Russian Soldier.

Historial poetry?? Hmmm... nice for it is my first time to read like this.. Great!

AquaMarine wrote:Large shoes stamp the street,
I’ve never worn boots before,
my feet feel heavy.

“Here you go, my lad,
have a gun (without bullets) –
share it with your friends.

They are over there!
Run at them (with empty hands),
give it all you’ve got.”

I hear the whispers,
discontent in the trenches –
this isn’t our war.

Hi,

Sometimes a poem needs raw emotion for you to latch on to and harness, however here I am not to sure.

I think that because it is quite distance, you kinda feel in the soldiers shoes. Which is good.

But then again, that makes the poem seems relatively short, if you are looking at it from that concept.

If you either added more feeling to the poem or kept it how it is just with a touch more length, it could become a truly amazing piece.

PM for anything.

~Retro Disco666

Rawr. Sorry I'm late. I tend to do that, as you already know. *sigh* Anywho! On to the review. I'm not sure if you still want just general thoughts about your poem, since you posted it here, so I'll just do what I want. STOP NAGGING ME. ^__^

First impressions: I love the concept. The idea is one that many can sympathize with (if not relate to), and that gives you a lot of space to add emotion in various ways. Of all the aspects of poetry, I'd say this is the most important.

However! I don't think you pulled it off quite right, and there are a few things apparent that are preventing you from doing so:

First: The length of your poem. It's kinda short. Noooot much room for emotion, is there? Not unless you're going to sacrifice everything else to achieve it.

Second: The dialogue bits. These, for me, minimize my overall attachment to the poem and, oddly enough, distance me from the characters. I guess that's because you switch from first person, silent narration, to the spoken word of a different character and back again. It's strange to me, and slightly off-putting.

Thirdly: The lack of detail. I mean, RAWR! You need more details readily available! Say for instance, that you kept the dialogue bits in here (which I suggest you don't, or not yet at least). You're talking about giving men unloaded guns and sending them off to fight (Methinks?) through the dialogue. Well, that's all well and good in the sense that you're using foreshadowing, but what really happens because of this? I need to know because, if you just leave it as is, then all I get out of it is an, "Oh, they're doomed to die and they don't even know it. Huh." I want an, "NnnnnnnoooOOOOO! They're doomed to die and they don't even know it!"

*ahem* /wordy ranting.

In short, give me emotion, woman.

So I hope I helped some. Let me know what you intend on doing with this.

AQUA!

Hi. This was super amazing, but I totally agree with Firestarter. Make a strong narrator, I know its short, but perhaps you could maybe say how he was brought into the army just a thought. But anyways, I think Firestarter said it all. This is an amazing poem. Keep up the good work!

~Forest

Hey Aqua!

I couldn't ignore something historical and poetical.

In regards to the content, I think this could be a good basis for a poem. But what I think it lacked was a strong narrator, a personal aspect, so the reader could engage with it better. At the moment it lacks impact because the only thing he offers us is "my feet feel heavy". I didn't think the decision to include two stanzas spoken by an unknown sergeat/officer was a particularly good one. The emptiness concept was a good one but it was the only thing these two middle stanzas had going for them. Plus, I'm fairly sure while one was given a rifle with no bullets, one was given bullets and no rifle (or maybe that was WW2). So I get what you're trying to stay, but it's not strictly accurate -- which leads me on to another point. This doesn't really feel in anyway way that you're talking about Russian soldiers of WW1. I mean, the only way I really knew was because of your A/N and that's not a good thing. We should learn this from your language, hints in the poem. It had no real atmosphere or uniqueness -- it was vague, and could have been about British or French soldiers.

I think you could do with looking at the war poets (not that you should model your poetry on them) to learn how they described WW1 and how they made sure their poems had an emotional impact -- see Wilfred Owen, or my personal favourite, Siegfried Sassoon. One of the most important things they did was use sound techniques, like alliteration, to emphasise the war-torn circumstances, which I'm not sure your poem used enough.

I'm sure others will give you more advice, but there are my thoughts.