Hand

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This pulls the reader in, I liked it very much! It makes me interested in the rest of the poem. i'm usually not a big fan of poems but this has so much potentially it makes me want to read more.

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Too should be taken it because it stops the flow.

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Between this stanze I think there should be another short four lined stanza because it would complete the pattern of the poem. like you have a four lined stanza then the two lined stanza then you have another four lined stanza followed by these two stanzas which are both only two long lines. Do you understand that?

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I think this stanza would look better this way

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Over All: I think you have talent writing poems. You have a nac for rhythming.
This in perticular one was very general and open to every one. A lot of people could sympathize with this piece of work, and i think that makes a piece of writing good.

Good job and thanks for requesting a review

-Tiffany

Hello again!

Something to become or to put out of view

Period after view.

Overall, like Bear, I don't have much to say that hasn't been said already, so forgive me if I regurgitate a bit. You have a good idea here, but I think the repetition of my hand holds gets real old real fast; it's a cute sentiment, but you repeat it so much that it gets tiring, if that makes sense.

Consider:
My hand holds a secret.
My hand holds the truth.
My hand holds a lie.

Which is about what you wrote, right? And:

My hand holds a secret
the truth
a lie.

Really, they say the same thing, but the second example is less wordy which imo is a good thing. Just so you know, I'm not suggesting you change it to the second one (though if you want to, feel free). I'm just trying to use it to show how the same thing can be said in a multitude of different ways, so repetition isn't always needed. ^__^

Anyway, hope this helped a bit. You have gotten some wonderful critiques here so I'm sure you'll do fine whether you edit again or not!
Good luck!
-Mars

Kamas,

So, you've had some pretty great reviews, and you're lucky to have gotten so many! I don't have a lot to add, other than one of lines doesn't work at all:

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That last night TOTALLY ruined the whole poem, I think. Mainly because it doesn't rhyme, when everything else in the poem has been rhyming.

Snoink took an interesting perspective on this--one that you probably didn't even realize you were doing. This hand is more than just a hand, which makes it seem more than human, which is creepy. And this poem isn't supposed to be creepy, it's supposed to make you think.

That really doesn't have anything to do with my review, I just thought it was interesting.

When I read a poem, I want to take something away from it. I want to have learned something. In this poem, I don't feel that I've learned too much at all. I feel like I've just read some words. What makes your poem better than anyone else's? If you had me come away from this with a new perspective on something, then you could say that, but right now, I don't think this has anything that is different from any poem I've read so far.

I think with a little bit of work and more rewrites, you can become a poetry master. Keep writing poetry! It can become habit forming!

-Jared

kamasgirl95 wrote:...

You need to watch your punctuation, rhyme scheme, syllable count, and line length. Poems, if you chose to follow punctuation conventions, are punctuated the same as regular sentences. Changing the rhyme scheme/syllable count per line/line length suddenly and without warning is really jarring to the reader and disrupts the flow.

Overall, I have no comments on the imagery. It was decent, though I do believe it could be improved slightly. Just make sure what you're saying makes sense; the reminiscence bit did not make much sense at all. @_@

Hey there Kamas, you asked me to review some of your stuff, so I come to humbly do so. xD and please excuse me if I accidentally miss out a letter or an apostrophe, my laptop isn't quite accustomed to having lemonade dropped on it, resulting in the keys becoming rather stiff. xD Shall we start:

I get the feeling that this is a light poem, not one layered with meaning, a more fun sort of one, eh? However, that said, there could be meaning and philosophy in here, so I shall try to look out for it.

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I like the way these lines represent something both literal and figurative. A hand is capable of holding, but a truth is metaphysical, and therefore impossible to hold. I like the use of the word hold to imply that your hand is holding something that it's not really holding. Hard to understand from my rather strang utterings, but hopefully you get what I mean.

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I'm not particularly good at correcting grammar, but I don't think you should use an ellipsis here. Why here but not in the lines above which are basically the same? Feel free to correct me though, I love to know where I went wrong and learn to improve upon it, so I'm not saying I'm definitely correct.

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This point is tying in with the above points, yes? If so, right, this is going to be slightly hard for me to explain, but I'll try.
If your hand holds a truth and a secret and a lie, and that truth and secret and lie is a forgotten youth, surely there'd be more than one lie and secret and truth. However, a forgotten youth perhaps is not a tie in point. Perhaps it is an additional point to the lies and truths and secrets. If you understand what I've just said, maybe read it again? Hah sorry I'm not particularly good at explaining myself, am I?

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Hold should have an s on the end. It should read: My hand holds the nostalgia of the past. Besides that I rather like this poem so far, it is rising in my expectations.

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At first I was rather unsure as to what you meant by this. Perhaps it is because I do not think the same way as normal people. I think in a sort of different way, if that makes sense, but initially I thought this was talking of the hand as opposed to the nostalgia of the past, which you evidently wanted it to.

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The latter word in this line appeared to me a little strange. Innovation is almost physical, not quite, but almost. Obviously our brains contribute to innovation too, but our hands make things. So this isn't quite as figurative as the rest of the words in the poem. Perhaps you'd like to change that, or perhaps you'd rather keep it. I don't think it shall make too much of an impact upon your poem

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This one also seemed slightly strange to me. I might be completely barking up the wrong tree, but to me fear actually is physical. As much as we don't hold fear in our hands, fear holds our hands. Fear makes us shake or shiver, impacting upon our hands. If you get what I'm saying. xD

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I think, there is something rather strange about this couplet. Are not the unstableness of what lays near and the mysteries of the future the same thing? No, I actually like it this way, it seems to indicate a change in tone, from negative to positive, yes? I do like it.

