Young Writers Society

Nice work.

~Jon~

Another one! Wow that's quite a review Rydia gave you there

Nice rhyming again! Really nice. I'm no good with rhymes.
That last one felt like it had a glitch in it, don't as where, but it felt like it!

Personally all of your poetry I've read so far is rather amusing and nonsensical! But great! Smeeglibob! What a name!

Nice work, again! What you do with this is beyond me!

Keep it up!

Well this is a good bit of fun, isn’t it? I’m not sure you can really call it a ballad though as it’s very short and doesn’t always keep to the ballad metre. I was expecting a much longer poem! But you’ve got the right tone so I suppose I can let you off. ..

Specifics

1. Smeeglibob is the best name ever. I now officially want to call my child that

2. I think it would be a smoother transition between first and second line if it was ‘who had no other name’.

3. The third line doesn’t rhyme! It doesn’t absolutely have to, quite often there’s only one set of rhymes in a ballad, but because the next stanza rhyme those it then looks like a mistake/ laziness not to do the same for the first and third stanzas. Try to be consistent so either have them all rhyme twice or all rhyme once!

4. Love the second stanza! I think you could have used slightly more language as rhyming day with say isn’t exactly a challenge

5. Stanza three is the one not really working by my way of thinking. The third line is completely off rhythm and throws the reader off in so many ways because it doesn’t rhyme, doesn’t fit the beat and while it’s comical and I like that, it’s a bit throw-away. It’s not a clever response and it’s not one of those lines that makes you go ‘oh yeah, hahahaha’ which is that it should be since this is the turn of your poem! Start by shortening it. Maybe call him ‘Smeegly’ in this line as a nickname as that would give you some syllables back.

Overall

I think you should make this longer! You don’t give yourself enough lines to tell the story or to set up a surprise ending and those are the best elements about ballads. Most of them you find will be at least a couple of pages in length and traditionally they could fill a whole books. Now I’m not suggesting you be quite so crazy, but why not try for somewhere between 8 and 10 stanzas? It’s not really that much when you think about it and then you can tell us more about the character and what he gets up to. And you could have a whole town of comical people who try to guess what’s happened to him or who the sergeant interviews.

Thanks for a fun read – I hope you decide to expand this. Please let me know if you do as I’d love to take a second look.

Happy Writing!

Heather xxx

I really wanted to like this poem. I really, really wanted to like it, especially since I adore silly poems and this is such a silly poem, but that last stanza ruined everything for me. The content wasn't the issue, but the rhythm.

You had a very nice rhythm going in the first two stanzas (though they could use a little tweaking, but more on that later), but then that rhythm pattern completely falls apart in the last stanza, and it just killed the ending by killing the rhyme. Rhythm is essential to a good rhyme, and so if your rhythm falls apart, it takes the rhyme down with it, which in turn takes everything in the rhyming lines down with it.

If we compare just the syllable counts of the lines and between rhymes (in parentheses), the problem is fairly obvious:

9 / 6 / 8 / 7 (15 / 15)
9 / 7 / 9 / 6 (16 / 15)
10 / 5 / 12 / 7 (15 / 19)

The last stanza syllable-wise looks nothing like the first two, and while having a different syllable pattern in a last stanza often works, there is no pattern to the syllables. Additionally, the distance between lines is inconsistent. The last stanza, as a result, just doesn't feel like it fits or even rhymes.

You really need to even up the syllables in between the rhymes. Right now, the pattern is broken to by the last stanza, which makes for a pretty rocky ending to an otherwise fun poem. At the very least, the syllables in between rhymes should be the same, even though the individual lines may be of different lengths (i.e. your first stanza is perfect the way it is).

This is really amusing. I find that, what with my extremely horrid writing skills, I can't really write funny poetry. I just want to hug this poem, because it reminds me of water and fire and metal and earth and all sorts of elements that make up a child's imagination.
It's like fire in the sense that it really warmed my heart, and it's like water to my soul.

This is funny, and ridiculously pleasant to read. If I had to compile a book of fun poems for kids, rest assured you'd be at the top of my list.

Keep it up.

Sherlock.

I really liked your poem! It made me laugh! I love the rhyme. Even though it is not popular in modern poetry, I rather like it!

What they didn't know, and neither did I,
Up 'til yesterday,
Is that Smeeglibob wanted to join the circus (This line seemed to break the flow of the poem.)
So he had to run away!

Like I said, I really enjoyed your poem. You have a talent for poetry writing! I look forward to reading more of your work!

~mari

Hey guineapiggirl!

I have a feeling you copied the name of spongebob . I like the way you made it rhyme but I think you should have made it a short interval and then start the rhyme. You forgot a full stop after "morn".

I have found that writing humorous poetry is something which develops over a long period of time, from the foolish things that one considers funny as a child, to the more subtle, dry and satirical amusements of adulthood. Our sense of humor grows up with us, however it is quite important to maintain a little spark of childhood when writing humorous poetry, so that we can find a sense of the ludicrous or whimsical - not merely use our humor for attack or satire (OK, I admit I have written a satirical sonnet attacking boy bands - but it attacks all of them, not one in particular). Lol

You, my friend, have a gift for humor in poetry. You have quite a gift.

Humor in poetry can be "fluffy and friendly", yet still be very amusing, if the action of the narrative is built up in a punchy, gripping way, in the same way it races along in films. Your poem does just this. Excellently.

Rhyme is a very good thing to use in humorous poetry, despite the fact that rhyme is not so popular in modern poetry; it will add punch to your punchline and keep the pace going. If you are going to impose metered rhyme on your poem - stick to it. You can make up an unusual new rhyming pattern if you wish, but be consistent. If you deviate from the rules of beats per line, etc., it will distract the readers from the fun of your humorous ballad. The only exception to this rule is when a poet deliberately uses a departure from the pattern, in order to make a point about the art of writing a poem, as e.e. cummings did on one occasion. I love the rhyme you have used. Very light and clever.

I really enjoyed this. Very pleasing.