Author's note:
This is my first attempt at poetry that doesn't rhyme. Actually I am not sure if this is even poetry... Don't hesitate to critique it because you are afraid of hurting my feelings... Criticize freely!
Inside the shadows, there is a tree.
The tree is tall, its long branches
Capturing everything in its dark circle,
Dominating everything inside itself.
Everything inside itself.
Beneath its wreath of gloom,
One sits all alone.
His heart is torn and he sits, not moving.
The only thing that moves are tears,
And they flow freely.
They flow freely.
He thinks of times past,
And of times to be.
But those thoughts are overwhelmed.
Overwhelmed by one thought.
Overwhelmed by her.
He keeps drifting back to her smile,
The way she looks at him passing
The way she laughs and cries
Her last words echoing inside his mind.
We were never meant for each other.
Never meant to be.
The note is crumpled in his hands.
The paper that bears those painful words.
Smoothing out the crinkled pages,
Looking at them in a different light
Realization begins to dawn on him.
Realization at last.
Maybe she was right.
Maybe they were never meant to be.
And he begins to understand
That what she said wasn’t intended to hurt him
But rather meant to help him see.
To help him see.
The note is folded carefully,
Finding its way into his back pocket.
That letter serves as a reminder,
A reminder of his first love,
His first love.
Points:
Time spent:
Canary word: Present
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Original Text:
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125,008 Literary Works • 672,827 Reviews
This is really good Timmy, I loved it
Thank youuuu, Selina. <3
Welcome!
Hi Timmy! Finally a chance to get back after all those reviews. Had a busy day today
And I really don't think this is going to be too long, because there isn't much I can help you with here. You've done a splendid (imagine the British accent here) job with this, and well, there isn't much to change. I really loved how you used the repetition and the italics at the end of the stanzas. It worked so well in tying the whole poem together, and always added something extra when it came to the story. At first you just highlighted a shorter part of the previous line when it came to the italics, but then you started to add a little bit more to it as well. I liked it ^.^ This is the way to repetition effectively, in my opinion
There were some parts of the poem where I didn't think the repetition quite worked, and that was because it was in the stanza parts that didn't have italics. Since you made it so prominent in the places you do use it, then it shouldn't be anywhere else at all.
I think an idea for this could be 'there is a tree/with tall, long branches' or so on, where you continue describing the tree in the next line without closing the sentence, so there is no need to repeat 'the tree.'
I get why you laid it out like this, but seeing as the first one is referring as to how she is looking at him, and then next how he is looking at her, it's nice to differentiate between them a bit more, or connect the more smoothly. How about: The way she looks at him in passing/ and the laughs and cries that light up her face, or something. It gets rid of the repetition I am not to keen on in the middle of the stanza as well.
Hope this helped a titch. Really there was nothing more to mention
Deanie x
Thank you for your review, Livvvvy!!
Yo! Timmy Bro.. It was an amazing poem
Thanks!
Hola Timmy!
I gave it a 'like.'
I loved this!!
Anywhoooo, I liked how the last two lines of every stanza kind of summed it up, and the last line was like an echo of the second-to-last.
The title made me think a little about how it related to the poem...by 'first time' do you mean that this will be the first time his heart was broken? If you meant 'first love', then you should probably change it up a bit.
Toodles!
~ Wonder
Thank you for your review! Helped a lot!
Anytime ^^
hey timmy
this is so '' amazing '' poem , i think that you should keep writing poems , you're doing great
keep it up
Awww, thank you smile.
AHHHHH YAAAAAAAY
I LOVED THIS, KEEP IT UP PLEASE
Thank you!
I loved this, you could feel the pain that this man felt. The way you worded it was perfect. I don't know much about poems, but I do think this is one.
The last two lines of ech stanza almost felt like the wind was whispering to him. Like some unknown was caressing his torn and hurt soul.
This is beautiful, well done. You should definitely keep writing poems.
Thank you!
haha geezes...This poem made me feel rather peculiar. Sad, but at the same time hopeful. Maybe that is because of my relation to this poem? I felt the character's pain...and I've also been the one to do this to a boy....
Anyway, on to the actual structure of the poem.
I think my favorite part of the poems were the parts of repetition.
