Young Writers Society

Hi there, etherealember.

I'm GeeLyria, and I'm here to review your poem.

Hm. I think you've generalized a little bit too much. If I am not wrong, you have shown you know the possibilities and the reasons why a father might have been "stolen"; it's either life, society, or their own selfishness. But, I also think you've analyzed them vaguely; as in you have all those situations, but then you just dropped them around in superficial way. And when you think about it, the poem is not about "Stolen Fathers" like the title says, it is about how necessary it is for a child to have a father in their life.

I feel like there's something missing about this poem, given that leaving your ideas floating on the air might provoke some annoyance to the readers (especially if they can relate to it). What I expected of this poem was for you to talk about each situation independently. For example, a father that takes no responsibility for his child because he's selfish does not show his kid "courage", "integrity", or "strength", and I think that should have been emphasized. After that is done, it would be great to finish it with the conclusion, which is that "we all need our daddies" (I beg to differ, though. Lol.) When you make those changes, this would definitely make much more sense.

Other than that, I like how the poem flows. And you general idea is not bad; I just think you need to work on developing it a little bit more. Know that you have the potential, but being organized can get you far.

Keep writing,

GeeLyria

This poem has a super enticing first line; it works for people who know where their daddies are, 'cause then they wonder who is missing one and why, and it works to call in the people who know exactly what it means to have a missing daddy. You found an opening that works to call in all sorts of people: it grabs almost everyone, but the problem comes afterward.

The problem is that although your opening wants to be as wide as possible, you have to make your poem more narrow than the opening. Think of it as a tunnel. If the opening is really big and it stays really big and the exit is really big, it's an easy tunnel to pass through. But poetry is meant to make the reader feel something, and just like you might feel frustrated or exhilarated passing through a tunnel that gets narrower in the middle (you feel the pressure of the walls or the frustration at getting tangled up with other cars/people), you want to feel something as you move through your poem. The same goes for the ending: you want to come out the other side feeling something, even if in real tunnel-life it would just be relief at getting through.

What I'm trying to say is that your poem tries to get at EVERYTHING. EVERY single thing any father's done wrong, and it tries to bring everyone through the tunnel at once, so we end up feeling the same when we come out as we did when we went in.

Now, I don't want to overstep any boundaries, but I think maybe this is based on either your personal experience with your father. If not, maybe you've had an experience seeing the effects of a missing father with one of your friends. Either way, I think the first thing you need to do to improve this poem is to think long and hard about the specifics of those situations.

When you use specific situations, when you describe specific events or feelings, you narrow the tunnel. You bring it in. That's not to say that you exclude the audience you welcomed. You still have everyone's attention, but instead of playing to all of them, you just play. They will follow and listen, but they will also start to feel.

I know you have the feeling and the result of this poem, but specifics also lend themselves more easily to simile and metaphor.

Now, if you're wondering why those are important, it's because they help to make specifics even more specific. You might think: doesn't that mean I'm going to lose my audience because they won't know how it feels to go through what I went through? Well, if you use similes and metaphors, you can compare your experiences to things that many other people might be able to understand.

I can't tell you what to compare to what, of course. I don't know your feelings. But when you link feelings to feelings, words to words, through simile and metaphor, you both narrow and open your world.

Anyway, I really hope this review was understandable. If it's not, send me a private message or leave me something on my wall.

Good luck!