Hello there, and welcome to YWS! It's a pleasure to see you here!
Here is my honest opinion. It's filled with good intentions.
I really enjoy that you chose to make darkness a black cat. Interesting and nice.
However, there are some issues with this poem that need to be addressed.
1. This topic has been done before. Very done before. I'm sure that almost every poet at one time or another has written about darkness overtaking them. Now, you can still write about it. It's fine if you do. The problem is, if you do choose to write about such an overdone subject, you have to make the poem stand out and above the rest.
Unfortunately, this one does not.
Yet.
You can make it stand out. You've got a good start with the cat. Instead of saying that darkness follows her, why don't you make the cat darkness itself? I suggest you make a cat/prey metaphor and focus on that. Make sure you make it clear that the mouse is light. Mice are usually seen as pests, but I think that you can do it.
Another thing that would make this poem stand out more is more interesting vocabulary. You use a lot of rather dull words. Use a thesaurus to help you, although make sure you know exactly what a word in the thesaurus means before you put it into your poem.
2. Your poem is very long. In poetry, less is more. You have lots of words that just kind of sit there and only serve to dull the poem. I could probably write a poem with a similar meaning in five lines:
Cat slinks through deep snow
ushering armies of blue footsteps
to ice my heart.
I clutch at the light
but Cat has caught prey.
Now, I'm not saying you should cut your poem down to that short, or that you should use that style. I'm saying you can eliminate tons of words without dulling the meaning of the poem, and I encourage you to do so. I had a difficult time making it all the way through the poem.
3. There are a few glaring cliches in this poem that you need to revise. I've seen exactly the same ideas as these over and over:
Wear a mask of happiness,
to deceive the others
and yourself.
But deep down you know.
It’s holding you tight,
claws holding on to you,
dragging you out of the world of happiness…
And the smell of despair,
taste of blood,
the hands of sorrow grabbing you …
This is how it ends.
Your soul is torn apart.
I hope this review was helpful to you. Keep writing!
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