BUY ME A PEN
Am an African child,
Looking for the key.
“education is the key”
they said.
Am not paid,
But I need a pen.
Mother, buy me a pen.
I need a pen to write A to Z,
A pen to write 1 to 54,
A pen to write my name,
A name to make African fame.
For now I could sing A to Z,
Count 1 to 54.
It’s through the pen.
I now know A is for Africa,
Africa for Angola, Algeria…
B- for Burundi, Botswana…
C- for Chad, Congo, Cameroon…
S- for South Sudan, South Africa, Somalia…
Z- for Zambia, Zimbabwe…
It’s a pen to define Africa.
Buy me a pen,
A pen of greatness,
A pen of honor,
A pen of unity,
A pen of knowledge,
A pen of identity,
A pen to write Africa.
Mother I need a pen,
A pen to take me across the globe.
On the map I want to write Africa,
I want great America to know Africa.
On every nation I want to paint Africa.
Buy me a pen mother,
A pen to make me a proud AFRICAN.
By; J.P.ALEU
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Canary word: Present
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125,005 Literary Works • 672,798 Reviews
Carly here: ( A very short review from another African)
First a big welcome to YWS! believe me, you'll feel at home, they made me feel same too. Anyways that's for that, I'm here for a short review after a long while of being here.
I like your poem very much. I have my a favourite lines too. (as always.) so here goes:
** I now know A is for Africa,
Africa for Angola, Algeria…
B- for Burundi, Botswana…
C- for Chad, Congo, Cameroon…
S- for South Sudan, South Africa, Somalia…
Z- for Zambia, Zimbabwe… **
This was great idea..it was incredibly wonderful and well written..
I have very few issues with this poem anyway. I think your rhyme scheme was forced. next time if you can't find a good rhyme to match the next, just let your words flow naturally and appropriately. poetry isn't all about rhyming..
hope this little helps...
thanks charly for your encouraging words i will consider your advice.i appreciate
Hi there! Welcome to YWS, by the way!! I'm Saru, here for a hopefully quick review on your poem!!
I'm going to try and start on the grammar and little things with your poem.
Is this restating the title? If so, it's unnecessary, your title is already at the top.
Make sure you add an 'I' here.
I try not to correct artistic style too much (capitalization, etc) but you probably want to stay consistent. Since for most of the poem you use correct grammar rules, you might want to capitalize the beginning of your quote (and add a comma at the end of your quote for correct punctuation).
Same annotation as "I am an African child,".
I feel like these lines should be meshed together somehow, maybe something like,
But I don't know. Phrase it however you want.
You may want to format these lines as so;
This is already a pretty hard-hitting end line, I don't think you need to capitalize African.
Other than a few minor grammar corrections, I don't have much to say about your poem. It really seemed like you're passionate about this. Keep writing poems!!
-Saru
thanks saru, i am grateful for your review and to be honest this what i have been missing. as an upcoming writer you need people n the same field to share ideas, make corrections where necessary to help improve ones work. i will put your corrections in considerations.thanks
Thanks for responding, and you're welcome!
Hello there and happy RevMo (even if I am a bit late to the reviewing party)! I, a bold Knight of the Green Room, am here today to review you.
With that said, first impressions first, I noticed that the lines of your poem are quite a bit spaced out, and it looks like you've run into a formatting snafu with the text editor. There are a few ways to fix this, and this article goes over multiple methods in-depth, though this one is also really good.
First impressions are important for retaining fickle readers, and right now, the first impression I got from this piece was that it was quite long when it isn't actually so.
Another thing I noticed was that it seems you have the title again at the start of the piece, except I'm not sure because it could also potentially have been intended as the first line, and it's a bit confusing. If "BUY ME A PEN" is the title, then there's no need to include it again as the title of the work already displays at the top of the page, and having it show up again is a bit redundant.
With all that said, this piece is a bit difficult to critique because I get the feeling that poetry in Africa is quite different from poetry over here, and I'm not very familiar with the conventions of African poetry.
As it stands, it doesn't feel quite right to critique the structure of this, though if I might suggest something: since the goal stated in this piece is to write of Africa and make Africa known, you may want to consider writing an explanation of the forms and conventions you are calling upon at the start of your poem in an author's note. It will help educate those of us who aren't familiar with those forms and conventions and help us help you improve your writing skills.
It's not a requirement, but I think it will save you a lot of frustration in the long run as it will help avoid people commenting on how "wrong" things were done without consideration for the traditions you are drawing upon.
thanks kyllorac, i will look into that
Hello AleuP24! Welcome to YWS! Kara here for a (hopefully) quick review!
BUY ME A PEN
Give me your soul.With that aside, I'm not the best at poetry but here we go!
Bold = grammar and flow issues.
Italics = suggestions and overall
Strikethrough= removeUnderline = random Kara comments.
Spoiler
{I'm} an African child,
Looking for the key.
“{E}ducation is the key{,}” {Never use the same word to rhyme in a poem. It shows amateurity}
they said.
{I'm} not paid, {"paid" doesn't rhyme with "said"}
{b}ut I need a pen. {Usually grammar like this doesn't count (capitalization in the beginning of a line, I mean) but you don't capitalize usually when you're in the middle of a sentence in the beginning of the line, if you know what I mean, so that's why I'm fixing it}
Mother, buy me a pen.
I need a pen to write A to Z,
A pen to write 1 to 54,
A pen to write my name,
A name to make African fame.
For now I could sing A to Z,
Count 1 to 54.
It’s through the pen.
I now know A is for Africa,
Africa for Angola, Algeria…
B- for Burundi, Botswana…
C- for Chad, Congo, Cameroon…
S- for South Sudan, South Africa, Somalia…
Z- for Zambia, Zimbabwe…
It’s a pen to define Africa.
Buy me a pen,
A pen of greatness,
A pen of honor,
A pen of unity,
A pen of knowledge,
A pen of identity,
A pen to write Africa.
Mother I need a pen,
A pen to take me across the globe.
On the map I want to write Africa,
I want great America to know Africa.
On every nation I want to paint Africa.
Buy me a pen mother,
A pen to make me a proud {African}. {You didn't need the all capitals}
By; J.P.ALEU{They can see who it's by at the top}Overall, this is pretty good, but it doesn't rhyme much. I noticed that you had a slight rhyme scheme (I know as well as everyone a poem doesn't need to rhyme) so I just wanted to point it out.
Since you're new to YWS, if you have any questions, PM me or answer this reveiw.
Why haven’t you given me your soul yet? --
Kara
thanks