"A reminder of his first love,
His first love."
But it did throw me off a little at some parts. But it was a nice affect to gather the attention to the important lines of the poem.
I think you also have a very good way of putting this simply and a topic everyone has gone through, which helps more people (not just me) to relate better to it.
Thank you for this work ~^_^~ keep it up, please!
Thank you!
Heya timmyjake! Pompadour here has dropped from the violent world of magical binders and cake to leave a review on your poem! Now, I'm very cheery today, so I shan't disturb this review with death-threats or anything of the sort. So, moving on... review time!
OK, so first off: the title. It's sort of vague and, to bluntly put it, it's confusing. It wasn't until the end of the poem that I understood you were referring to the man's first love as "The first time." I would suggest you tweak the title a bit to something that grabs attention, like: "The hollow reminder," or something of that sort. I have a feeling "First love" would be too cliche, but maybe that's just me.
Then there's the overall idea, which is actually pretty good. But you don't dive into the idea straight away, and you take it too slow. There's this thing called subtlety, and then there's "drawing it out." In the beginning, you're focusing on the tree. And that means the reader focuses on the tree too. They ask questions: "Is this poem about a tree?" "Why is it so important?" There's a whole stanza focusing on it, so the reader assumes that the tree must signify something. Since this is your first (non-rhyming) poem, I guess that's OK. But you're teasing the reader, and that just threw me off. I did like the imagery you used here though, and I found the image of the "dark circle" easy to visualize, as well as slightly haunting. It reminded me of vultures, somehow. Don't ask me why!
So, over here, in this stanza:
When you refer to the man as "One," you're being kind of vague. You could have said 'One man,' to make it clear what you're talking about, or even gone poetic and said: "A lonely/sad heart" or something of the sort. Also, when you repeat "they flow freely," it doesn't leave much of an impact, but feels like a dead weight sliding down a hill. Now, since this is free-verse, you can play with words all you want and there's no-one to tell you otherwise. It's plain expression unbound, so why not explore with imagery? You could elaborate on the "And they flow freely," by comparing the tears to rivers in spring, when the rains come, or to broken chains, so the prisoner flees from his fortress. Oh, there's so much you could say! But how you do that is completely up to you!
Poetry is a wonderful form of art to dabble in, and I guess I'll spare you of my rambles, but you seem very hesitant with what you're writing. Just write what you feel, and light fire to your words! Keep writing and your poetry will learn to speak for yourself. But enough of the pep talk, and I'll just point out a few things in this poem that you need to work on.
For example:
The italicized bit seemed powerful when I read it, and it really tugged on my heartstrings. So have a thumbs-up here! The only thing I have to critique here is that I think you should define "her" actions in past-tense, since the man was "drifting back" to what she said and did, and that means he was remembering, right? Also, shouldn't there be quotation marks behind her words? Keeping all that in mind, the result would be:
Then there's:
So, over here I have the same complaint I had in the second stanza. You could replace the "To help him see" that you repeat with something like: "So he wasn't blind anymore," or whatever you consider suitable.
Overall, this was a pretty good for a first attempt! Good work!
Cheers,
~Pompadour
Thank you so much! I loved your review!
I will work on making my poetry more like what you said!
Haha, I'm glad this was helpful to you! And I know I'll be seeing more of your poetry up soon, dedicated as you are!
Wait, did I just compliment you? Never mind.
Yeah, not what you usually do... I'll take the compliment, though, as I know your criminal mind won't be handing them out too often!
Pfft. Me? Criminal mind? My record would suggest otherwise.
But I might be one of those secret undercover agents pretending to be evil. Hahaha. And I'll hand out compliments to whoever asks nicely.
Hey, TJ, you have a catchy new nickname. Your avatar is cool.
There, that makes a total of three times, and I think it fulfills your definition of "often."
Wow. TJ is speechless... actually, not really. TJ always has a few words to say. I like my avatar, but I like yours better. Some karate girl in Frozen, I take it?
Your mind is very criminal. Your record proves it... lol
She's actually a misunderstood protagonist in the movie.
Haha, kidding.
Aw, thank you! I like my avatar better too.
What record? *looks around wildly*