Published June 23, 2012
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139,665 Literary Works • 672,645 Reviews
Hey Killjoy, I'm here to review your poem! Happy Review day!
Anyways, I think you did a great job with this piece of work. It really expresses deep emotion. I loved the imagery that you used and I thought it was wonderful how you keep relating feelings to the night sky throughout the entire length of the poem.
I do however have a few suggestions that I think could help you improve the poem with a little bit of revision. First of all, I think you need to go deeper into what the relationship is between the person whom the poem is in the point of view in and of the person about whom the first person is thinking. Throughout reading the poem, I was wondering if it could be mother and daughter, brother and sister, friend and friend, husband and wife, boyfriend and girlfriend. You wouldn't have to directly say who they are, but maybe you could add in a stanza near the beginning talking about there relationship.
Also, this is a very very extremely tiny correction that you might completely hate. But in the first line of the last stanza, I think it might be more powerful if you change one of the word my to something different. For example "but I'll hide my tears behind a smile". And maybe you could change the word but also. I find that lines can be made much more powerful by taking out simple word like that. Even if you just completely took out the word it could sound nice.
I really loved this piece of work and I hope you will continue writing pieces like this in the future. Great job!
Okay, so you have an interesting poem here. I get a pretty good setting--outdoors, I presume--and I get a feel for the character. They're sad, but they realize that they're probably going to have to pretend they're not and, eventually, they hope to become numb. That's good. They also seem to have a thing for nature, for the relationship of things.
I have a few suggestions, though. Second line--you. Who is you? You mention you twice, but I don't get much about this person. A friend? A lover? A parent? I don't know. To add more to this piece, it would be good to know. If that isn't important, use a broader pronoun. First stanza, last line: Do you need the ellipses?
Second stanza, first line. The air carries a chilly breeze? It's already air. A breeze is moving air. You're saying the air is carrying cool moving air. You might want to rephrase that. Second stanza, third line. They would water. It's a hypothetical situation.
Third stanza. Crickets. Plural. Bunch of crickets. Then you use the word neither. As if there were two crickets. There's no mention of there being merely two crickets. You need to clarify this.
Fourth stanza, first line. I thought you meant she was smiling, but you mean transmitting light, yes? Might want to use a clearer word, perhaps? I guess it's up to you. Also, the word beauty is sort of vague. Maybe try something different? Fourth stanza, third line. Dead silence? Again, maybe clarify what you mean.
The last stanza seems rather put together.
Anyway, I enjoyed the read. It had a simple message and it wasn't bad, even if my somewhat harsh critique made it seem that way.
Keep writing,
Cas
Okay, so you have an interesting poem here. I get a pretty good setting--outdoors, I presume--and I get a feel for the character. They're sad, but they realize that they're probably going to have to pretend they're not and, eventually, they hope to become numb. That's good. They also seem to have a thing for nature, for the relationship of things.
I have a few suggestions, though. Second line--you. Who is you? You mention you twice, but I don't get much about this person. A friend? A lover? A parent? I don't know. To add more to this piece, it would be good to know. If that isn't important, use a broader pronoun. First stanza, last line: Do you need the ellipses?
Second stanza, first line. The air carries a chilly breeze? It's already air. A breeze is moving air. You're saying the air is carrying cool moving air. You might want to rephrase that. Second stanza, third line. They would water. It's a hypothetical situation.
Third stanza. Crickets. Plural. Bunch of crickets. Then you use the word neither. As if there were two crickets. There's no mention of there being merely two crickets. You need to clarify this.
Fourth stanza, first line. I thought you meant she was smiling, but you mean transmitting light, yes? Might want to use a clearer word, perhaps? I guess it's up to you. Also, the word beauty is sort of vague. Maybe try something different? Fourth stanza, third line. Dead silence? Again, maybe clarify what you mean.
The last stanza seems rather put together.
Anyway, I enjoyed the read. It had a simple message and it wasn't bad, even if my somewhat harsh critique made it seem that way.
Keep writing,
Cas
So, who is doing the looking and wondering in these lines? "They", or someone else? If "they", who is "they"? It doesn't make sense for the isolated stars to look at themselves and wonder if "you" feels isolated while at the same time, they twinkle brightly with optimism. It's rather contradictory.
Now, you might think I've been harping on a bit too long about just three lines, but these are the three opening lines of your poem, and as such, they set the tone of the entire poem to follow for your readers. Right now, my impression as a reader is "pretty sounds, little meaning". I doubt that was the impression you were aiming for.
"Even if I did close them" sounding extremely awkward and unnatural aside, the "decimated hope" was way overkill. Put together, these two lines take the poem from generically melancholy to wangst. You're trying too hard to tug heartstrings here, and as a reader, I'm not falling for it because it's so obviously contrived, it's ultimately empty of any genuine emotion.
The next three stanzas only works to reinforce this ham-handed, trying too hard to elicit an emotional response impression.
Who/what is "neither"? Neither of us? Neither of them? What's the relationship here between this "neither" and "I"?
The mental image of the moon beaming a beauty laser onto the world aside, how does beaming translate to embracing, and how is it that only the narrator isn't being lased with beauty? What comes to mind is that the narrator is sitting in some shade going "Oh woe is me!" instead of just getting up and walking in the moonlight. Any sympathy I had for the narrator has completely evaporated at this point in the face of this narrator's passive stupidity.
The last stanza only reinforces this impression with how the narrator's going all "You don't care about me, but I'll keep smiling anyway and hope I won't care about you either, eventually."
Essentially, this poem read as a huge self-pity fest, i.e. wangst.
If that wasn't your intention, there are several things you can do to make this piece less wangsty. First, make sure everything is coherent above all else. A pretty poem is empty and worthless if it has no meaning, no substance, to back it up. Next, seriously rethink the images and phrases you are using. All of them are so generic and overused, they've all-but lost any meaning they once held. They're trite, and exclusively using such images renders your entire poem trite as well. Instead of pretty-but-empty phrases, try tying your images into more specific events. It will make your poem more unique and therefore memorable, and using the right images will also add layers of meaning to your poem. The more specific your images are, the better, and the more likely they will be to elicit the emotions you intend them to elicit.
Above all, when writing poetry about emotions or that are intended to elicit emotions, be honest. Don't cheapen the emotions with cheap tricks like talking about tears or fake smiles or solitary stars. Let them flow naturally, shaping that flow only so that other people will be able to understand and empathize, not for reasons of "poeticness".
If you can write honest poetry, then you'll have a leg up over other a lot of aspiring poets.
That was a beautiful poem. I liked how you related your emotions to something else .wish I could do that without it sounding forced
LOVE IT.
You used a lot of imagery in this poem, and I think it painted a very nice picture, but I think I agree with Nargles- you might want to add a bit more emotion. However, your vocabulary was fantastic. I loved some of the words you used like "decimated" and "optimism". They helped you get your message across more clearly.
I think my favourite stanza was the fourth one;
"The moon beams beauty below,
embracing everything except me.
A dead silence stirs up inside,
why is it no one reaches for me?"
Absolutely lovely. I give this poem a 8/10. I just feel you could've added a bit more emotion into it. But I like how you didn't state everything bluntly; that's a great skill for a poet.
I know this is a horrible review...sorry, I'm not too good at it.
This is a good poem!
It was a bit disappointing though because I feel as if it could have more emotion in it! The emotion is there but I just don't really feel it.
You have used nice imagery but in this sort of poem it is more emptive language that you want to use.
I loved the last stanza! for me that was the bit where I felt something the most and could really relate to what you were feeling.
I'm sorry that this is a bit short but hopefully it has helped a bit!