At My Grave

This is short, it has meaning and makes me think, and better yet, it doesn't rhyme! I love it! I would have liked to have read more about it but I guess it's perfect the way it is.

Hi, welcome to the site and thanks for sharing your poem with us!

Specifics

1. I think brief poems can work but the shorter the poem, the more meaningful you need to be with your language and I think your word choice here could be more selective. For example, roses are the most cliche and common flower to include in a poem so I feel you should either choose a more unique flower or to add some backstory to the roses to give them extra significance. Are these roses from the bush which grows in the deceased speaker's garden? Or perhaps their parent's garden? Are roses the speaker's namesake or are they a particular colour of rose? Yellow roses would be more unique since they're perhaps the most unloved colour of rose and they usually indicate friendship so perhaps you could play on flower symbolism? You can find more about the significance of different coloured roses here - http://www.rkdn.org/roses/colors.asp

2. The word 'laying' could be more powerful - perhaps scattered if you want to indicate they're in an orderly fashion or 'standing to attention' to indicate they were placed carefully. Choosing a word which describes how they are laying on the grass will make for a stronger visual.

3. The ending of the poem feels too open - I think the poem needs to explore that question more if it's significant, rather than introducing it right at the end. It's too big a question to be treated in such a throw-away manner. I think at the moment this poem doesn't have a set focus - I don't know if it's supposed to be emotional or to tell a story. Maybe think a little bit more about what you want to do with the poem and then decide if answering that question is part of it. Like is the poem meant to make us feel that this speaker died needlessly? Or are we meant to be more focused on what comes after death, the kind of non-existence?

Overall

I think you've chosen a powerful subject but the poem needs a little more substance to get the reader engaging with it and to make it memorable and something the reader will think about/ recall later.

All the best with this!

~Heather

Hello,


I really like this poem, even though it's short it really gives enough information to understand what it's about. I also really like how you worded it and the questions at the end are a good touch. I hope to see more posts from you because I really enjoy reading them.
Thank you

Keep up the great work!!

-WeirdGrace

Really good. The idea does draw the reader in. Consider this sort of a general advice instead of a review. I am not an expert but I would say work on introducing punctuation in. It helps you emphasize certain parts of the poem which you want to stand out, in this case it would "why am I here" and dictate the flow of the poem. Regardless of that, nicely done.