Life is like a river
With no end in sight
Splashing and pushing
And I can’t put up a fight
The cold water blinds me
And I can’t make a sound
It’s a deathly silence
I’d rather have drowned
But the endless tide
Didn’t give me the chance
And everyone surrounding me
Don’t even glance
Can’t they tell I’m dying
On the inside?
They just look away
And continue their stride
But it’s not they care
There is life fine
No troubles at all
Unlike mine
But that’s just the river
Making all those graves
All I can think is how easy it would be
To sink beneath the waves
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Canary word: Present
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125,018 Literary Works • 672,861 Reviews
MS here for a review. Beautiful work. This is different than what I had envisioned from the title. I was thinking this would be a comparison to how you need to 'go with the flow' just like a river. I was expecting this poem to have a happy mood. But I much prefer the themes of depression and struggle. Life is NOT easy..this you have portrayed wonderfully. Your last four lines are particularly powerful:
I would recommend you break this into four line stanzas. This will make your poem easier and more enjoyable for readers to digest. (Not that it isn't already scrumptious)!
Correction:
Did you mean didn't even glance?
I believe these lines could use a little adjusting to increase flow:
Try something like:
'But they wouldn't care
That my life is not fine,
Their troubles are not
As troublesome as mine.'
I hope my suggestions have helped. You've written something to be proud of. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise! Keep it up.
Thanks. I tried to make it have stanzas but weird stuff happened to the words. o_o
Ah. Yes that does happen on this site. I usually put either a dash or a star between my stanzas to make them work. If I don't this site screws it all up for some reason. Haha. Great poem tho.
Hey! Gravity here, co captain of The Reviewing Ravens to give you a review!
I love the idea behind this poem. I love the theory and the idea, it was good. You had some really strong lines in here, but some errors that took away from the message overall. So let's look.
One, you have no structure. The only kind of poem where no structure is okay is free verse, which generally doesn't rhyme. So In order to format this correctly, do the following. The way you have it spaced now is just by hitting enter. By doing that, that gives you two returns, or the extra space in between the lines. To drop down only once, hold down shift and then hit ENTER while you still have SHIFT being pressed down. Voila!
I feel like this poem doesn't actually need rhyme. I actually think it takes away from the poem, because you were rhyming just for the sake of having a rhyming poem. But I understand if that's something you aren't willing to do away with. The rhyming, truthfully, disrupts the rhythm of your poem. So let's see how we can fix it.
I love your three lines. It's the fourth line that messes with your rhythm. I love the imagery and literary devices you use in the first three lines, it was great. Then I noticed you added extra syllables in the fourth line so you could fit in a rhyme. There are other ways to do this so your poem reads smoother. Try something like
"Splashing and pushing
I can no longer fight" or
"Splashing and pushing
I just can't fight"
See?
This is where you need to start a new stanza, because you're beginning a new idea.
Try to avoid use of the word "And", I noticed you did that in the last "stanza". Again, the first 3 lines are great, minus "and". Your next line is incorrect, both technically and rhythmically. You changed your tense. Everything else is in present tense. Your verbs are things like "blinds" and "can't" rather than "blinded" and "couldn't". The fourth line is in the past tense. Change it to "I'd much rather drown". And that fixes it.
New stanza.
Again, in the second line of this stanza, you changed the tense. Instead of "Didn't give me the chance" try "Won't give me the chance". That fixes it. "Don't even glance" is grammatically incorrect. And everyone surrounding me don't even glance. That makes no sense. It should be And everyone surrounding me doesn't even glance. But instead of doesn't, maybe choose a more powerful word. I was thinking something like "And everyone surrounding me refuses to glance". That's much more in your face, not only do they not glance, they REFUSE to glance. The next few lines are very powerful. If I were you, I'd take out this "and". Try replacing it with "then" or even just eliminating it where the poem doesn't need it. You also need some punctuation. I mean, it's not necessary but it helps the rhythm. Truthfully, only the most seasoned poets can get away without using punctuation. I think the last two lines would look good like this:
"They just look away,
Continuing their stride."
So it should look like this:
"But the endless tide
Won't give me the chance
And everyone surrounding me
Refuses to glance.
Can't they tell I'm dying?
On the inside.
They just look away,
Continuing their stride."
This part is basically perfect. Just take out "But". The second line has a few major issues. One, you used the wrong there and reversed life and is. "Their life is fine". Their is plural. It should be "Their lives are fine." The next two lines are perfect. Good job. And add in punctuation!
This is my fav part. I really love this, seriously, it's beautiful. Again, take out "But" to start a new stanza. The third line is the only flaw. It disrupts the rhythm. Take out "All I can think is". Just replace it with a question so it looks like this.
"That's just the river,
Marking all those graves.
How easy would it be
To sink beneath the waves?"
See? Again, that last verse was beautiful and you really did a great job with this poem, it just needs a little fixing up and TLC and it will be perfect. Overall, I give this an 8 out of 10. Happy Review Day!
XOXO,
Gavity
I really like this poem. I think many will be able to relate to it. I also like your rhythm and rhyme in this poem. I think the metaphors are great as well.
I just have a few things to try and help. I think this poem either originally had stanzas, or if not, it should. In order to make stanzas, press enter so there is a space. Instead of leaving just the empty line, put a period there. Then the next stanza can follow the line with the period.
Also, in poems you should follow all normal punctuation rules, except capitalize each line (which you obviously know already). But you are missing necessary periods, commas, and other basic punctuation.
At "And everyone surrounding me
Don't even glance," you should change 'everyone' to 'the people.' In my mind that would make it sound more grammatically correct.
Great job! Thanks for sharing you art with YWS!
Aright starting this out a bunch of people would find your lack of punctuation to ruin the flow and make this poem meaningless, I on the other hand LOVE this. The short lines help relate the mood and tone back to the reader which I find brilliant. I love how you began with your title, "Life is like a river." Then tied it perfectly in the end," To sink beneath the waves." I really liked this. I see no mistakes which is great my favorite line thought was " but that's just the river, making all those graves." Legit goose bumps over all Amazing poem and after this review I shall follow your work!