Published August 12, 2015
The ceiling sheds faces.
Of the tears streaming down the faces of owners of the house before.
Or the smiles of glee and temporary happiness.
That would soon be followed by the anger in their voices.
Shut in the house.
Only going out of the windows that were barely open.
The emotions were shut inside.
Only to stay inside.
Afraid to come out.
But the only ones that did come out.
Were fake.
Fake sympathy.
When they did not really care at all.
Fake smiles.
When they were not really happy on the inside.
And fake emotions.
Who were made on the outside.
The only real emotions that came out of the house.
Were blank.
The others would rather stayed inside.
For the more important.
And so they stuck themselves to the ceilings.
To fall down when truly being used.
And run out from the cracks under the door.
Or slightly opened windows.
To be real emotions.
And those were the real emotions.
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139,786 Literary Works • 672,767 Reviews
Hi, epic here.
Alright so there weren't any stanzas. It was all just spread out into one large stanza with not much structure going on. This review is going to be pretty short since two people have already reviewed this and said pretty much everything that has to be said. There is no need for the periods after every line since they don't help the flow of the poem and some could be replaced with commas.
The first line is a good opening line, however it didn't exactly grab my attention like I hoped it would and the period at the end of the line ruins it. In some places the periods do work but it just wrecks it in other places. I think you need to build on the description of the emotions and what they do and why they do those things.
The last line just doesn't work, I cringed at how much that line just doesn't work for the poem. I get what you wanted the line to sound like but it just didn't sound right. I felt like you told us about too much that was going on, you need to show us and create an image in our heads (the readers) to me this was just a poem which I felt nothing towards because I couldn't picture much of it.
'The emotions were shut inside.
Only to stay inside'
I don't really get this bit. It's a bit like the last line where you just repeated the words with no adding effect on them. I actually quite confusing.
I liked the bit about the fake sympathy and fake emotions, those parts were the parts that kept me reading this. I don't understand what emotions you are trying to explain to us. Are they sad? happy? angry? It just confuses me because this poem is about emotions yet, you don't mention any emotions.
The first few lines were great, they pulled me into the poem but after that, it just went downhill. I get the concept of this poem but I don't like how you told us the concept. The whole poem is just words on a screen to readers who want to feel something for poems. It just seems flat and boring without feeling something for it.
I don't get the emotions in this, they are locked in a house but then they are seeping out of it through cracks. You need to make the readers care about the poem. Why should we care about this poem? Make us care about the poem through the words you write. Make us care through your poetry. If you have readers who don't care, you need more emotion to the poem. Nothing actually happens you just tell the readers what the emotions are doing and how they are feeling, you should be making the readers feel something.
I really hoped this helped.
Keep writing
EPICnumber1
~~~~~~~~
Hey, Gray~ Pomp here for a quick review!
So, the first thing that needs to be tackled in this poem is flow. Like, tackle it pronto, please, because the poem reads rather jaggedly at the moment. The way the verses are structured does not allow them to come together to create a focus, but the message you're trying to get around says 'this is splayed error 101'. I can understand if you did this purposefully, in an attempt to create a somewhat stilted atmosphere (which is a way of showing us how suppressing emotional emotions works)--but the real problem lies in their inability to do so. The stiltedness, rather than making the atmosphere intriguing, just irritate the reader.
That said, fragments are great for conveying short, snappy bits of suspense to your readers, but this is if they're used sparsely--whenever you overuse anything, it has a tendency to create this blockage in your readers' minds, where they're more concerned with the way the sentence is structured than understanding what the author means to say. I don't understand why you've used periods at the end of every verse, because that caused me to mentally pause and divide the images you used in the poem. It didn't help me to create a solid something to focus on, y'know? And, because I happened to scroll down and see Lylas has mentioned this, I won't elaborate. A suggestion, though, is to read this poem out loud to yourself, and see where the natural pauses come into play. Poetry is as much about flow as it is about ideas and structure and imagery.
