My First Poem

I believe I am going to post my poem about a soldier in Iraq. I really like it, hopefully you guys will too.

Wow

i really like this poem, its really sad. keep up the good work
T

Thanks everyone for the positive and negative reviews. I will keep them in mind. I felt better to see that SOME people actually liked it. Remember, this is only the first serious poem I have written, so it's okay if it sucks.

That was amazing, first of all, especially for your first poem

and I think that the others are wrong, I love the way that the words are spaced and I love the one-word lines.

A few things I would recommend:

1.) The word spacing is very powerful. I would only use it on words that really mean something in the poem: likes, alone, Daddy, never, etc.

2.) I would make each stanza the same somehow. Like the same amount of syllables in each particular line, like the last or first word of the stanza. The way this is written, it seems more like a story in a book then a poem.

Other then that, it looks great.

(a quick note on the title: the use of "1st" instead of "first" in this context comes off as lazy. Numbers up to one hundred should generally be spelled out.)

The vast majority of this poem was novelty. The s p a c e d out words, the bold lines, the format has overwhelmed anything you're trying to say, and that is never a good thing.

In terms of content, this is a sensitive topic that has been glossed over here, doing no service to either the cause or the human element in it.

The best thing you could do is to read lots and lots of poetry. If you're unsure where to start, let me know and I'm sure I can round up some recommendations for you!

A great first start! At first when I scanned it over I wasn't even going to bother reading, I thought 'Ah, its just like everything else...' But then I looked again and realized, 'No, wait. Its not.' Anyways, you did a great job of making an old and utterly worn out subject into something different enough to catch attention. I also like how you spaced out the letters in some of your words too. Very original. The format is good as well. The only thing I would change is to get rid of the bold on your lines because it is unnecessary.
Well, welcome to YWS, I hope you like it here! Good job, and keep writing! Looking forward to more of you work.....

This is good. I actually liked it a lot. I thought some parts were a bit cliche, with her dad beating her and such, and the boy ending up being in love with her, too, but I really liked the phrasing and spaces between the letters. Good job!

This was interesting. My only thing is how the mood of the poem changes so fast. It goes from a bit of peer bullying in school - nothing too bad - to domestic abuse - really bad - pretty quickly with no lead up.

Why are the students laughing at her? Is she funny looking? Do they know what goes on at home? Maybe tell us a little bit of that.

Did the boy tease her and then apologize? Or was he apologizing for his friends' actions?

Just some questions. The poem moves really fast. It was a nice beginning and a nice middle, but somehow they just didn't seem to line up. They are so separated that there is a disconnect.

But this was a good start. Congrats and welcome to YWS!

~GryphonFledgling

Ok, there are a few things I need to say.

The spacing out of words, in poetry, isnt really the 'norm'. Just like you don't send in a handwritten manuscript of a novel to a potiental literary agent, you don't space out letters. Not that it makes your poem rubbish, because it doesn't, it just makes the whole thing look more professional if you stick to the rules.

Also, I found the lenght of the entire thing a little tiring, as it made me scroll down constantly and lots of people will lose interest.

Overall though, (phew, now that's over with) I think you tackled a difficult and well worn out issue well, putting your own spin on it.

And for your first poem, your doing pretty dam good. Really good in fact.

You've got a great talent, so keep on writing.

PM me if you post anymore, because I'd love to read them!

All the best,

Eimear xx

omigosh!!!! wow.

Why did you put spaces between the letters of some of the words? It's cool, just unusual. i read alot of poetry and have never seen that before.

Nice job though.

I'll agree with Via on this--even though this was interesting, it was not the best you could have come up with.

It being your first poem, however, I'll give you kudos because this was actually okay. Don't worry--I started here with the worst writing possible, but now I think I write much better than when I started. It happens to everyone.

You have SO many visible poetry mistakes here, but I will concentrate only on the most major one that will help you later in your writing/poetry career:

Details. SHOW, not TELL. Ever heard it before? Well, you're bound to hear it again until you actually employ it. For example:

"Tears shining in her pretty blue
e y e s"

Is there anyway to delete "tears shining", "pretty", "blue" to make this line still have the same meaning, yet with better SHOW?

Here are some suggestions:

"With wet, cerulean eyes"

"Eyes with melancholy violet
echoing the sadness of beauty."

"Her eyes were petite and silently
weeping in an azure sadness."

But want something even better? METAPHORE. It works a ton better than any of these, and it SOUNDS good. (SOUND is as important as context.)

For example:

"The blue moons glistened in dual eyes."

Hope I helped you! I gotta go, but if you need any help, PM me!

Things to do to improve this poem and all future poetry:

1. Use punctuation.
2. Do not bold words.
3. Do not s e p a r a t e words like t h i s without an actual purpose to it's meaning, and if you do do it and there is a purpose every other word should not be like this. If a word needs emphasis, write it so it automatically has it to the reader without bold, italics, separating and such.
5. Do not use one word lines frequently (mostly they can be avoided completely).
6. Read lots and lots of poetry, analyze them for why they are poetry and why they were published and what the author's intent was...then try to apply some (often all) of these things to your own poetry. This will help you immensely.

Good luck!