Young Writers Society

Hello!

I'm interested with the sentiment that you're trying to convey, although it's been done before, but I feel the poem could have been more subtle. It's not enough to just explicitly say that you're frustrated, you have to make the reader feel your frustration. As some of the other reviews mention, use examples of how girls have spurned your advance or have ignored you. Maybe, instead of talking about the topic generally, you could talk about a specific girl and your troubles with her.

I really enjoyed the writing towards the end, but I felt the beginning of the poem was a little weak. Instead of stating, "I'm a nice guy", maybe give examples of how your nice juxtaposed with another guy.

Overall, the poem definitely has promise. The writing is good, it could just be more specific.
Really enjoyed the read, though.
Keep it up!

Maybe you

Should go after

Different women

Hello.

I feel like you've gotten plenty of commentary on the ideology of your poem, but not a lot on how to improve the poem. I'm assuming this is written out of a lot of emotion and frustration with society, which is a perfectly understandable place to write a poem. However, that doesn't mean the poem can't be a good poem instead of something that feels more like it belongs in a blog post.

I'm here to help you make this poem better. Then, you will be a nice guy who can write beautiful poetry, and you might find your luck a little different.

See, the thing about "nice guys" is, I know a lot of them. The nice guys I stay with are usually the ones who do more than one thing for me. They can listen to me, sure, but what else? Being nice is the bare minimum. My ex was a nice guy, but he was also one of the most brilliant writers I ever knew. A guy I'm no longer friends with was also a nice guy, but he didn't give me anything other than wanting to help me through my problems. One of them I dated, one of them I stopped talking to. As you can see, having more skills other than "being nice" is a way to get romantic partners.

Onto how to get there.

So, for starters, poems often do better when there's an element of tension or conflict. Some sort of narrative, or story, or what have you. This poem presents everything in a very single note way, "us vs them" but not in a way that generates interest. When you keep your terms so vague and the conflict so "I'm right they're wrong", there's not really a lot of tension that can happen within a narrative. We're told how to feel instead of the poem eliciting emotions in us, which makes us distant from the poem. Good writing generates an emotional connection, and being told what to feel doesn't create an emotional connection.

Boiling it down to a set of situations, something concrete, can really help us feel for the narrator who's been hurt. It means you'd have to create events or give out details of your life, but by showing these situations, you can make us feel the narrator's pain without having to tell us what to think. Readers, in general, don't like being told what to think. We want to create our own opinions on the situation, and this poem hasn't given us any reason to hold the same opinions you do, unless we already believe it.

It also would help to get some slightly more poetic language in here. You can get tips on how to write poetry in the Poetry section of the Knowledge Base (link to an index of articles, so you can easily zero in on where you think you need the most help), which would help you get a general idea of the poetry genre and what style you want to develop. Blunt styles can work very well, but as I said, they need to generate emotion.

Overall, this is something I've read a million times before. What makes this poem different? How are you going to set your words apart from the million other guys who say these exact same words? I want to feel the particulars of your situation, but you haven't given us anything to set yourself apart. Good poetry doesn't sound recycled, because good poetry comes from the heart and bares the soul. Right now, you haven't done that, so I'm left skipping over this poem as a vent that better fits in a blog post.

Hope this helps. Let me know if you have any questions or comments.

~Rosey

there are more than two genders. the binary is a lie. check yourself annabellekirkland, there are men who are assigned female at birth -transgender men. i won't bother with the remarkably white movement called feminism.

self entitlement has gone out of fashion as has oversized muscles brought on by a gym rather than physical labor. women realize who they want and prefer authenticity rather than put upon kindness tainted with ulterior motives.

this is not a review because i don't see anything of value to critique.

I don't really agree with the points you've made. I feel like you're generalizing everyone. I think it would be better if you made it more personal to you, rather than have it be about all woman and all men. I also think that would made the poem feel less complain-y. It didn't feel poetic, instead felt like a rant.

Hey, dude.

All right, so I'm a woman. So you might just ignore the rest of my review because it's going to be honest.

If you have to say you're a nice guy, you aren't. People know when you're a nice guy. It's similar to being a hipster. Hipsters never say that they are hipsters because everyone knows they are a hipster.

This entire poem lumps women into one category, which is sexist. How would you feel if I wrote a poem that said, "men are all disgusting and never shower?" Or "men always run off with homewreckers?" To be honest, that's happened to me. Do I blame all men for it? Nah. And then, after you lump us all together, you say that women are playing you? That's a little hypocritical.

This entire poem reeks of ego. Ego does not equal nice guy. When you say,

The girls who had a nice guy should look at what they had and be like damn I f****d up.

Spoiler! :

lol

I've noticed that a lot, especially in today's society. Speaking from a woman's point of view, I am absolutely appalled at what females are doing to men. They want them all to lay down and roll over like a dog and then they still treat them like crap. It's disappointing and rather embarrassing to see what "feminism" has now turned into. A good guy is something I wish for in my life and seeing girls throw them away like used shoes breaks my heart.

Although I liked the rhythm and shape of the poem, the 'nice guys finish last' is a little bit cliche. If you could have spoke about your individual experience more, it would have sounded more authentic. I'm trying not to be biased (as I believe the opposite), but half of your potential audience is female, and you aren't exactly doing yourself any favours by saying things like "Women treat us like sh*t."

On the contrary, both genders feel this, and so speaking about your experiences regardless of gender make your story feel more authentic and a LOT easier to relate to.

Hope that helped!