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139,617 Literary Works • 672,630 Reviews
Hey,
It's nice to see your work up and available. A writer reveals themselves through their writing, so, in that sense, I get to learn a little more about you. Let us proceed.
I like the bird metaphor, though I think you can explore it a little more. Perhaps play on the ideas of descent and ascent or the freedom in flight (which you kind of do). The "long-winded goodbyes" was, I don't know, too long. i think it detracts from the rest of the poem with its length. Also, the rhyme scheme seemed a little, I don't know, cutesy. The shortness of the lines essentially juxtaposed your rhymes and so they "came out" quite quickly, disturbing flow. I did get a pretty good sense of your emotions, which is good, but again I think that there are other elements at work which disturb it. Again, these are merely my opinions, feel free to take or reject them as you please.
I think this poem has much promise and I know you have the skill to bring it to bloom. WIth eager eyes I await.
PaperMoon
I too thought the bird metaphor was marvelous and found everything else a bit... lacking, mostly because the reader really has no investment in the speaker; we are not anchored, we can't see, and the metaphorical imagery can only stretch so far to cover the lack of concrete, visceral imagery that would really make this poem. Also, the overarching emotional imagery veered dangerously near the trite in places; the abstraction of a prisoner escaping his beloved prison is an old one, and when you use the old words that go with it, we get bored, we don't pay enough attention.
(That wasn't the royal we. Let's just say I have a tapeworm, shall we?)
So. I won't be going as far as I probably would if I had been the first to review this... *narrows eyes at Adna and others* JK. Besides, it's my fault for not doing this earlier. Okay, enough of the rambling.
Somehow I don't feel like demeaning is the best word.
This was one of my favourite stanzas. The rhyming works, and it's simple and sweet – just the way I like it. =) Although, you could also consider putting "I have to make choice".
Um. This whole stanza was, if you will, an awkwardness. The first line just doesn't work very well, because the 'a little' in the end is somewhat abrupt and feels just like a filling. The third line is a bit too long, and the 'And I begin to sing' is too in-your-face. I'm pretty sure it's meant to be an image, but I'd maybe replace it with 'My soul begins to sing' or something, though it's probably the mother of clichées.
Meh. Doesn't fit in – besides, it's too short to go with the rest of the stanza. Also, I think it's not very suitable for a poem, because it doesn't give us anything new to think about. Well, that's basically why it doesn't fit in. With poetry, I feel like it's important to try to completely rewind the basic expressions and come up with something fresh and new, never-experienced. I don't doubt that you do so, but this just made me frown a little.
You can't really take heart and soul a thousand times more, so this doesn't sound very good. I'd maybe replace it with 'So much more' or even 'Too much more', whatever you feel comfortable with.
I still liked the basic instinct (if it can be called that
Demeter
xxx
Hi there! I'd like to review your poem. ^^
I like the concept that you had, but this poem is a bit too simple and unclear. Also, I noticed that you repeated some words in the stanzas, which were 'dawn' and 'long,' 'goodbye' and 'fly.' Not only that this lessens the quality of the poem, but also, repetition can bore the reader. If you aren't good with rhyming, it does not matter. Just do a free verse poem. Rhyming isn't necessary.
Another thing is that some of the lines don't sound right. Maybe you should try reading your poem out loud, just to see if anything sounds 'off.'
Sorry if this was a bit short.
Good luck and keep writing!
Sorry it took me a couple days to get this up. Here you are:
Punctuation
Even in poetry, run-ons and fragments are unacceptable. Either you have punctuation in your, or you don’t; if you do, it must be correct. There were several places where you were missing a period, or used a comma where you should have used a period.
Rhyme scheme
In general, you had a good rhyme scheme. Most of the time I didn’t even notice it was there. However, you used a rhyming pattern of perfect rhyme, except in three places. Slant rhyme can be an effective poetic device, but once you have a pattern you need to stick to it.
These three places need to be fixed:
“For far to long
But as my attachment grows,
So does the dawn.”
“From feeling the dawn
Is your hammering wails
All night long”
“My heart and soul
But you have taken,
A thousand times more.”
One more thing I noticed on closer examination are these lines:
“Testing my wings.
A breeze ruffles my feathers,
And I begin to sing.”
