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125,020 Literary Works • 672,736 Reviews
Hey jaxalexander,
You've already got a decent and thorough review from magpie94 but I'll see if I can give you my impression of the poem as well.
Firstly, you've got a rough rhyme-scheme going on here which is quite good. Rhyming is a tricky business and you should always make sure that the couplets are saying what you want them to and not just "what works with the rhyme scheme". It's easy to let them take control of your poem and distort the message -- make sure that you're the boss of your own poem. You're the poet after all!
I'll pick out the worst example to demonstrate:
Next I think I'll talk about the message itself. What is it? I've got some idea that it's about someone who supports the voice of the poem. They're not very conventional in their methods, but that's cool -- that makes for interested content. But what I'm saying is that it's not entirely clear. Each stanza follows on from the previous one quite well, but it doesn't really build up constructively. The end is good because it shows a sort of conclusion (like some message has been reached) but the journey isn't really that satisfying.
The language is a bit interesting. I'm not entirely sure so many swear-words in such a short space really adds much to your poem. Sometimes it helps to create a sudden jolt for the reader, but here they're spent quite freely so it doesn't have such a great effect. In fact I think maybe the language is one of the things that makes the message unclear.
Maybe you could sit down and read the poem aloud to yourself and then wonder what it is you're trying to say. When that's clear in your head, you could see which stanzas contribute to that view and which go against it. Maybe this will help you focus in and distil out the main idea of the poem.
Best of luck with the rest of your writing. Welcome to the site -- I look forward to seeing more from you!
Hi there, and welcome to YWS. I'm glad you've chosen to join us.
(one of us! one of us!)
This is my honest opinion. It's filled with good intentions.
Hmm. Interesting. I see that you put some effort into this, and it's got potential to be a good poem, but it needs some work before it will be there.
Honestly, I thought I knew what was going on in the poem until you quoted Foster the People. In the first part of the poem, it seems like the speaker is being broken up with... because they don't have talent. Which, admittedly, could happen, though it's a bit of a weird reason for breaking up with someone.
But then there's someone else telling the speaker (s)he can sing? I'm not sure I understand. Is it the same person from before? If so, you need to make it clear that that person had an epiphany about the speaker's talent. If not, you need to make sure that the reader can tell between the two people in the different halves of the poem.
I don't really understand the purpose of the quote in the middle. It doesn't do anything for the poem, and it isn't like it's what people think of first thing when they think of "rock." If the song was a rock song, and the lyrics relate more directly to what you're saying, I'd say keep it in. But in this case, I would remove it. "Pumped Up Kicks" is an indie-rock song more than anything, and while that's a sub-genre of rock, it's not just "rock." The purest rock you will ever hear is the Rolling Stones (honestly, I'm not a big fan of them, but if you want to know what pure rock is, then listen to those guys). I'm not suggesting that you put other song lyrics in (I'm suggesting that you take them out altogether), but make sure that if you call something rock, that it really is.
But I digress.
The first line of this stanza needs to be reworded. How about "I know, okay? I fucked up." It's stronger. When you say "I seem," it sounds unsure, and you don't want to sound unsure here.
You have a rhyme scheme in this poem that makes it sound a little... Defiant, perhaps? I enjoy the tone that the rhyme scheme lends to the poem, but there are a few things I'd like to say about rhyme scheme:
You should never let rhyme scheme control your word choice. In the lines
The rhyme sounds forced and immature. I would try to make a different rhyme there. It sounds like you tried too hard to rhyme that. "Bunny" sticks out in the poem because you are talking about rock (or indie-rock) and love, and "bunny" seems like a poor choice of words (same applies to "birdie" later in the poem).
The lack of rhyme here is refreshing, although I think you meant "it" instead of "it's."
Work on making this poem make more sense to the reader, and creating a sense of unity throughout centered on the theme of the last stanza. It's a good theme. Music is awesome. So go forth, and write! I hope that this was helpful to you. Keep writing.
I honestly thought that my work was amazing, but then you pointed out so many things! THANK YOU! I have never had anyone so willing to give me advice on this. The defenses I'd like to make in my case is that, in fact the quote from "Pumped Up Kicks" refers to the speakers emotional readiness to kill which, once the second man comes in, is replaced by over all eagerness to share himself with the other birds! The word birdie was intentional in that as the speaker has over all experience a lot of emotional turmoil, but he still feels like a child. "I seem fucked up" is also an intentional moment. I am here, providing a comentary on the outcast that I have noticed around me. They seem to be fucked up, but who actually takes the time to notice the possibilities these kids have. The narrator is an obvious outcast. He was broken up with not necesarily because of a lack of talent, but because he refuses to allow his voice to be stiffled, which causes men to come up with excuses when they don't like something he said in his art. Hopefully you understood that. I do have grammer issues though. the "It's sucks" I was going to type something else, then i forgot to proof read. Bunny truely was forced, I wanted to sound emotionally immature while maintaining a rhyme, I couldn't find a way to effectively do this with a better word choice, so I let myself become a third grader again. Thank you so much, for your thoughts. I joined this to become a better writer. So thank you!