A Goodnight Dream

I love ballads, and I love short ones! This is a great combination of both, and sticks to that old style that has been so popular through the ages. Yet, there is just enough of the "new" to make it modern and keep it from rambling of into nothingness and obscurity.

The poem has that dark and mysterious feel to it that I associate with "Pirates of the Caribbean." Not black and ominous, but dark in an epic way, which is how a ballad type poem should be. I have few complaints about this, and those are small and unimportant, so I won't mention them.

All in all, very good work.

Thank you CatherinKanya!

This is seriously your first poem??
It's VERY good, no kidding !!
i thought it would be a short, stereotypical abstract about dreams but... whoa !!
It has a splendid rhythm, every line flows perfectly into the next.

"Seaweeds like pretty vines

Curled the rails of the ship

And a pirate flag, black and red

Waved along with the blowing wind."

This totally caught my attention, i have a fascination for pirates

"He closed his eyes and heard a voice

'Come with me and you will be safe.'

Its voice was calm, sweet and strong

It made him smile and walk along."

Soft words, beautiful description

Overall, I loved it. Please keep writing!!

Hey Catherine, Subtle here as promised! This is a wonderful attempt at a first poem on YWS, the imagery you have created here is wonderful. I only have a few nitpicks. I think you could break this poem into about three stanzas, I know that not all poems need stanzas but I think in this case, a break between some of these context here would be more effective than just linking them all together. Just about four to six lines per stanza. There is a steady rhythm here that plays along with the words nicely, along with the rhyme. Which doesn't seem forced at all!

Now, I will point out some of my favourites and some improvements that can be made:

Across the blue river

Beyond the dark woods,

Stood the Ireham village

Grey and white.

A shadow sprinted, big and scary,

But when he woke, all this would go.

Hi there,

So my first thought was that it was actually really good for a first attempt, and your bio says you're 14, which is really impressive. Let me tell you, my 14 year old self couldn't write something like this so I won't be too harsh.

I liked your use of narrative and I think another reviewer said, it was a perfectly clear idea to follow throughout the poem, which is always a good thing. It was an interesting concept you dealt with and quite a tough one to tackle, so you've set the bar quite high for yourself before you even began. However, I think you've done in justice quite well. Just watch your use of 'and', try and vary it a little. I recommend reading other poetry and writing just to get an idea of structure and grammar in poetry. That's what helped me anyway.

I especially liked the lines:

'Seaweeds like pretty vines

Curled the rails of the ship'

I thought this painted a really clear picture of what you wanted us to see.

So my best advice would just be to read, read, read and then write, write, write. Just keep going and as someone who's been writing for a few more years, not everything you write will be good. In fact, nearly all first drafts are pretty crap. It's why it's called a draft, so don't be discouraged at all.

I think you've got really good potential so keep writing and I look forward to seeing what else you write,

H.L.P

Well done for your first attempt at poetry! It's not an easy genre to tackle, and you've done quite well.

The story of the poem is very sweet and straightforward and not much to comment on there. It being a narrative, I had a very clear sense of where you were going with it and followed the story through to the end which is no mean feat, so well done you.

Now speaking technically, here's the advice I can give you:
1. It's good for a first poem, but the images are very simple. Poetry works best when the images are specific and, if it's narrated from the boy's POV, then it works best when you filter it through the mind of the boy. How does the boy see the world? Rivers are blue, and woods are dark - these images are factually correct, but how does a boy see the wood? His imagination is wild, and this is in fact a dream, so you can afford to give a certain lilt to the world. You have no limitation - the river could be green from all the reflections of the trees if you like! If you don't understand what I mean, read more poetry from celebrated authors, and look out for how they describe the most simple things as the weirdest and most lavish beauties the world has to offer. Think of metaphors and similes to describe how this character meets the world.

2. The structure of the poem is easy to follow, though I don't know why you started it in free verse, then moved to a rhyming scheme at the end. Remember that in poetry, everything you do from a technical perspective is noticed by the reader and should add to the story. Perhaps it being a child's dream it should all be in rhyme - as if it were a lullaby or a nursery rhyme? I would advise you to be careful - rhyme for rhyme's sake is detrimental to your work

3. Narrative poems are hard to do because you usually need to keep a balance between the storytelling as well as not boring the reader with too much prose. In this work, you've focused very narrowly on the storytelling side of it, which is good, but for your next work, it would be interesting to take on a "show don't tell" attitude, which always affords you the author a great deal of subtlety and allows you to explore areas of subtext. Of course this is a very hard thing to do, but starting it right away gives you the practice of good technique and thus a head start.

I hope this helps, please continue writing.
T x