My shoddy attempt at writing poetry. Please just tear it apart, I promise that no feelings will be hurt. Be as blunt as you like, especially on the technical side. Rip into it, you have my blessing. :)
Silver
You told me it was easy,
And it was at first.
Before I realised slowly
Not to trust your words.
You told me I would understand
If I closed my eyes.
But how could you ask me
To make myself blind?
How can I just turn away
From their woeful cries?
From those who have no roofs
To sleep under at night?
You tell me they're not beautiful
so just look away.
You say life can be simple
If I ignore the shame.
Of living in luxury
While they starve and hurt.
Of having blankets and security,\
While they tremble in fear.
Yes, I could live in ignorance
And dwell in false bliss.
But I'd rather live in guilt
Than lose my humanity.
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139,327 Literary Works • 672,536 Reviews
Hey there! Alex here to review your poem because you were the most recent reviewer!
What do you mean "A shoddy attempt"? :S
Wow! This poem was great! I love the concept behind it about is it better to live in false happiness or to help the unhappy people. False bliss as in the name.
I think you executed it very well! The message in it is clear and gets across very easily. You didn't over-load or under-load on imagery which is also very good!
The technical and editing side of this is perfect! No nitpicks at all!
There is only one thing that is bothering me and that is the last two lines:
Aren't those two phrases exactly the same? If the character was guilty this shows that the character stayed in False Bliss and therefore lost their humanity? Can you explain this or rephrase?
Overall, perfect basically!
Hey Alex! Thanks so much for reviewing! I can see why you're confused so maybe I should make things clearer. Being in false bliss means that you choose not to be aware of the pain around you and thus avoid the guilt, but by paying attention and noticing you'll begin to feel their pain. Hopefully it makes sense now
I am by no means a poetry expert, so I will only comment on the meaning I interpreted from this work. I believe we all can be found guilty of ignoring something or some part of your lives or world around us so that we will not have to face it. in turn we are able to feel that blissful ignorance. If we all would think more like your character and chose to actually do something about what was happening around us that we chose to turn a blind eye to, then the world would be quite a better place to live. Ideally, it would create a world where we wouldn't have to ignore anything to achieve that kind of bliss. I am not sure how you were inspired to write this, if it was personal experiences, or if you were just trying to get people's attention, but I commend you on the message.
Sincerely,
Trevor
Thanks Trevor
Your review means a lot.
Aight, broski, you said be blunt.
There don't need to be any commas at all in that stanza.This isn't the worst thing I've ever read. Certainly not the best, though.
Thing 1: there doesn't have to be punctuation on the end of every line. Write poetry as you would prose. If there doesn't need to be a comma, don't add a comma. This stanza in particular stuck out to me:
I have no idea what you're talking about until the third stanza. Introduce your topic earlier in the poem. Before stanza three, it could be about almost anything.
Show, don't tell. This poem, honestly, while I agree with it, is very blunt. If I didn't agree with it, surely I'd be thinking, "I really don't care about this," and stop reading. Show us why we need to care instead of closing our eyes on this issue. I'm not saying that you need to detail every little gritty aspect, but poetry shouldn't be able to work as a monologue in a play (which this one would, if it didn't rhyme). Use more imagery (such as simile and metaphor) to show us why we should care.
I suggest that you make this free verse. I do have something against rhyming poetry, and it is this: a lot of the time, it lightens the subject matter by adding meter that gets stuck in your head. After a while, all I expect is the next rhyme, and I can't focus on what's being said in the poem. In my opinion, free verse poetry allows the poet to seriously focus on the topic.
I hope that you find this review useful! Have a great day, and keep writing!
Hey mags! Thank you so much for your review! I'll remove the punctuation. The funny thing is that I didn't even intend for it to rhyme and it kind of did it on it's own. *Bad poem, bad!*
I knew I should have put more imagery and such, but I had no idea how to incorporate it. Any advice?
Hi! So, It's been a really long time since I've reviewed, and decided it wasn't a shoddy distraction from studying for my ACT retake.
I feel like this poem's structure is it's main downfall. You use very dramatic words, and do a great job with the negative connotations attached to them, but the simple run doesn't lend itself to the structure of your words. The poem could easily fir into the typical four-line stanza's, because that's sort of how your rhythm flows.
"You told me it was easy,
And it was at first.
Before I realised slowly, (My spellcheck also says realized should be spelled like so. Is this a culture thing?)
Not to trust your words."
A lot of your poem flows that way, with the subtraction of a few spots, but those mess up the flow anyway.
Like so;
"You tell me they're not beautiful, (1)
so just look away. (2)
You say life can be simple, (3)
If I ignore the shame. (4)
Of living in luxury, "(1B)
1B seems to want to carry on the notion of lines 1-4, but would really just be okay rephrased as 'I live on in luxury/ While they tremble in fear'.
That was the main issue I noticed in your poem; the dramatic tension of words doesn't end up to the way you have it set up to read.
Good luck in future endeavors, and I'll be on my way!
Thank you for your review Sunshine! It's much appreciated and I'll probably edit it accordingly
Oh, yeah in Australia and England we spell realised and specialised and such words with an "s" instead of "z"
So it kind of is cultural I guess 