Even a mountain reaches its peak
when it cannot grow anymore.
A lion knows just the right amount to fill its stomach’s desire
before yielding to the children of its pack.
I’ve seen a selfish nation – one more concerned with
itself than those it affects.
More than me have heard the cries of the
fortunate wailing for what they do not own.
Eyes have seen the tear stained faces of the happy
pitying their luck.
Fear is my best friend, the lover I never wanted,
forever tailing me through a cursed land, its
tyranny everlasting.
To break free would require pain I’m not willing to endure,
nor share with my brothers.
Can I not go a day without fearing death?
Is this when it finally takes me, as I sit
watching, baffled by the souls that do not understand?
My guard is down, my belly vulnerable.
They will find me soon, snatch yet another
wonderful image they crush under foot.
My children will be left to inherit
the devastating life I lived.
Leave me at peace, you who claim
to rule the earth.
I will crawl back to my hiding place,
worshiping you along the way,
and bother you no longer.
The pain you tell me I inflict is all too real
and I understand now – see what I am.
I can only hope for your eyes peeled back to see
the mistakes you’ve made.
The leaves know when they have overstayed their welcome –
turning a shade of scarlet out of embarrassment.
Yours shows through
smog and fear, rubble and tears.
I leave you be, rulers of the earth.
You’ve shown your hide, proved your
power greater than mine.
Yet be warned: it will all be destroyed before the trees regain their blossoms.
And I will relish in the fall.
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125,034 Literary Works • 672,915 Reviews
Heya Noelle, pretzelsing here to review your poem.<3 Now I have to tell you that I usually don't review poetry,that's not generally my specialty but here I am trying to do it and go out of my comfort zone.
Anyways,let's begin,shall we?
Here are the first and last line of the first stanza
I don't know if you meant to do this, but you actually did a very similar last word in these lines.
"peak" and "pack" don't rhyme or flow,so I don't know why you would deliberately do this. Is it to just be similar or something?
This is kind of ironic in my opinion,since it doesn't really ring that true. For me a best friend is someone who is close to you,who you enjoy spending time with, and you chose him/her, etc. Here I don't understand that analogy of fear being a best friend and lover.
These two lines were in the same stanza. My question to you is: if you fear death, I think that you would be more inclined to keep your guard up and to be the least vulnerable as possible for your own safety. This practically contradicts itself and the emotional feelings of this narrator.
This is honestly the only imagery that I clearly saw and actually liked here.I love the dark red leaves of the fall and I like watching them fall, so I can truly imagine this. The rest of the imagery seemed kind of weak,but I think that the other reviewers have me covered.
I usually struggle with imagery as well, and that is what I am working at in my poems. Unless your poems are narrative and supposed to tell a story,then you should paint a picture, as I am sure that you know. Here is an article on YWS called: Imagery
I would also reccomend just reading other people's poems (there are some great ones from the NaPo forum)And so to just get yourself familiar I guess with them(what I'm trying to do too)
I feel like you need a comma between inflict and is in the first line. Try reading it both ways out loud and you will see that it doesn't make sense without the comma and it doesn't flow well.
I was so confused here. Who is this "ruler of the earth" and whose power over it are we taking about? In other words, which type of POV/narrator is this?
This line was longer then the other ones and so it popped out to me in the screen. Perhaps you can cut some words out and alter it to make it a similar length then the other ones? I would like that you wouldn't want to place extra emphasis on this one, since it's not the most important line of the poem. What if you wrote it like this:
I think that separating that into two lines works. But this is just a suggestion and you are the author so you can give or take.
That's all from me, and I am sorry if I repeated any suggestions from the other reviewers but I didn't read them. I hope that this review wasn't too harsh. I actually had to read this poem over a couple of time(like 3-4) to understand the general theme and vague content of it. I just didn't want to sugarcoat and I hope that you will use some of these things to improve this poem.
/pretzelsing/
Hi Noelle,
This is an unintelligent and insulting poem, which is actually rather impressive because most fall into only one of the two categories.
Unintelligent because you don't even attempt to allow the reader to come to a conclusion on his own, you shove a tube down his throat like foie gras and fatten his thighs with your thoughts before he even has a chance to breathe. And the worst part is, it doesn't advance. The entire point of the poem is stretched out over extra stanza upon extra stanza, thirsting for the end but being dragged on and on until you end with an artificial "punch" or climax just for climax's sake.
Some nitpicks:
Hey, already two stanzas in and this has already transitioned from a poem into a naked political treatise (a boring one, by the way). If this is the tone of the whole thing, I'm not even going to finish. Why respect your writing when you refuse to respect the reader's judgment or ability to arrive at a conclusion without being hand-held the whole way?
