughout the lines and throughout the poem. Let's dissect the meter of one of your stanzas! Caps are the stressed syllables.
What I want you to notice is how similar the second and fourth lines are, and how dissimilar the first and third lines are. The meter in the two similar lines feels great. The specific type of meter you use here is dactyllic feet. A foot is a unit of meter, so one dactyllic foot is a stressed syllable followed by two unstressed syllables. You don't have to use exactly the same meter throughout the poem. There are no rules! However, I think that a more structured meter that utilizes the dactyllic feet would benefit the poem. Whenever poems rhyme, I encourage meter so the reader really gets the most out of it. Rhyme without meter is like a cat without fur. Is it possible? Yes. But for the most part it's kinda wrinkly.
Your first line made me shake my head. Why? Because it starts out the whole poem with an unlinked pronoun. We can tell what "it" refers to after it is said. Why not start out with the word "weeds" instead? If you're worried about syllable count, it's the same amount of syllables. I feel like it's a much stronger start than "it."
The one thing I noticed about the imagery is that there is fire imagery alongside the plant imagery. I feel like there should be a transition between the two, rather than the fire sprinkled in alongside its fuel.
Altogether, I appreciate your word choice, and I encourage you to implement more meter in this piece. I hope that this review proves useful to you! Happy review day!
Thank you so much! I was aiming for a certain amount of syllables in each line (9-7-9-7) but I wasn't sure why even so, some of the lines didn't flow nicely. This explains it. Thanks!
Isn't it interesting that meter makes a bigger difference than quantity? I started out relying on syllable count at first, too, but there's a whole hidden society of meter!
Hi! My turn!
I must say, the imagery here is stellar. If I had to guess the narration described depression to a T with the added bonus of drug addiction. Since I have been diagnosed with clinical depression for some time now, the inner turmoil described in the poem is similar to the war that brews in the bowels of the beast. Everything internally twists, churns, grinds. The feeling is quite literally akin to bleeding inside, which is so evident in the poem. Very well done.
Thank you Fishr! This poem was meant to describe anxiety/depression/low self esteem/any other lovely negative emotions, so I'm glad you felt it represented that accurately!
Welcome!
So basically all the symptoms that run with depression. Haha! It really was well done.
Hi. I liked your poem. And that's because you had a great mix of vocabulary but you kept the theme. You described something really painful. It was a little bit difficult to really picture what was happening in the very first lines. I think we need it to really base the picture of what is happening on the title. But I don't think it's a really bad problem but a little more precision wouldn't be bad. Overall I thought it was a really good poem! Great job!