What America means to me

Thanks for reviewing!
I am not very good at rhyming but I'll work on it.
Constructive criticism is very important for me. Thanks again for taking the time to look at it.

Heya, Angie. Since you mentioned you posted your poem up, here I am to review it.

Now, since this is one of those poems where you're supposed to be honest, I'm not going to comment on the content or imagery since I don't think you were aiming for something poetic so much as a poem about what America means to you.

I will, however, point out a couple of technical things that I think could be worked on.

The first is rhythm. Right now, this poem doesn't read smoothly. You have a rhyme going on, but the tricky thing about rhymes is that they need a solid rhythm to work.

Compare "the pot was black and quite hot" to "the black pot was quite hot". The second example rhymes while the first doesn't, even though they have almost the exact same words, and the reason is the rhythm. In the first example, there's no real rhythm; it's just a regular sentence. In the second example, the sentence is divided into two sets of three syllables, and the third syllables rhyme.

Basically, just because lines end in rhyming words doesn't mean that they feel like they rhyme. You need to have a strong rhythm, and the way to make sure your rhythm is strong is to rewrite your poem in regular prose form. If it still feels like there's rhyming, your rhythm is good, otherwise, you should see if you can make your rhythm stronger.

One simple way of making your rhythm strong is by making sure that rhyming lines have the same number of syllables in them.

Right now, for example, the first lines of the first three stanzas really don't feel like they rhyme with the next line, and this makes the poem feel a bit off.

One other thing: you end almost every line with a piece of punctuation. Now, while you have the punctuation in places that people naturally pause in the sentence, you're still breaking up sentences into fragments with periods. A good way to check that you're punctuating properly is to write out your poem in regular prose form to check.

Poetry (unless there's a very good reason for it not to be) follows the same conventions for punctuation and grammar as regular writing, and following those rules makes your poem easier to read and nicer-looking.

First off-
Thank you so much!
2nd-Noelle
Thanks! I like it, too !
We are very lucky. I believe I am so fortunate to live in such luxury (I'm in the middle-middle class) compared to someone who lives in basically nothing or compared to a child whose parents are deceased and has to,say, look after 2 younger siblings. The United States has faults. And gosh, do we have some huge ones. But we are pretty well off nonetheless. We have our freedom. We have a choice.

3rd- Thank you. Although I'm flattered, you should never wish to be anything other than yourself. It is what makes you the beautiful person you are inside. Yeah.. I kind of wanted it to rhyme. At first it was going to be free verse but the first two lines kind of rhymed so then I tried to make everything rhyme. Oh and PS: I'm Puerto Rican, so TECHNICALLY I'm only an American by law and because I've lived in the United States approximately 3 years. I moved here when I was 10 years old.

4th-Deanie
Hey! Missed Ya! I'm great! I got a new camera! *happy dance*
Hahaaha I don't get it either; England sounds so cool! I mean, it's not like the US is perfect. Everyone knows that. We're fighting with more people than we have fingers to count with!
Yes this was it:) I got a 100% on it:)
My sister helped me with that last stanza. She's a great poet. So at home, I refer to her as our 'Resident Poetry Adviser'!
Thanks much! 'United we Stand, Divided we Fall' was the theme for my project. We had to have a bit of a theme for each individual project.

Thanks to everyone! Have a great day and don't forget to love who you are!

Hey Angie!

How are you???

Now the poem, which was amazing! I am actually British and not happy that tourists seem to enjoy America more than England (a prejudiced thing.) But now yo' really showed me a different aspect of America, one of very true meaning. I loved this poem and it had a really depth to it! Was this the poem you wrote for your homework project???

My favourite verse has to be:

AngieCandy wrote:United we Stand,
Divided we Fall.
We share a common bond,
Liberty and Justice for All.

WOW!
I'm not american but after that I really wanted to be.
At some times it sounds like you are forcing the words to rhyme, but the result is so great...
Anyway, keep writting because this is awesome.
Congratulations

Hi there!

First off I want to let you know that your avatar is EPIC! I really like it.

Anyway, this poem is pretty epic in itself. There's not much imagery in this, but that's okay because it's not an imagery poem. To me, it's a poem that brings out one's inner feelings for their country. And you did a great job doing that! I like how there's the words that are written on the page and then there's the meaning behind them. The words you wrote all describe how wonderful our country is, but if one digs deeper, they will see the meaning behind the simple, yet powerful, words; the meaning of how amazingly lucky we are to live in a country like this.

United we Stand,
Divided we Fall.
We share a common bond,
Liberty and Justice for All.