Young Writers Society

Hullo, there, Wolf! Here by request. Looks like an interesting poem! I'll go through each line and give my opinion and such.

Life is a ship: follow no map sleep at the wheel take time to search for mermaids

Sort out your punctuation! A line break does not constitute a comma. Have a read through and work out where they should go. In regards to this line, nice idea. Just focus on the flow to make it more readable--I had to stop and reread it, something you don't want the reader to be forced into.

Life is a plane: crash it smash windows glass reflections pounds of ruined metal and you make yourself the luckiest survivor in history.

This is a bit of a jumble. Aside that, I'd think some more about what this means. Go deeper. Symbolically, you are saying that if you wreck life (crashing the plane) you are a world famous survivor. But that's not true; you could go in deep here, make it less black and white. Think about all those people with pilots who have already destroyed their life, and they were born into the second class section of the plane. People who are poor or live in helpless countries. You could also say that lots of planes go down, which they do. Thought I might give you something to think about; and remember that this needs to be done in a small area, perhaps just a few words. Concentrate on your word choices. For example, you have several ways to say a broken window, in this line, where you could be using the words more wisely.

Life is a bomb: pull the pin on the grenade destroy your cities watch your towers burn and new things will grow from the ashes

This is too abstract for me. I do understand, but you need to think about things like "cities". We are talking about life, and so if you want to talk about how your life will affect others you need to really emphasise it. But it's strange because then you go on to talk about your own towers burning. If you see what I mean. But again, stick with it, just a bit of word choice alteration and punctuation.

Life is a gun: make your fingers strong on the trigger no accidents the barrel is smoking; forgive me but [s]i[/s] I take no prisoners.

The "no accidents" part is somewhat... strange. It doesn't really fit. Link it together with another section and see what comes up. I like this line, but as Hannah said, the stretching out of "forgive me" is unnecessary and doesn't really help.

Life is a city street: harsh gritty towers whose sides bristle with lights, brittle the sink pools of quiet roads in-between houses concrete as fragile as those who walk the boulevards
lost

This started off with such lovely description and then... a jumble of words. Sort it out! I'd love some contrast in here. Maybe show the trembling towers, black like ash, and then the wonderful pretty rosy place. If you understand what I mean. Again, lovely idea but I don't like the phrasing, because then the imagery is lost when the reader strays away.

Life is a cigarette: ultimately it will kill you some days are lost-wasted-spent on the curb you smoke until your lungs are as black as your heart

I love this! My only suggestion is a little picky. The "heart" relates to something real, something inside you. But then the cigarette is, well, a metaphor. But then I suppose this works in context. If that's too confusing ignore me.

Life is a pair of stilettos: sexy you walk over live hearts in your high-heeled shoes a laugh that reminds you of a toss of hair the red lips that make you feel beautiful but in the puddle of spilled wine your reflection’s mouth is a grim.

Argh! This sounds so lovely! Or the imagery works in well, but like before, it gets lost in the chaos. Your mouth is a grim? Explain. I can't entirely relate this to life as I think I should. I think I understand, but then again, the punctuation. My favourite line, though.

Life is a car: complicated under the hood speeding a thousand miles an hour blurring the planes of night

Unstoppable

Firstly, what's that "Unstoppable" doing, floating there? If it were particularly significant and added benefit, I wouldn't be questioning it and I'd know where it does. But I don't and I am. I like this line, not a lot to say on it.

Life is like pre-packaged coffee, don’t forget to add sugar.

Good line. =P But I thought I might point out that this is a simile and the rest are metaphors. Unless you intended it.

Overall, a nice touch, but I thought I'd give you something to think about. Also, because it's so structured and laid out you might want to consider making the flow stronger, by adding rhyme or keeping the length of the words down. If I've been too abstract, just drop me a PM and see what I can say. =) Good job!

Best
Blinky

^_^ Hallo! Here as requested, Camille.

First Impression

Well, I liked the phrases that you used, but it was often difficult to distinguish one from the next because of the lack of punctuation. I think the backslashes you used would be effective if placed between each phrase. If, however, you left out punctuation because you meant some of the phrases to run into each other, you might want to just consider... some other way to make it clear? Bwuahaha. >_<;; Mostly, punctuate!

Specific Comments

There are some descriptions I thought were inadequate or didn't make sense. >_<; For example:

sleep at the wheel

Why would you want to sleep at the wheel!? I could see this /maybe/ if you've spent so much energy in your life that you gotta keep going, but you gotta get sleep at the same time? Dunno if that's what you were going for, but if it is, you should expand on that idea! ^_^ Otherwise, just strike it. xD We don't want any ship accidents, do we? D:

and you make yourself the luckiest survivor in history.

This is an interesting possibility/idea... but I don't really understand it! >_<;; Sorry if I'm being dense... xD

forgive me but i take no prisoners.

I think this might be more powerful if you took out 'forgive me', but that's just my opinion. I mean, the rest of the description is so aggressive, that 'forgive me' just seems a moment of weakness that cancels out the rest of the words! D:

harsh gritty / towers whose sides bristle with lights, brittle

Harsh and gritty are words that are normally associated with the city -- I think you'd best stick to original interpretations, like that line you have after it. Beautiful. The line about concrete is FANTASTIC as well, but some punctuation might make it read smoother. C:

ultimately it will kill you some days are lost-wasted-spent on the curb / you smoke until your lungs are as black as your heart

Ehhh. >_< I think you can be a lot more creative with this item. Of course you can go for the education kind of message, the cliche sentences about how a cigarette will kill you and stuff like that, but TRY to go somewhere different! =] It might be fun to see what you could do with that instead. C:

complicated under the hood speeding a thousand miles an hour blurring the planes of night

Unstoppable

Ehhh, this one was alright. I liked the 'blurring the planes of night' a lot, but the rest were, again, not /so/ creative. ^_^ I mean, a lot of your imagery is beautiful and new and not what you might immediately think of -- that's the only reason I'm kind of disapproving of these more conventional parts. You obviously have talent, and you should keep it consistent throughout!

I think the last little line with the coffee is super sweet. ^_^ -thumbs up-

Over all, it's good! Organize it, keep the lovely imagery consistent, and you'll have an A+ for sure! ^_^ Good luck!

-Hannah-

Hey Wolf!
I really liked your poem! The one thing I noticed was the words you used, they really made it all flow nicely. I personally think you descibed these words perfectly!
My favorite one was this one:

Wolf wrote:Life is a gun: make your fingers strong on the trigger no accidents the barrel is smoking; forgive me but i take no prisoners.

The one thing I think you should take another look at, however, is your punctuation. It seems like there are some places that deserve more punction, such as commas and so forth.

But I really enjoyed this one, and I hope it goes well at school!


-Kat. =]