Be careful when you’re rhyming that you always ask yourself if you only used those words, that line, to make a rhyme. The singing seems out of place; you reference it once, not connecting it to the subject of the poem. I’d consider that line carefully, and, reconsider it.
Rhythm/flow
For this poem, I would definitely suggest establishing a pattern of meter. Check out Snoink’s article on meter to see how to work it.
That by itself would fix all of your problems with the differing lengths in lines and syllables, etc.
Content:
A couple of sub-topics here, starting with
Length:
One of the things which I always ask myself when editing a poem is, “Can I write this more clearly/concisely/quickly?” You don’t have a problem with clarity in this poem. You do have quite a number of lines, however, that don’t advance the subject in any way, and are a bit off-topic.
ex. “I can feel the sunlight,
Kissing my face”
“Just outside the blackness,
The light is calling.”
You talk a lot about darkness, and light, and the dawn, without establishing a connection between that, and her staying or going. That, essentially, makes them dead weight.
Organization of ideas:
There are three repeated thoughts in this poem:
a) The light and dark, as a mentioned before
b) Her desire to leave even as she’s being held back
c) His attempts to keep her there
I mentioned already that you don’t make a connection between the light and the dark, and her desire to leave. There’s an obvious possible connection: the dark representing where she is now, the oncoming dawn being the time drawing closer to her leaving. But you don’t show us that, if that is the image it represents.
Where the second two ideas are concerned, both seem slightly underdeveloped in an essential way: we don’t know why she wants to leave, or why he wants her to stay. You have one stanza related to that:
“I’ve given you all,
My heart and soul
But you have taken,
A thousand times more.” However, that is an over-used complaint. It also lacks detail: what did he take from her? If she gave him all, how did he take more? This doesn’t explain how she was hurt, what she’s trying to free herself from.
The title of the poem is “Let me go.” You can afford to focus on that side of things a little more.
Your ideas do seem a little unorganized. You go from idea to idea, and back again, and to another one, back…
I think you could benefit from having a kind of outline in your head: Starting with your first stanza which contains both main concepts; going on to why she wants to leave; then how he tries to get her to stay; then to her choice “I’ve made my choice between flying and falling” getting ready “I rise up a little,/Testing my wings…” and leaving.
Something neat and tidy and organized; it’s a little jumbled right now.
Imagery:
I don’t like to repeat myself too much, so I’ll just throw in a very brief reminder of the dark vs. light idea, which could be developed much more clearly.
“I rise up a little,
Testing my wings.
A breeze ruffles my feathers”
I liked these lines quite a bit; it put a picture in my mind. I would like to see it used more. The idea of flying, in terms of freedom, isn’t rare; but with the added image of actual wings, it has a unique flavour in this poem. I’d like to see you use that to your advantage even more. When you talk about flying or falling, I want to picture the falling. I want to see her fly; and I’d definitely like you to continue where you headed in the stanza I quoted above. It gave me an image of her, going up on her toes, on the edge of a cliff, looking level, not down, holding wings up behind her.
Like I said, this is something to use to your advantage.
“But please, stop talking
And let me fly.”
Good ending; I like it. Concise and it wraps everything up well.
*tackles*
Whew! Okay. There's a line by line. And, as I'm sure you noticed, I asterisk'd some things:
* This is where I thought you had a comma you didn't need. And! I know you know this, but I'm saying it anyway: if you want the reader to pause, that's what the line breaks are for - we'll pause naturally at the end of each. If you're placing a comma, then read the poem without the line breaks, like a prose sentence, and place them where grammatically correct. (Or don't. It's far worse to have too many commas than not enough, IMO!
Also, watch the flow, okay?
The other main issue I had is that it feels too vague. I love the bird metaphor you kept throughout, but I'm left with no clear idea of who this person/what this place is, or why you want to escape it so badly, or, really, what is going on. Especially when you say things like I know what I've done, it's like there's this secret inside of the poem that we're not cool enough to know. Or something. It just, I think it needs a bit more clarification. Perhaps a bit more imagery as well, expanding on the bird metaphor, or something, and you could tell us what's going on without, you know, telling us. If that makes sense.
Overall, it was good. But it does need work. Good luck!
-Mars
I expected more from you... This rhyme was too sloppy, some verses are just written so they can fill the empty space (I think you know that) and your punctuation is or wrong or it's missing... But some things are extraordinary so...5/10 (...and this is good mark, believe me, I'm a strict teacher...)