The streets are conjoined through a complex system of alleyways,
bloated with alcohol rich urine and trash, both in its literal definition, and of living filth.
I watch a rat pillage through the smut and grime of its peers,
there are no possessions,
but there is order,
and when the few men who can find sleep in this fowl network arise to beg from those who allow them to be there,
and have since learnt to ignore them,
i no longer think of who, or where I am,
when Iv'e determined myself none more, if not equal to the rat,
but why?
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Canary word: Present
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125,018 Literary Works • 672,861 Reviews
Hi! Cricket here for a review!
When I first read this and ran it through my head, I got this impression of a man standing there, in the middle of an alley, just staring at everything. I don't know if that was just me or not, but I'm thinking that's the intent of this poem. I got the impression that he was treated like dirt. Absolute dirt, so much to where he kinda compared himself to a rat, but wanted to be more.
Although the imagery was good, and I did have a pretty clear picture in my head, I still thought I needed more than what was here. For instance, your capitalization. (Capitalization in Poetry) This link should help you know, when and why, you should capitalize it or not. For instance, in some spots you capitalize it and in others you don't. I've seen that done a couple of times, but still, I think you could have a very clear trend going through for the capitalization of the whole poem. As this is a free style poem, it's really not that big a deal, but that link should help with when you should do it or not. Hope that made sense!
Here are a couple of nitpicks
I'm thinking you meant foul.
As good and wholesome as this sounds, I had to read and re-read this over and over, just to get the meaning of it. Not only that, but it seemed rather broken. Like it was thrown out there, in a case of necessity. Always try to avoid that. ESPECIALLY when writing poetry. Each line has to mean something, and add something to your MEANING, or else the reader won't get your point and it will be all for nothing. You're talking about those, but you need to clarify who those are/is. What I'm really trying to say is this. If you have a point to get across, then don't be afraid of using floral speech and some metaphors. I don't write poetry often, but from what I'm told, it's supposed to make you think. So keep that in mind for the future.
Slight grammatical mishap. It's fixed and in red now.
OK, with this I'd say there's a slight problem with your periods and commas. For one, I really think there should be a period after "rat" instead of a comma. It would draw more attention to the question "but why" if you did so, and would help clarify more profoundly just what you mean.
Other than what I've said earlier, I think you did a great job on this poem. It actually means something, other than the typical poem idea, and I can give you a high five for originality. Keep it up my friend!
Also, apologies for such a short review. I'm not accustomed to reviewing poetry, and you already have some pretty fab reviews on this. Well let me know if you have any questions on what I've specified and I'll explain more in depth!
Keep writing and never stop!
~Cricket
Hello, Phineas! Welcome to the proud and awesome Young Writers Society! Congrats on your first work! Just ask me if you have any questions.
Keep writing, I hope you enjoy this site!
I'm through with copying little errors and posting them, so I'll just copy and paste a whole block with the edited version. I'll leave you to pick out the errors.
"...bloated with alcohol, rich urine and trash, both in its literal definition, and of living filth,
I watch a rat pillage through the smut and grime of its peers;
there are no possessions,
but there is order,
and when the few men who can find sleep in this fowl network arise to beg from those who allow them to be there, and have since learnt to ignore them,
I no longer think of where, or who I am,
when I've determined myself none more, if not equal to the rat,
but why."
Tell me if the lowercase is intentional. I'll apologize if it is.
-wisegirl22
Knight r4 here to review your "first published work"! We will see what it looks like!
(Except for Therese).
You need to put a period here or else this poem is just one run on sentence. I suggest that you consider your punctuation in that light if you ever edit this.The only reason I am here is so I can beat Therese to it an get more reviews than her,but hey, you still get your work review so it works out for everyone!I am not sure if you caught this, but "fowl" should be "fowl".
There should be a question mark at the end of this not a period. But that also brings us back to the issue of your punctuation and this being all one sentence. Most of the poem wasn't formulated as question, so therefore you need to the part that is and start a new sentence there. I think this should be at least three, if not four, sentences long.
Overall this was alright. First I will focus on the things I like. For one thing your description of the slummy conditions was good, despite the fact that it didn't really have a lot of flowery poetic language woven into it. But this poem still needs some work. First I think you need to go back and capitalize all the "i's". You also need to capitalize the first word in each line. That is a standard rule for poetry. Finally the punctuation needs some work. It seems like the biggest problem with poetry is that often people don't structure it, so don't worry, you're not alone in that respect.
I won't spend a whole lot of time talking about poetic language, and the like, but I would just like to comment briefly that you should try to add in a few fancy words for effect. That is something that people look for in poetry. However I would deal with your other errors first. Aside from that, there isn't much else I had to say, partly because there aren't any rhymes to comment on.
Welcome to YWS!
I really liked this poem. It wasn't exactly fast or anything, but the flow was well maintained. I loved the last line. It ended the poem beautifully.
Just a few suggestions.
The "i'' should be capitalized.
And the sixth line was a bit too long.
" and when the few men who can find sleep in this fowl network arise to beg from those who allow them to be there, and have since learnt to ignore them,"
I'd suggest you to put the latter part of it ( "and have since learnt to ignore them" ) in a separate line.
Good job. Keep writing!