Falling against the wall
Everything blurry in the jolts
Lights flickering
Then darkness consuming
Screams lost in the guttural rolling of the earth
Running through the wreckage of
Fallen books
And broken glass
Aftershocks keeping
Only fear intact
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139,468 Literary Works • 672,573 Reviews
all I noticed was ur thumbnail... ima douche
This is very realistic and raw which I really enjoyed. Also the length of the poem also fit into the aspect of fear and terror. A couple suggestions. First I would maybe take out "then" in "then darkness consuming" and just leave "darkness consuming" because I think it will convey the in the moment fear and unknown more realistically. I hope that made sense and it's completely up to you. I'm not judging just making suggestions. Just again, I really LOVED this and I can't wait to read more!
-hermione2001
Hi clancy, welcome to the site! It sounds like this was a pretty terrifying event for you! I can't imagine going through an earthquake. Natural disasters are so scary, because there's so little we can do against them or even really to prepare.
The poem portrayed that terror really well - I get the sense that the speaker is going through the earthquake as the poem is happening around them. The main theme seems to be fear, unpredictability, and destruction.
As the other reviewers mentioned "than" in line 4 should be "then" - you use "than" for comparisons and "then" for transitions.
I also wasn't quite sure what to make of the last two lines:
-> I kept trying to read "aftershocks keeping" as it's own line, and couldn't make sense of it - it sort of works when you add the end line, but I think the division is a bit awkward really.
As for other suggestions, you do a good job describing different aspects of the environment and even get a bit of figurative language in there -> "darkness consuming", "fear intact", "guttural rolling" - those are nice, they add some depth to just the bare-bones description, and give a really full visual and emotional description for the reader.
I do think there could be maybe more description about what exactly the speaker feared - I mean I can make those cognitive leaps myself and guess but it wasn't absolutely clear what their fear was except the source of it being the destruction. I think you could also do even more with the figurative language - some lines were rather plane "fallen books" "broken glass" - what was the broken glass from? what did the fallen books look or sound like"? What was the emotional and physical impact of seeing those? Because it's a rather short and simple poem, I just think the main source of improvement might be in digging a bit deeper into the specificity of the whole event to paint a fuller picture.
Here's an article with some ideas for adding more specifics into poetry, and why it improves writing: Specificity in Poetry
That's all I had! Keep on writing!
~alliyah
Hi, Clancy! This is a gripping poem. I love your descriptions, they allow me to picture the terror of the earthquake (I hope you Alaskans are doing okay). I especially like the line "the guttural rolling of the earth." It conjures up a raw, chaotic feeling.
My only critique is that "than" should be spelled "then." Also, maybe you could include some more details about the earthquake besides visual imagery? I suggest describing the reactions of those involved in the quake, and how they expressed their fear.
Excellent use of word portrayal. I can really feel the situation! My two critiques are: I feel like the story should be longer. You're giving a lot of visual imagery, but not so much of the feeling of the story. Another thing- you say *than* darkness consuming when the proper word would be *then* darkness consuming.