Another thing I'm going to talk about is repetitiveness. Someone reviewed a piece of mine once, and their advice is one I try to continually apply wherever I can: In writing--whatever it may be, prose or poem--say it once, say it firmly. There is no need to repeat a thought for the sake of confirming it in the readers' minds, not if it's been stated with absolute conviction. So play with your word choice. Try to see how many different ways you can convey a single idea. There are several places in this piece where the narrator repeats themself, so that a single strong idea is reduced to a bland one simply because it has been repeated and loses effect. Example:
Because you've simply reinforced the concept of real emotions with no added weight, the ending of the poem falls flat. It does not strike a chord with me. I also feel like you're being very blatant--obvious in what you're telling us. In poetry, sometimes it is better to tell in a less obvious manner. Poetry can be about hinting at things, about playing with words and creating pictures without a supporting medium. I like that you've used personification (which is when you give inanimate objects or abstract concepts actual feelings and approach them as if they are human). I also like the idea they are meant to convey, because it is both a snippet and a wider picture. What I understood from this piece was that the narrator thinks there are two kinds of emotions: the stronger ones are the ones that are kept inside, as though under house-arrest, yet they're seeping and leaking out through the edges. The weaker, more faded ones are largely the fake emotions, the ones we hitch onto our face without deeper feeling, if only to survive in society.
Which is a pretty neat concept, I must say. What I dislike is the way this has been executed.
As this piece stands right now, it is A) sparse, by which I mean it lacks imagery and vividness that I adore in poetry; B) it is structured awkwardly, and the structure fails to contribute to the central idea/stimulate an emotional response in any way; and C) it is a stream of repetitiveness with no actual arc. By arc, I mean that at the end of the poem an emotional response in the reader hasn't been triggered because, really, nothing has changed. What about these suppressed emotions? What are they like? What kind of emotions are they? Frustration, sadness--what? Why should we care about them, and what are the consequences of these emotions remaining suppressed? Does the lack of real emotion fail to create a balance? Do the fake emotions reign over this strange snapshot-picture-of-a-land?
Besides this, you also have me wondering over what emotions would be classified as 'fake' and what would be classified as 'real'. Sometimes, I think emotions like happiness have the capacity to be both fake and real. Happiness can sometimes be stuffy and pale, with awkward movements, when you're trying to put on a façade. At other times, it is absolutely carefree, with wild hair and dancing eyes. All a matter of perspective, though, I guess, and another of my complaints would be that this perspective doesn't entirely come through to us.
Work on this piece. For starters, you've got an idea, which is always fab--you just need to find a way to implement it. Build a focus, describe this house of emotions, employ imagery and look at the scene you have to offer your readers.
Keep writing! Keep up the great work!
Hope this helped.
~Pomp c:
Alright, :3. I just usually post my poetry for fun and didn't bother to edit because I'm lazy (reasons for all periods). Thanks for the review!
Hey Ats
.
So I figured I would review this, just cause you don't seem to have any reviews right now
First thing I notice, it that there are no stanzas. Usually poetry has stanzas. The hard thing about reviewing poetry is that poetry could either be super structured, or have no structure to it at all! so, obviously, most of what I (the reader) have to go off of is my own opinion of how it should go.
let me tell you now that I haven't read this poem yet, so after I read I can give you more of my opinion on what I would do about formatting, and you can do with that as you please. Like I said, I'm just sharing my own personal opinion.
another thing I've noticed after skimming over the first two lines, is that you have ending each line with a period. Depending on what this poem's tone is, could decide whether or not this was needed. If you mean for it to be choppy, I understand. But like I said, my opinion
okay, let me actually read this...
okay, so now I'll comment on the things I've stated before. i don't think that stanzas are technically necessary, but it would be nice to have them. It's better to group things in poetry, because you change the focal point a few times. like how you went from sadness, to fake, to real.
I do think that the periods are not needed here. they cause a sort of choppiness that doesn't necessarily fit with the piece. added commas in flowing sentences would really help this piece when being spoken out loud, which is something we have to think of all the time while writing.
For the actual "meat" of the poetry, I thought the concept was really good. I feel as if the faces should be caught in the mirrors or something though...or like reflections of the faces, rather than the ceiling. I feel that would make sense with the over all thought of the piece.
other than those few small changes, I think this piece has really great potential! You honestly remind me a lot of myself :p Keep it up, and keep writing. It get's better over time :p
-Delonie (Kamryn)
Hey there, just wanted to say that this was very great. Very unique, keep it up =)