There's no imagery here. None. It's just a long whiny rant. If you're going to just talk about environmentalism, why even bother to break it up in stanzas and pretend that it's a work of art when you can't even lead the reader to your theme with relatable experiences and images? Just post it on your personal blog or in the Lounge section if you want to drone on and on about how mean this group or that group is.
Imagery imagery imagery. It's a basic lesson, to be sure, but an important one. The reader has got to relate. You have to look around and find analogous to something that is intrinsic to the human condition, and then boost the theme of your poem with that. Not just tell your audience "HEY. This is what I want you to know and I want you to know it NOW!"
Here are some specific instructions for what to do next. Delete this thing and try real hard to forget you ever wrote it, so you can mitigate your embarrassment. Then sit down and start a fresh work with a singular idea - just one idea - that is universal to the human experience. It does not have to be directly related to your theme but should be reasonably analogous.
Hope that helped,
Galerius
Hey Noelle,
I like your poem but it could use some improvements.
Firstly I'd like to point out things you could improve on:
1. Overall your poem doesn't have any rhythm whatsoever. I don't mean that it doesn't have any rhyme but to have a good poem you have to have rhythm, and most poets do this by rhyming their words.
2. "Even a mountain reaches its peak
when it cannot grow anymore.
A lion knows just the right amount to fill its stomach’s desire
before yielding to the children of its pack."
Your verses aren't structured quite well. You should always put commas at the end of each line and at the end of the verse you should put a full stop, basic rules. and you've put done this to all your verses.
3. Too many verses and words in a line. You should always have your limitation of word per line like 5 or 6 maybe. Make sure to keep your poem short and simple, like 4 verses instead of maybe 14.
4. Try including imagery, personification, similes, etc. This will make your writing more interesting and also gives that rhythm.
Now to the positives:
I really like the story behind this its really deep and meaningful. Even without some of the language most poems have it still creates an effective feeling in the reader. Overall your poem is great needs a few improvements but once you've improved it, it will be great.
I'm gonna break this down into two sections so that I may not lessen the compliments I would like to pay towards the first. That having been said, they go as follows: Imagery verses Purpose/Theme/Content??? something of that generally construct.
So first, imagery:
This was definitely in your wheelhouse, simply because of some of the really gorgeous bits nearing the end. You have an array of colour throughout this piece that sorts of gives then recedes only to come back and give again with the same bright vivacity you want to instil. I appreciate that. I particularly appreciate this bit:
You can see the thought process here. The connectivity between what you're saying and the images used to get said sayings across. A little heavy-handed, sure, but beautiful imagery nonetheless. Probably my favourite part of this poem lies in those very four lines.
That having been said, lets move onto the second segment.
Content-wise, this starts out feeling very self-righteous then befuddles itself a little bit as if confused on how to make it sound not self-righteous only to come back and do it all over again. This, I don't think, is particularly a bad thing. After all, poetry is allowed to be self-righteous, self-pitying, and even self gratifying. Just, what happens with poetry like this is it starts out being all about the message. All about stirring something in someone not based upon the aesthetic of the poem but of the cause you're supporting. It's a big reason I suggest staying clear of poetry for a cause.
Another reason why poetry for a cause gets confusing is when, after the main message is sort of dropped in those first few stanza's, you decide to get more artsy. Try and play on something that sounds prophetic and philosophical even if it doesn't really fall under the original concept. This gets really confusing, leads the reader to think there's more to it than a message about the selfishness of humanity and yet it ends on that note. It brings it back and makes that the true vice. Even after suggesting that the narrator itself refuses to bear pain that is too much to endure, you make the narrator the opposite of a villain. Someone we should pity.
Even with your interesting choice of imagery, I'm not sure how I feel about this poem only because of the fact that it does feel preachy and self-aware. It makes me dislike the voice which, in turn, sort of dries out those nice bits of imagery you have scattered about. Poetry can bite and still be beautiful, but poetry doesn't have to bite. There doesn't have to be a punchline.
I think you've got a lot of talent and an obvious want to write something that means something. You don't have to write a martyr to make this mean something.
~ Walker
This is insanely amazing! I especially love the part where it states that...
"Yet be warned: it will be destroyed before the trees regain their blossoms.
And I will relish in the fall."
The meaning of the poem is hard to grasp at some parts of the peice(but that's probably just me not being very intelligent lol)
Overall, I really enjoyed this peice. It really states the problems of modern society and I applaud you for sharing your thought with the world and writing them down on paper.
~elephant
Wow.... All I can say is wow