z

Young Writers Society



'Out'side Boundry Lines

by Jon


~
It's like running through an archway,
But, once you're through -- you miss what you had.
That's the thing though, you almost don't.
So you go on your way -- a new path.
~
From hill to hill you hark en hope
That you may be a wandering soul
And filling the needs of others
Just doesn't seem important.
~
In this Mobility -- Risk-take ability
You see more than the average person.
You learn to see a light.
Then, you start to teach.
~
Transmitting, Transubstantiation, and Tyranny
Oh my -- means Give, Change, and Wonder why.
Change, people, change -- Run through.
Run from reality to your darkest dreams.
...Secrets.
~
-- For they're what you truly are.

Note: You are not logged in, but you can still leave a comment or review. Before it shows up, a moderator will need to approve your comment (this is only a safeguard against spambots). Leave your email if you would like to be notified when your message is approved.







Is this a review?


  

Comments


User avatar
36 Reviews

Points: 2840
Reviews: 36

Donate
Fri Jan 01, 2010 6:40 am
EL FINITO says...



I loved your use of words the way they flow but men did i not understand what the poem was about.




User avatar
382 Reviews

Points: 33318
Reviews: 382

Donate
Thu Dec 31, 2009 7:50 pm
Galerius wrote a review...



Hi Jon,

Well, this poem was dead on arrival and barely sputtered out something coherent in the last stanza before falling back to its endless sleep.

Jon wrote:~
It's like running through an archway,
But, once you're through -- you miss what you had.
That's the thing though, you almost don't.
So you go on your way -- a new path.


How do these connect to each other...at all? You run through an archway, but you miss it, but you almost don't, so you decide to forge a new path. Putting aside the garishly conversationalist and shallow tone of this stanza, the continuity doesn't make sense. How does almost catching the right path immediately imply a forward movement, linear, novel? "That's the thing though" - what's the thing? Are you simply trying to beef up your lines so that they fit in with one another?

From hill to hill you hark en hope
That you may be a wandering soul
And filling the needs of others
Just doesn't seem important.


This is like reading an amateur psychology manual. Do you realize how arrogant it is to tell people inside-out what their desires are, their priorities, etc without first making them understand why they're being forced to sit through this lecture? Don't ever write like this, in poetry or prose. It's bad writing and heavy-handed.

In this Mobility -- Risk-take ability
You see more than the average person.
You learn to see a light.
Then, you start to teach.

Transmitting, Transubstantiation, and Tyranny
Oh my -- means Give, Change, and Wonder why.
Change, people, change -- Run through.
Run from reality to your darkest dreams.
...Secrets.

-- For they're what you truly are.


Third and fourth stanza were just bad overall. The entire Disney-movie style ending, where the sun comes out and after an initial struggle, all is well in the world without any real compromise or fight, was entirely counterproductive to what you had intended. And why the haphazard capitalization? You're not Emily Dickenson and even after two more reads of these stanzas, the implication of the capitalized words, other than the obvious "These are important terms! Remember them!" doesn't shine through. Best to follow standard convention and not employ gimmicks until you can do it well, which you certainly and currently cannot, based on this poem.

Scrap it and start over. Use some kind of description and correlate abstract ideas to concrete objects, it helps.

Hope that helped,
Galerius




User avatar
1220 Reviews

Points: 72525
Reviews: 1220

Donate
Wed Dec 30, 2009 9:28 pm
Kale wrote a review...



Honestly, I have no clue what you were trying to say with this poem. What is like running through an archway? How does it relate to being a wandering soul? I can see how being a wandering soul enables greater mobility, which in turn results in a greater range of experiences, but I don't see how suddenly "you" start to teach when the previous stanza was talking about the needs of others not being important. The second to last stanza just hurt my brain. Was the whole point of the poem that our secrets, our parts of our selves that we hide most deeply, who we really are? If so, there are less vague ways of saying as much.

Another thing I noticed was the, seemingly to me, inconsistent punctuation. It made it even more difficult for me to comprehend what you were trying to say. For instance:

It's like running through an archway,
But, once you're through -- you miss what you had.

Why is there an em dash after "through?" It makes no logical sense to me. There is no break in thought or sentence structure. A line break and/or comma would be much more sensible, I would think.

In this Mobility -- Risk-take ability
You see more than the average person.

Again with the em dash. I'm assuming you wanted "Risk-take ability" set apart from the rest of the sentence, but you neglected to close the em dash. Because of this, it reads, "In this Mobility. Risk-take ability you see more than the average person," which makes no real sense as I'm sure you see.

I may be completely missing the point, but I think this poem could benefit from following punctuation conventions and also from better transitions between the ideas of each stanza.




User avatar
286 Reviews

Points: 625
Reviews: 286

Donate
Wed Dec 30, 2009 8:04 pm
silented1 wrote a review...



When you use that's the thing in the first stanza(3rd line) It's weird because you didn't set up for it right... It's like you skipped a line...

In the second stanza, filling the needs of others, fulfilling? Otherwise you're filling them up... And that doesn't make a lot of sense.

Thrid stanza: Mobility and a ability? The rhyme is too easy and it just annoys me.
You see a light and then start to teach? Errr, why? I don't see why the light makes you teach...

Over all, it was okay. I'd like to see more use of imagry. Other than that.
You did fine.
Keep writing.





Not all treasure is silver and gold, mate.
— Captain Jack Sparrow