I remember what you said.
When I was 5 years old you said you loved me
Holding me dear you planted a kiss on my forehead
As I heard you read a story, I slowly went to bed.
Oh those days were full of such joy and glee
And how I wish they still could be.
But they are remnants, shadows of what is
Twisted and distorted they bear no resemblance.
*
*
I remember what you said.
When I was 10 the love was gone,
It was work and beatings until the break of dawn.
Stuff flying across the room in fits of rage,
Daddy I'm sorry let me fix it and it'll be okay.
Just get out of here you are always in the way!
I felt invisible and unloved;
Like nothing I ever did was good enough.
*
*
I remember what you said.
Now I am 16 and you have passed,
Just like your promises you just didn't last.
A piece of me sheds a tear,
While the other sits in anguish and shaken with fear.
Daddy you're gone...
Broken and shattered my soul lays as dead,
Because I still remember what you said!
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140,159 Literary Works • 673,032 Reviews
Okay, I just want to say something about this.
I like this poem. It's very emotional, and detailed. I like how you wrote it from a philosophical and spiritual point of view. I like how the speaker's attitude toward her father changes as the poem progresses. The lines, oh my god. The rhyme scheme is perfect, and the words you rhymed match perfectly. It's like a puzzle that you conquered. Nothing in the poem is awkwardly worded.
Don't let harsh words get to you. Most people are so hard to please anymore. Poetry is an outlet of self-expression, and I for one, favor this poem. Please keep writing, you've got something.
Hey there! Shane here to review
Okay, so this topic is definitely an interesting one, and obviously one with an underlying passion to it. The poem tells us a story, and one that has the potential to be very interesting, very emotionally provocative, and absolutely heartbreaking.
Unfortunately, I just wasn't feeling it. Your word choice, and the way you strung the lines together, and the weakness of the rhyme scheme sort of broke the spell for me. Right off the bat, the language used sounds amateur and whiny. It's got that "oh woe is me!" language that honestly just makes you roll your eyes. Which is a little disconcerting, considering how heartwrenching a topic this is.
It's all in the execution.
Alright. Here, my biggest problem is with the repetition of "said". The first line seems completely unnecessary. Obviously, if you're recounting that your narrator's father told them that he loved them back when they were five, they remember it. You don't need to take up writing space to tell us that.
Also, in writing (except for years or serial numbers/the ilk), you should always write out the number. Using the numeral looks sloppy, lazy and just plain childish. Also, watch where commas are needed. They help with the flow and keep the punctuation from looking like first-grade work. I tossed one in there.
With this line, it's the phrasing. And also the word "dear," because you can't hold someone dear. Not physically, anyway. It could work emotionally speaking, but then it sounds like you're aiming for a play on words, and this one's weak.
And then the clauses. Ugh. I hate the way this is phrased. It runs on and on and structure-wise, is very... childish. Again. Try something like "You held me dear, planting a kiss on my forehead" or "You would hold me dear and plant kisses on my forehead." Something that doesn't sound so strained. That's a massive pattern in your lines-- they sound strained. And I understand that you're trying to go for a rhyme scheme, but you can adhere to that and play with the wording to keep the lines flowing well.
... Slowly went to bed? What, were they brushing their teeth and combing their hair and getting into their pajamas as their father was reading to them? Also, again, the way the clauses are phrased is strained and stiff. Plus there's the fact that this detail is just boring. Since we're looking back on the narrator's life, and probably not any specific day (from the looks of things, we're getting a glance at their entire fifth year of being alive), an isolated event will seem out of place unless it's a massive one. Reading a story isn't a massive event, and if it is, you're going to have to go on to tell us why.
Something like, "You would read me stories, both of us snuggled up in my bed" would probably work better. Play with that line. Try to make it a point of interest. With the way it's phrased now, it's very impersonal.
I really dislike the "oh" there. That's that "woe is me" attitude I was talking about before, which is extremely unattractive to read. Also, "joy and glee" are the same thing. You need "glee" for the rhyme (although I'm sure you could find a less corny word, if you tried hard enough), so if you're going to keep that, I'd swap "joy" for something that isn't a synonym for the word that comes after. And, if you remove "oh," you have room for another syllable, which broadens your selection of replacement words.
Whoa wait what are you doing with your rhyme scheme. Why is Word A in the middle of the sentence all of a sudden? This is fine, if you're going to follow a pattern with it, but you don't. You just stick it in there. Fix that.
Every line in the second stanza feels incredibly stiff, and I'm not going to go into detail with it. Take what I said about playing with the lines and shaping them until they actually flow, and sound at least raw (in other words: all of your lines are impersonal. make them personal).
I'm only going to point out one line specifically:
Okay. "Break of dawn". The only word I can think of to describe that is "weak." I'd strongly advise changing that phrase. Secondly, the word "stuff." Again, it's an impersonal thing. This is not the kind of poem where you want things to be impersonal. You want it to be as personal as possible, which means that you need to use words that sound personal. Words that hold some sentimental value.
Firstly: The repetition of "just." You use it twice within the first line, and it clogs up the flow and distracts the reader. Take out the second one.
"A piece of me sheds a tear" doesn't make sense. I'm assuming that that piece is your eyes. What you're trying to say here is that a part of you was sad, but the way you phrased it sounded kind of ridiculous. And then, next, you go onto describe the other part of you, but that other part of you isn't relieved. Both of the emotions you list are ones that would probably make tears form, if they were intense enough. Therefore the "one part of me is x while the other part of me is x" doesn't work, because all of you is "x."
