Young Writers Society

Psalms is overall an amazing book in the bible and 23 is one of its best chapters...I truly enjoy your meditation on the chapter. It was well thought out and a beautiful paraphrase of the original book.

For a start, I am an atheist, so reviewing this will be incredibly biased. Just to warn you in case you had any misconceptions. I have, for the sake of liberty, read the original passage of Psalm 23 to give me an idea of what this work will discuss, and already I find your source material to be lacking in substance. It is highly subjective and I don't really understand it all too well. Sorry. Maybe it's just me.

The aura generated from this writing is one I cannot describe, more in a negative sense. You make references to the Lord without explaining two things:

A) Who he is
B) Why he's good

Something about a house for all eternity? I shall not go into detail the impracticality of this statement, as it isn't meant to be taken literally, but I found it particularly cliché. This also applies to your source material. I also find your very last stanza to be rather questionable content wise, in particular describing the love Jesus possesses for the writer. Ideally it should be the other way around, but I will refrain from explaining why. This is a critique, not a debate.

I must ask how you know all of this stuff, but that is something you can PM me about.

OK, i guess I have t make this VERY clear. as the title says, this is what i found through meditating on psalm 23. This is not a poem to be edited, changed, or re-structured. I guess I should have made that more clear, but now you know.
Like how GriffinClaw realized that there is a happy hope we have through Jesus, and this in a sense, an honor to him for his love for us.

Hi Malachi!

Yay! Psalm 23! You really can't go wrong with that. It is one of my favorite psalms!

One thing that I thought was a bit odd... is this supposed to be meditations of a psalm, or a summary of the poem? When I was learning about poetry, I learned how important it was to summarize a poem so that we have a better grasp of what happened in the poem and thus we could analyze it better. This poem kind of looks like summaries of great poems that I have done, so that I could understand the poem better.

Still, it didn't seem like an actual poem. Most of it is just Psalm 23 rewritten so that all the powerful imagery of the shepherd is cut out (David used to be a shepherd, so it is fitting that he wrote about being a sheep of the Lord). In particular, you got rid of the whole "rod and staff" bit, in which the rod is used as a weapon -- sometimes even directed towards the sheep! But, this seems largely ignored and it's more about God's goodness to us all... which is good too! Still, the psalm seems largely watered down of all its powerful meaning which are especially vivid in metaphors. Considering that Jesus used these metaphors freely, it seems odd that you've seem to have diluted them down to strictly spiritual sense. It's just a little odd!

An idea... what if you tried to inject your own self and a metaphor that makes sense to you and still keep the original meaning of the psalm? I did something like this in this poem (which was about the Passion) and put my own self in when an experience and the bible verses overlapped. It meant that I really had to study line by line all of the Sorrowful Mysteries and connect them with myself, but it turned out to be something really unique... I hope! Yours will be different, clearly.

I mean, I see that you took out the wonderful metaphors to make it more applicable to you, but that's not really poetry. That's summary. You need to insert yourself in it more, do some more bible study on that psalm, and then it'll really shine.

Good luck!

Hey Malachi! GriffinClaw, here to review this beautiful work!

First off, wow. It takes skill to transform any praise into something unique like this. The rhyming and the rhythm were calming and I loved it. The hope behind the words, the happiness in looking forward to a future with Jesus is just...beautiful. Praise God. You did a great job. I look forward to reading more of your works!

Keep writing and being amazing!

~GC

This is beautiful. I agree that there could be some more imagery to make it slightly more original (and you're kind of overworking the commas) but it's really lovely--don't change it too much! Thanks for the inspiring piece of work, Malachi. By the way, if you want to move it there should be a tab that's a gear for settings. Press on that. Somewhere there should be an option to edit your portfolio and from there you can navigate what folders hold what. I'll send you a message with more detail.

ED here,

To start off, I'm actually going to agree with your most negative critic. That is, you need to make this more original. It's a neat interpretation, and I understand that it's personal, but it's also sort of vague or anonymous... Like you pulled it right out of the psalms. (Which, you sort of did but...) Here would be my advice: Try to use more imagery. You give a lot of attributes of who God is, but show more of your response to. How does knowing all of this make you feel? Be visual here; don't be afraid to be anecdotal.

The Lord is my Shepard, I will not fear.

During times of struggling,

He knows pain of every form.

when life seems full,

for all eternity.

it is beyond all degree.

Hi Malachi! =D

I'm Sol! I'm here to tell you something that may or may not be really significant. In fact, it may sound kind of silly, but I think this poem could be a little bit more organized when it comes to the separation of stanzas. So, I'm about to suggest you something... then you decide if it's rational or not. xD

I noticed that your poem could be beautifully divided into quatrains (stanzas of four lines), but if that happens, two lines would be left out. Hm... But then again, when you take a look at it, the first two lines of your piece are like an introduction of what you'll be talking about. It's also a really nice start, it's easy for one to say it out loud and enjoy it, so I think it would work!

When it comes to the rest of the poem, honestly, it's lovely~ To me, it flows flawlessly, and you have done a great job!

Keep it up, Writer for Christ! :]

~Solly

I'll leave it a like because of the rude comment down there. People just write pointless reviews to get points, you gotta learn that right at the moment you post your literary work. I do agree this poem needs more work, but it's not that bad at all. It's more like prayer, atleast that's what it sounds like. I respect the other religions even tough I don't believe in God and I don't get offended if someone writes a prayer. Anyway, there are no rules in ART. That's what you have to understand. Reviews should be only suggestions to make you repair you mistakes (if there are any) and honest opinions. Not orders. Don't take them too seriously, that will only get you depressed and it will affect bad on your poeting/writing. That's my advice as a friend.

If this poem brings you satisfaction and peace, then there's nothing wrong with it (And I don't see a singe grammar mistake). That's why I wish you best in your future writing/poeting and I hope we'll read more from you. Keep writing, no matter what everyone else says.


~Bard

The Lord is my Shepard,

The Lord is my Shepard, I will not fear.
Even during times of trouble, He is still near.

He refreshes me,
when life seems full,
and He guards me,
from the worlds pull.

Please leave a like!