Soaring Oblivion and Maybe, an Escape

Okay, well, I'm always for Constructive Critism, and here is what I want reviewed.

Soaring Oblivion
Never before inside,
Have I felt quite like this.
This blissful, soaring oblivon,
I realize,
Will soon disapear.

And how it saddens me to face;
I wish this could stay.
I don't want to have this golden world taken-
Gone away.



And...

Maybe, an Escape
Searching, within myself-
Pray-tell!
Looking beyond,
For some sort of black hole,
Maybe, an escape from this damaged soul.



Okay, so, guys, what are you thinking?

Comments & reviews · 2
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User avatar
Emerson
Review
Emerson wrote a review · Thu Jul 26, 2007 5:08 am

Dunno what dear Fandy-Dandy said, but listen to her.

The problem with these is that I can't get into them and I can't feel. Try using more imagery and sensory image especially. Try to pull the reader into the poem, and make them feel apart of it.

Here, this might help you out some: Emotional Poetry.

User avatar
Fand
Review
Fand wrote a review · Wed Jul 25, 2007 6:00 pm

Hello, Jess! I'd like to preface this by saying that, for a twelve-year-old these are actually very, very good. I can't wait to see what you're writing in a couple of years!

Now on to the criticism, yes?

Never before inside,
Have I felt quite like this.
This blissful, soaring oblivon,
I realize,
Will soon disapear.

"Never before inside..." Hm. The 'before' is superfluous; the fact that you've never felt something before already tells us that before this point, you haven't felt it. See how it's redundant? It also breaks up the flow a bit. "Oblivon" should be "oblivion."

Also, I see that you've fallen prey to the common mentality among young poets that every line must end with either a comma or a period. WRONG! Yes, that's right, Virginia, you can write a line without ending it with a comma. Try this easy exercise to determine where the punctuation should go: take a stanza, remove the line breaks, and write it out as a sentence without changing the wording.

Never before inside, have I felt quite like this. This blissful, soaring oblivon, I realize, will soon disapear.


See how the punctuation doesn't fit? It should be:

Never before inside have I felt quite like this. This blissful, soaring oblivion, I realize, will soon disappear.


Therefore, feel free to take that first comma out. ^~

And how it saddens me to face;
I wish this could stay.
I don't want to have this golden world taken-
Gone away.


Your first line feels incomplete. It saddens you to face... what? What are you facing? Perhaps you meant to use a different word? The last two lines are also a little saccharine and cliched.

Your missions, should you choose to accept them:

Read more poetry. It will help you get a feel for using word choice and syntax, punctuation and line breaks, etc--and if you find a poet you particularly like, it's always beneficial to start off by imitating their style (though never plagiarizing poems) and then branching off from there.

Practice that punctuation thing. It'll help, I promise.

Try using more imagery. Poetry is always more powerful if you're showing the reader, not telling the reader. Take this (crappy) example, for instance, based on a Celtic song:

"I shall die, I shall die," this dear captain cried,
"If I can't have that maid on the shore."


vs.

And this dear captain fell in love with the maid on the shore.


The first is the original; obviously it's more interesting and more powerful, as it shows the intensity of the captain's love and lust for the maid without explicitly stating it.

Be well, do good work, and keep in touch. ^~



The worst bullies you will ever encounter in your life are your own thoughts.
— Bryant McGill