And then you've got your last line, and it ends with an exclamation mark. Um. Why? This is a funeral scene. Either you're angry, or you want it to come off as solemn. Dark. Haunting. Exclamation marks are the least solemn, dark, haunting pieces of punctuation in existence.
All in all: excellent storyline. It has a lot of potential to be a very raw, emotional, beautiful piece, which is where you're getting your praise from. Unfortunately, the execution was off. Play with your phrasing, and things should get a lot better
Good job and keep writing,
~Shane
Truly thank you for being very honest with your review I will definitely try to fix the poem up.
Hey Temp-Love, just going to point out you have some broken codes in this review near the top. Two of them are bold codes that are broken. One you put a period instead of the backslash, the other you forgot the backslash. -With love-
Hey, Weymouth here to review this brilliant piece of writing!
Keep up the good work!
This is an amazing poem, and I really struggled to find anything wrong with it! The theme is quite a complex one, there are so many things you could do with it, and I think that you've pretty much nailed it
I'll say what I liked first off, then i'll move on to some small nitpicks, ok?
I really liked how you started off each stanza with the title of the poem, because it reinforces it in the reader's mind and reminds them of the main subject of the poem. I also liked the on/off rhyming, especially in couplets like "Oh those days were full of such of such joy and glee-And how I wish they could still be." This line really stuck out, and personally I think that it's the best two lines of the whole thing.
Now, onto some nitpicks (which were very, very hard to spot). There is punctuation in this poem, but not in all the places it should be. There are a few lines that aren't full stopped or missing a comma, so I would consider some editing to deal with that. Also, the line "shadows of what is twisted and distorted they bear no resemblance" is rather strange, i can't seem to make sense of it. Consider re-phrasing it? A final thing is the asterisks between the stanzas. You don't need them there, if you want a break for another stanza then just use <br> in the publishing center on the line you want blank.
All in all, a brilliant poem
Hey, here to leave a review on this (admittedly different) poem of yours!
So, on to the review.
I shall always wonder what inspired this-- that is, until you tell me, of course.
You missed a few commas here and there, like after "dear" in the third line and after "distorted" in the last line of the first stanza. There are a couple of others, but I think that a quick glance-over will reveal them to you. You should also use quotation marks in the second stanza when the two are conversing. (But you knew that.) That's about it as far as mechanics go.
To me personally, the first lines seem kind of awkward as a full stop. I don't know how you feel about have punctuation in the middle of a line of poetry, but perhaps you could try (for example) removing the period after "said" in the first line and moving it to the second line after "old", then capitalizing "you." (I personally would not capitalize the beginning of each line if you do go about it this way.) If you change the first one, then you should probably change the rest in a similar fashion.
"I remember what you said
when I was 5 years old. You said you loved me."
And in the third line of the last stanza, the repetition of "just" kinda bothers me. It probably shouldn't, but if you feel the same way, then consider getting rid of one of them. You said
The way you said "a piece of me" made me think that there was going to be multiple reactions, not just two. The lines seem a bit unclear to me, too. What is he afraid of? Why is he shedding a tear, if he's not mourning (in anguish)? I'd consider revising that little bit.
Okay, now I feel like I've been kinda heavy with this review... But for one, you should know that I never review things unless I think that they are "worth it". Meaning that I liked it SO much that I felt the need to actually take time (avoiding school) to go through it and try to express what I think would polish up what is already a masterpiece. You know, like blowing the sawdust off of a finished carving.
So. I definitely liked this piece! Well done, Windsailor. =)
~Ongoeslife
Thanks Sarah! I will apply the changes you made to it later. I'll just leave you wondering to what inspired it.
Not fair! D=
This poem is great. I can relate to this other then my dad is not dead just has been in my life off in on throughout me growing up. I don't know for sure if you still feel that way about your dad but it may help if you forget the past and realize that he has always loved you....Im not trying to be rude or mean so I'm sorry if it sounds that way
I do not feel this about my dad at all.
oh ok sorry then
Ok, first review, and I don't really know what I'm doing. But I think you do! I love the emotion and thought put into this. Because you use punctuation, this poem makes me feel like you're rambling when it seems like there should be punctuation but there isn't. Maybe keep the exclamation point at the end for emphasis. I agree with Lornthalas... sorry, I'm not very good at this.
Welcome to YWS and thanks for the review
A touching and thoughtful poem. I would prefer not to approach the subject matter from a philosophical perspective and I would rather just appreciate the opportunity to highlight some grammatical problems.
The line "Twisted and distorts there is no resemblance" in the first stanza does not really seem to fit with the previous line, in terms of parallelism. Perhaps if you changed it to: "Twisted and distorted, they bear no resemblance," then the line would fit more appropriately.
Also, in the last stanza, the word should be "passed" instead of "past."
Lastly, do not be afraid to utilize more punctuation in order to make the thoughts clearer and the transitions smoother. One such place that I feel a comma is necessary is the line "As I heard you read a story I slowly went to bed." Try adding in a comma after "story," see if you like it and if not feel free to just backspace it!
Thanks for the read!
-Lornthalas
Thanks for the review!
This poem is great. I can relate to this other then my dad is not dead just has been in my life off in on throughout me growing up. I don't know for sure if you still feel that way about your dad but it may help if you forget the past and realize that he has always loved you....Im not trying to be rude or mean so I'm sorry if it sounds that way