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125,009 Literary Works • 672,837 Reviews
Good afternoon, AlyKat!
Short and sweet: you took, in essence, two ideas that are put together, almost juxtaposed as it were, to give us two dimensions of thought at once. So, in that respect, what you have here is a sort of free-write, Americanized haiku deal that breaks the formatting rules of Haiku and leaves the reader with a very small, very forward free-verse. So I want to respect this poem in two ways:
1. The way it likens to a haiku, in my mind. This likeness comes from the last two lines abruptly wrapping up the poem and introducing a new thought—a demand—into the context of the poem. So in that respect, I do want to praise you because it’s a method in poetry that’s very often ignored.
2. The way it’s very basic as far as poetry goes. It lacks imagery, wordplay, and various poetic elements that you can get out of any textbook. It’s simply an array of facts.
So since the first route would have nothing but praise, I’m going to focus on the second and give you an honest critique into how you can shape this up into something better, something more poetic. BUT before we do that, I want to nag about your capitalization on every single line. It’s my pet peeve through and through in poetry, seeing each line capitalized unfairly. It’s a misconception that I’m destroying for you today! Write poetry just as you’d write prose, only with line breaks. Or use no capitalization or punctuation whatever. Or experiment. But don’t capitalize the beginning of every line unless they’re new sentences, or unless you’re writing an acrostic.
With that said, let’s talk about your statement of facts.
“I gave you what you wanted,” leaves me wondering what in the world this guy wanted. Know that old adage, show, don’t tell? Well, I’m going to poke you with it a lot with this piece. Even keeping the length you have, you can do SO MUCH with that much space. You can do wonderful things, amazing things, with just a few lines. But you haven’t taken advantage of that, and I really think you should. With that said, it’s very easy to get carried away with edits to make things more poetic, so I want you to exercise caution: remember that my favorite thing about this poem is the delicate balance between ideas you have.
And to be very honest, if you decided not to reprise this piece, I don’t know that I’d complain that much JUST because of how much I like the last two lines parallel to the rest. I just want the capitalization fixed, honestly.
So while this may have ended up being pointless, I do hope you got some insight into the idea of writing intentionally—the philosophy that tells you to show when you need to, tell when you need to, and do brilliant things with the space you’re given.
And honestly? I think you’ve gotten something good started here.
Let me know if you have comments or questions, and have an awesome day.
-Lumi
I thought it was very interesting that you decided to write such a short poem, but if you're going to write one that short you should make sure there's plenty in it - what you've written is entirely literal and it would be more interesting to develop those ideas - use metaphors, link them into other ideas, think laterally rather than straight ahead.
As a title I suggest that you call it either something very short or very long, to complement the length of the poem. Maybe a line from the poem? e.g. "Don't ask for the truth"
Overall I liked the poem but feel it could be polished and developed into something far more interesting. Keep writing!
I'm not the best at reviewing poetry like this, but I'll take a stab at it.
First off - is there better punctuation for this? Read the poem like it's a bunch of sentences. "I gave you what you wanted, everything you asked for. You took it in dismay, in all the wrong way. If you can't take the truth, don't ask for it." You don't absolutely need a comma in every sentence, and in the middle it sounds like you started to rhyme, but it's unbearably forced, and the comma makes an awkward pause that may digress into an awkward silence at the end of the poem. My favourite lines have to be the last two; they read more naturally than the others, and they seem like they like where they are.
So, let's see... "I gave you what you wanted - everything you asked for." Does that look better? Or perhaps, "I gave you what you wanted and everything you asked for." There's no need for a comma in that sentence, and, overall, it reads more smoothly.
"You took it in dismay, in all the wrong way." I can't think of a better phrasing for this off the top of my head; it's difficult. "Like it wasn't what you meant"? "You didn't know what it meant"? (If the second, the comma after dismay should be changed to a semicolon.) And the last line is fine.
Overall, this is a nice poem. It could use some strengthening, and I've tried to work with the words a little, but my main worry is that you'll get too focused on the punctuation and the forced rhyme in the middle - as well as the awkward phrasing of the fourth line - to be able to think about the message you're trying to send.