All That Is Left

Hello! thanks for the wall post and don;t ever hesitate to ask me to review something I must say, the poem is incredible and on its own does not need any improvements but if you'd like to increase the poem into something of a story ( which is what I normally do. heehee) Well, it does have much potential as more then the very beautiful poem it is.

I love the way you use the descriptive vocabulary like the way it should be used. you describe things in a way that captures mine and most definitely other readers full interest. I love how much you can weave a tale of death,destruction and the world after a terribly tragedy is has destroyed the urban society we have now. I love the way you describe dying flames, and the two characters in the middle all trapped and a slave to the grief and the danger. It weaves a tale all its own but in a story, I think the starting poem could be as an epilogue of some sort and then you see them. Describe the dirt on their faces and the pain and future in their eyes. What an impressive idea!!

Well, anyway, I must admit without spinning a story the idea is incredible and I would not mind reading a following story if there is to be any! if you ever need a review, simply post on my wall

not to repeat things that was said, I could say this is a BEUTIFUL poem. Great job at the concept and wise utilization of words. You introduced it with a well played line, KEEP writing!
This is VRYX here,

Okay. I love that first line--"their struggle is old but the day is young." Really nice line that kind of sums up what's going on without being too obvious about it.

And you've got good bones here--you have a story that you're trying to tell through a poem, a very universal story about something that still goes on in much of the world.

But I'd like see you be more specific. Yes, the story is universal, but you're talking about a specific boy and his sister. What makes their situation different from everyone else's? Why should we care about them? This is a poem, but it's a narrative poem, so to some extent the rules of story-telling still apply.

Examples of places where you could be more precise:

"war zone riddled with suffering, intense poverty and dying flames"
The dying flames are a nice image, but you could tell us more about the suffering and poverty. How can you show us these things? Some guy with a bullet through his shoulder is groaning on the pavement? People's clothes are filthy and in tatters?

"remnants of hate and death."
Again, what remnants? Body parts littering the streets? What? Show us rather than telling us.

This poem has a lot of potential, but so far you've just scratched the surface of this issue. It's not an easy thing to do (I have trouble with it myself). But go through and see where you could be more specific. See what words fail to give you actual images. Like "suffering" is just an idea whereas a guy with a bullet through his shoulder groaning on the pavement is an image. Look for ideas, replace them with images, and watch as the poem suddenly becomes much more intense. Good luck!

~Blue

Hiya! This is Sapi with a review as requested.

Although this is a well-worn subject, I felt like it wasn't too unoriginal after all. It's extremely emotionally raw and emotionally descriptive as well. It's the kind of poem that leaves you a bit stunned and empty-feeling, which if that's what you were going for is good. The long lines and sentences don't work for most pieces, but here they're actually fine. The stanza divisions are a little uneven; although I'm not sure whether it's better to leave them that way (for a disjointed feeling) or make them more even to help with flow. I guess it's your decision, just keep in mind that making the stanzas more even lengthwise would help with fluency.

Specific things:

"Their struggle is old but the day is young."

This is a perfect quote to fit the poem. The problem is, we don't know where it's from. If you didn't write it, then it will need citation for a source. Without that it's a big no-no. On the other hand, if you did come up with that, it's fine, but it doesn't need quotes. Either way, since it is an introduction, I feel it would be best put separately from the first stanza, kind if as a lone line at the beginning.

The last line of the first stanza,

"Of their former home that is now a war zone riddled with suffering, intense poverty and dying flames."

Is a bit too lengthy, even for the style. There are a few too many long words in it. "Intense poverty" is in fact not as emotionally powerful as the other words. Poverty in this situation would be either something that already was there before the disaster, or is not yet there because there's pretty much no one left at the moment, and poverty is not their biggest worry at that time. Instead, either get rid of that phrase altogether or replace it with a one or two syllable word. That would help the flow of the whole stanza.

In general:

Your almost-rhyming really works in this poem, I think. In some cases I don't like it but here it's okay, so good job with that! One thing that confused me for the last half of the poem was who "they" was referring to. If it was the children, it would make sense except for this line:

"That even the youngest of children deserved this kind of twisted fate"

And if it was not the children, this part doesn't make sense:

"
They search through the ruins for any life that is left, 
 
But all they see is remnants of hate and death."

because if the children were still there, there would still be life. So just a bit more clarity on that would be helpful.

Overall, this was beautiful. It definitely needs some touching up with flow and especially clarity with specific things, but the emotional clarity was overwhelming. I could really tell that you felt what was expressed here. So thank you for sharing it with us!

~Sapi

This is really Good.