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What happened to the rhyming system you had going?

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I'd rather you changed the last line, as I find it rather cliched and over used compared with the rest of this poem.


Okay, I found this poem rather nice. It was a light-hearted, or maybe heavy-hearted if written about someone you love deeply, poem, it was well written and had a good rhyming scheme up until the end. I enjoyed it, but let's see if I can help improve it...

Grasp onto dreams
Grasping onto dreams is quite impossible in the physical sense, for there are no dreams to grasp onto. That is not to say that we are not capable of dreaming, not to say that the person in consideration has no dreams. Simply that dreams are not physical. Our hands are physical, we can literally feel our hands. Therefore we cannot grasp onto dreams, it is quite impossible.

That said, what if the dreams we take into consideration are figurative? Then we could grasp onto dreams. At least in the figurative sense. How does this relate to your poem? I shall tell you

I'm going to use the first line for example, as there's so many of them.
my hand holds a secret
Okay, I have not put a strike through because I don't believe it should be there, it's simply there so I can illustrate my point. Just think of the strikethrough as another form of highlighting, 'kay?
hand The first of our three key words. A hand is physical. Yes, it is most definitely physical. You can feel it and touch it. Keeping that in mind:

holds
To hold something is physical too, isn't it? Only this is where the describing gets a bit harder. Holding isn't actually physical, but the object you hold is. So, for the purpose of this critique we're going to assume that holding is physical, okay.

secret
As I said there's no reason that secret is strikethrough-ed other than as another form of highlighting. Just think of it as another highlighter. Now, secret is metaphysical. You cannot touch or feel a secret, can you? So yes, a secret is most definitely figurative.

hand - physical
holds - physical (for the purpose of this lesson)
secret - metaphysical.

Now, can you see how we cannot actually hold a secret? That's fairly simple to see, so now let me tell you why I like that.

I love the way you incorprate the physical and metaphysical. It's rather wonderful. In fact, that's almost imagery in itself. A nice, unique form of imagery.

So, have we dwelt enough on this, shall we move on?

Basically, well done on the meta/physical thing. I enjoyed it.

There was a dog who had a log
Rhyming. Okay, you could say the above is a rhyme, but it is rather monotonous and boring. Not particularly poetic, eh?

So to interest us we need a more elaborate rhyme. You certainly gave us that. I enjoyed your rhyming scheme, up until you abandoned it. The thing about working with rhymes is that you have to be consistent.

You cannot rhyme on line A then line B then line H then line J.
That's just not consistent, the first rhyming system in the poem is only one line apart, whereas the second is... six lines apart.

Your rhyme was great. It was not obnoxious or annoying, it was gentle and added to your poem instead of taking away.

A lot of people don't realise that rhyme is an art within itself. It requires a certain degree of... hard to explain, but rhyme is not simply something that is forced. It is something that happens naturally, or it shouldn't happen at all.


And they all lived happily ever after
Well... I've kind of got my last two points wrapped up together. In this section I shall discuss:


*Endings

*cliches

Seeing as in your poem they both tie together, I shall just go over them.

I really enjoyed this poem, and I believe that it needs a better ending. It deserves a better ending.

Just now it feels as though it's been neglected, you've been in a hurry, or just wanted it done, and kind of abandoned it.

Both the rhyming scheme and the poem are let down at the end.

I just think that perhaps you should revise the two a little. Or rather the three.

Work on

*Rhyme scheme*

*ending*

*cliches*

overall

I conclude that I sound rather mean, but I do not mean to be so. The only reason I point out small things is so I don't sit around singing praises when I could be offering constructive criticism.

This poem has a lot of strong points. It has an abundance of potential. Work with that. Nurture it and feed it, let it grow.

Believe me, you have a lot of potential to be a great poet, just keep writing.

Hope I helped!

~Kirsten.

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I liked this it had a good rhythm but then you changed in the next verse and it slowed down a bit

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I think this line was to long

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I think a bit of forced rhyming went on there.

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Loved the ending.
This is a very good poem, I'll happily review any others if you like.

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I like these first lines, they drew me in, although, I suggest that you shorten up the last line in this stanza, its way longer than the first few lines and you don't want to do that.

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Okay, I can't find really anything here.

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That last line really messes with the ryhme scheme, its rhyming to a steady beat, and BOOM! Its gone. It messed it up. It look as if the writer couldn't find an easy rhyme so they just slapped something down. Of course poetry doesn't have to rhyme, but you already had a pattern going.

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Agian the ryhme scheme is off. Fix that, put some more time into it.

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Okay so your back on the ryhming scheme. You went off and on. I like these lines none the less and if you fix up the previous two stanzas it could be great. You also have a little typo here. Its the. Fix that up.

Rhyme Scheme:
Okay, you need to have a steady beat ion this poem, when you have all but two stanzas rhyme it messes with the flow. So if you're going to rhyme, then by all means, rhyme. But if you're not, stick to that. Don't rotate off and on.

Grammar and Punctuation:
You didn't have any major mistakes in this area. Just a typo of two that could be edited. There are seemingly obvious.

Overall:
I like the idea of this poem, but think you could extend it a little more. Put in some more imagery. Its a sweet little poem, but I think that if you went more indept with it, it could have some major potential. So with some editing, this could be great. Keep writing, and remember that practice makes perfect.
~Alyss