A misfit character,
A misunderstood hero,
"All is well"
was never his moto.
Sadness never abstained from him.
Bitterness was a
frequent flyer.
The biting sting of
heartbreak,
Drenched often in his
pool of thought.
Cynicism was obvious,
He chose a smile
instead.
Perspective helped.
With death he realized,
Came the value of
existence.
Mind traversed in new dimensions,
Thoughts consumed with light.
Everything suddenly felt so different.
Airbags preceded
accidents.
Peace always followed
the violence.
Murders never killed an
idea.
Suffering led to the
enlightenment.
Pain was inevitable.
Coping, a personal
choice.
His life was hardly special though,
His struggles were quite the
usual.
The newly found mantra,
Never magically cured all the ills.
Heartbreaks continued,
Tragedies never stopped.
He too perished like
everyone else.
But perished with a
smile.
Points:
Time spent:
Canary word: Present
Possible AI signals:
Original Text:
Are you sure you want to delete this comment? This cannot be undone.
Mark this comment as a review? Points will be awarded to the poster.
Your comment was posted, but it wasn’t long enough to count as a review. Reviews need about four complete sentences (at least 250 characters). Try writing another review that explains your thoughts in more detail — the author will appreciate it, and you’ll earn points for it.
125,020 Literary Works • 672,733 Reviews
Hey Doc! Sorry it took me so long to get to review this, I've been in the midst of trying to learn Hebrew. But I am here now! So let's get to the review.
Narrative
So the first aspect of this poem I want to make note of is the narrative progression. Poem's that tell stories (that have aspects like a strong plot and characterization) help the reader hold on to what's happening and have a greater sense of the theme. In this poem's case, you did a pretty good job outlining that story and building up a clear character to focus on. The conflict of the poem seems to be that everything was going wrong for this person, but then they realized in the turning point of the poem that "Pain was inevitable / Coping, a personal choice". And they were able to grow through that realization and accept their death with an optimism that set him apart. Quite interesting theme actually.
Now we get a few specifics put in here and there about what sort of troubles the character is facing - there's an allusion to a car crash (air bags, accidents) and to even murder and violence, and then heartbreak. For me, these conflicts seem almost contradictory - or at the very least, unrelated. I think it might be clearer if the poem focused on one particular conflict, or connected the ones that are present a bit more. Because at the end of the poem, I can say a lot of general facts about the character, but have almost no specifics about what issues they were facing.
Here's an article I wrote about different ways to add specificity to poems and it's benefits: Specificity in Poetry if you need more ideas on how to increase the specificity regarding the conflict and characterization. To sum it up, I like what you have, I just want to delve a bit deeper into what the conflict actually is in the poem.
Phrasing
I enjoyed that this poem's cantor and some of the phrasing came off as having an older, mature tone - like I might read in one of Aesop's fables or a fairy tale. Your word choice was pretty consistent throughout the piece as well - using formal language in a way that was easy to follow.
There were a couple issues where the phrasing of a line tripped me up -- I'll mention them here, although this is a bit nit-picky.
"Sadness never abstained him. " -- I don't think "abstained" can be used like that, it might be just that it sounds a bit odd, because this is saying that Sadness (personified) never restrained or declined him. If you put the word "from" before "him" it would read a bit less clunky. Or you could replace "abstain" with "absented" or "withdrew from" which I think may make more sense in context.
"Bitterness was a frequent flyer" -- was a cute metaphor, but it seemed a bit out of place for me, since the rest of your language narrates a heroic tale that's almost medieval about battles and perishing, it seems odd to mention the very modern metaphor of "frequent flyer". {It casts the same effect as reading the word "cellphone" or "espresso machine" in one of the Lord of the Rings books - it's just a bit odd}
Technique and Consistency
Overall I liked a lot of the techniques that I saw you using here. There was plenty of metaphor and simile here and there - which adds interest to a poem, and also makes it unique because you didn't just stick to the cliche comparisons but crafted your own for this particular story.
You also used quite a bit of assonance and consonance - repeating different sounds within lines and stanzas that made the poem flow quite well.
One area of technique that could heighten your poem (or future poems) would be to work on consistency of stanza length. Having all of your stanzas the same number of lines (or follow a pattern of line lengths like 3, 5, 3, 5, 3, 5) goes a long way in helping out the flow of a poem and making it seem organized and polished. When stanza lengths appear random, a reader either assumes that the author was clicking the "enter" bar on a whim and that there is no significance, or they look for some hidden meaning where there isn't one. In fact, I recommend that if it's not possible to break a poem into even stanzas (because of topic or rhyme or other factors) it's almost preferable to just put it in one big chunk - because even that looks a cleaner and more organized on a page. That is just my opinion of course.
Overall
I like you tackled a poem with a sort of unusual theme - that of optimism and taking ownership of your own emotions and satisfaction with life. The character's story illustrates this theme by going through different hardships and then picking up this new idea, which ultimately allows him to die happily. It's an elegant, clearly understood story, with refined language choices and interesting metaphors. I hope to read more of your poetry in the future!
Please let me know if you have any questions about my review!
~alliyah
Thank you for such a wonderful review.
I have to clarify that some of the themes in the poem, like 'death and existence' or the whole chunk of tragedies was crafted to show different experiences one goes through the life. Tragedies which either people experience or witness. I painted them broadly to make them socially relevant to a bigger, wider audience.
I like your take on the ambiguity of the experiences. It can be vague and confusing. Your article provides great insights into this.
I certainly wish to write more and work on the missing portions next time! Thanks again. It was a pleasure reading your review.
Ah - thanks for the clarification - I love when author's respond, because interpretation only goes so far. My understanding was the narrator as a particular character with more particular (specific conflict), but as a person standing for all of humanity or a certain type of person is an interesting spin. Interesting theme again either way the conflict or character is portrayed.
Hey! Chitz here for a review.
Well, a blowing topic you held up. This is much needed in this time and the way you displayed optimism was wow. Really a different and unusual attempt. Applause. Too good.
The last two lines were my favourite. They not only gave an end but provided a optimistic reach to death. Too good.
The whole plot was all in all awesome. The way you described life's ups and downs was awesome. Nothing to say much now.
Hope to read more of you.
Stay awaken, keep writing!
Such a moving story about optimism! It just goes to show that optimism makes things better. We can all learn from this kind of poem. No matter how bad things are in the beginning, it will turn out good in the end. The only problem with this story is the fact that you spelled motto wrong. Other than that, good on you!