Social Mobility

Thanks for sharing this poem expressing the frustrations and worries that those who are lower on the social ladder experience. First, let me say that I totally understand how you feel because I lived the situation in all its dubious glory myself. So my suggestions concerning the poem itself are not based on lack of appreciation or empathy. They are based on my desire to help you become a better writer as you are trying to be. So with that in mind, here we go.

First, you convey what you feel very clearly. In short, you can express yourself in prose which is acceptable for essays, letters, short stories, novels. But poetry requires other things. It is known by the intensity of is expression. Comparing prose and poetry prose is like regular light and prose is like a laser-very intense and concentrated.

In order to achieve that effect we need to use poetic devices such as: alliteration, assonance, similes, metaphors, meter, rhyming, personification, dramatic irony, stanzas, etcetera. Only then will a composition rise from prose category into the poetic one.

Also, the effect is accomplished via word economy. That means that we use a few words as possible by deleting all words that are unnecessary.

Alliteration
The repetition of initial consonant sounds

Assonance
The repetition of vowel sounds

Imagery
Words or phrases that appeal to any sense or any combination of senses

Metaphor
A comparison between two objects with the intent of giving clearer meaning to one of them. Often forms of the "to be" verb are used, such as "is" or "was", to make the comparison

Meter
The recurrence of a pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables

Onomatopoeia
The use of words which imitate sound

Personification
A figure of speech which endows animals, ideas, or inanimate objects with human traits or abilities

Point-of-view
The author's point-of-view concentrates on the vantage point of the speaker, or "teller", of the story or poem (1st person: the speaker is a character in the story or poem and tells it from his/her perspective, 3rd person limited: the speaker is not part of the story, but tells about the other characters but limits information about what one character sees and feels, 3rd person omniscient: the speaker is not part of the story, but is able to "know" and describe what all characters are thinking)

Repetition
The repeating words, phrases, lines, or stanzas

Rhyme
The similarity of ending sounds existing between two words

Simile
A comparison between two objects using a specific word or comparison such as "like", "as", or "than"

Stanza
A grouping of two or more lines of a poem in terms of length, metrical form, or rhyme scheme

https://quizlet.com/4073015/list-of-poe ... ash-cards/

This is so true for everyone who grows up poor, middle class, or even rich because they all want to be great and successful in life.

One thing that bothers me is "That's the American dream right?" Be sure to add a comma in between dream and right. That adds effect because the speaker isn't sure that is the American dream.

Excellent job!

Woah, this is real. The anxiousness I can relate to, as it's what I feel every second of my life; not necessarily on this topic, but the sentence structure and whole tone is something that hits home for me.

Also, forgive me, I'm a bit nitpicky, but each time you have the line "That's the American dream right?" there should be a comma after dream in that sentence, like this:

That's the American dream, right?

But otherwise this is great!! Keep doing what you're doing!