This is a fair attempt at poetry, I wrote this last night, while listening to my Taylor Swift playlist. It was a spur of the moment, recently, I’ve been writing enough, there has been a lot of appreciation on my works and I’m grateful!
Cursed to the Bones
Pouring rain, Tittering teeth
Cold pane, pale skin….
“The roof is leaking!”
“The bed is soaking!”
Her eyes are teary,
Heart? Breaking.
Darkness, high power and might,
Her tears, exposed even in dim light.
The men, in and out.
Her life? Dead, no doubt.
Her eyes are teary,
Heart is breaking.
“Cursed to the bones,
Struck by their own rants,
Thrown on them, stones,
Bitten by little ants”
They are,
Yes! They are,
Unexpected pain.
Cursed pain.
How much better has it become?
Points:
Time spent:
Canary word: Present
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125,008 Literary Works • 672,827 Reviews
Hi beeyay,
Here to give you that review I owe you. Thought I'd pick poetry to give you an idea of how to perfect poetic technique, considering that's the desire you expressed in your recent comments.
First of all, this is an interesting selection of content. The idea of a horror poem is not new, but then your piece doesn't really ring cliche either, apart from maybe the repetition of "cursed" in the penultimate line, but I shall get on to that.
The biggest problem with your poem is its disjointed structure, and it's the first thing I notice as it disrupts your fluency. In terms of word count per line, you're doing pretty well - there's definitely a rhythm to nicely compliment your fluency. However, your lines follow each other and change subject almost completely, deferring the reader from sympathising with your lines. For example:
These lines "list" too much. There is nothing that links the "dim light" to "the men", or the "in and out" to "Her life?". You can easily fix these issues by being more specific, more prosaic in your poetry. Simply by adding a few lines that link will better allow a reader-poet relationship.
I think the main reason there's a disjointed feel is forced rhyme. Rhyming is something that should come naturally to your poem's subject or not at all. I would suggest therefore that you never set out to rhyme. If you find it comes naturally, so be it, but never, ever force it.
One of my favourite things about your poem is the attributed speech. I'm not sure why you've italicised it but, where I mostly dislike forced formatting, it works quite well here. You should definitely think about experimenting with this technique more in future poetry.
Finally, your repetition:
This sounds purely like the repetition is there for the sake of sounding creepy - which is a cliche based on the idea that echoes evoke loneliness and loneliness evokes victimisation (and thus fear). Used in a more original way this could be very interesting, but here it just appears cliche. I'd probably keep the exclamative line "Yes! They are," and delete the "They are" that precedes it.
Again here:
One question: what does this mean? Does the repetition not saturate the effect in your opinion thus terming the line meaningless? Would it not, perhaps by suggestion, be better to use a simple declarative:
You have a good basis here and an excellent understanding of rhythm and language. With a little help when it comes to constructing your poem and editing it, you can go far. If you want to learn more my suggestion to you is to take these comments, find a subject that really, really affects you, write another poem, edit it, publish it and then let me know when it's up. I'll work with you again and we can see where it takes you!
All the best,
Ben
AND KEEP WRITING!
thanks so much, i don't usually do poetry, you know and I'm glad you were able to review, I'll work on something else and we'll see how it works out! Thanks a bunch for the review! XOXO
Hey!
Firstly, I can totally tell that Taylor Swift has influenced this work:
'Her eyes are teary,
Heart? Breaking.' Lulz
Anyways... I really liked this piece.
It's very expressive: 'Struck by their own rants,
Thrown on them, stones,'
You've used literary techniques well, as with the alliteration: 'Tittering teeth', but you don't go overkill. It's great.
You have a very unique voice: 'Yes! They are,
Unexpected pain.'
Couldn't find anything to criticise. XD
Great job.
thanks for the review, yeah, i love Taylor Swift! thanks again!
Without an iota of doubt, I have new found respect for you. In so many years I have known you, never knew this part of you. Now to review. Imagery: it was profound and highly dependent on your word choice. This is good! It helps create sensual images as we read. Voice: I love the undertone of pessimism, it adds to the atmosphere of the poem. The voice was clear and bold and most young poets find it hard to be strong in their voice. Structure: your use of questions is simply remarkable coupled with your unique word choice. Also, I relish with deep satisfaction that your rhyming, isn't "forced"; you conveyed the emotions with freedom and did not succumb to using words just to make the poem rhyme. Now, on the downside, I wanted more! I felt my mind plunging into the poem and then abruptly, I hit reality. Let's know more. However, you should know this is my perspective. You've got a gift; a flame. As I always say, tend your flame it's all we've got.
thanks Temi, abrupt, all my works seem to stop suddenly, maybe, I'll make a sequel, but thanks anyway!
Whoa... this is a really good poem. And how you wrote it last night too! That takes skill, when I write a poem, it takes ages to edit and this is better than mine!
Right, so onto the review...
I like the length of this a lot, it's just the right length, not too long or short. I find it hard to write longer poems, so great job!
I like your wording a lot in this poem, it really expresses emotion and draws the reader in, especially the lines:
"The men, in and out
Her life? Dead, no doubt."
"Her eyes are teary,
Heart? Breaking."
They just totally give across the feelings.
One thing I'd suggest to improve this, is the second line. This is just my opinion, but there's too many words beginning with the letter P.
"Cold pane, pale skin…."
See what I mean? You could change the word "pale" to something like... "muted" perhaps...? That's just my personal opinion, of course, but I love it all!
I see no grammatical mistakes, so great job!
Overall, great poetry here, can't wait to see more of your work!
-CFG
thanks so much for the review, i had a problem with that line too and it took a while, i switched words a lot but didn't think of "muted", thanks again! and trust me, this is my first poem ever!