Young Writers Society

Hello there.

Firstly, rhythm! Where is it? Your line lengths go 13, 7, 7, 10, 7, 5, 6, 11, etc. sybllables long. Problem is, that just isn't conducive to poetry that flows - try reading some professional poetry, note a lot of the common rhythms - all 10 syllables, pentameter; eight syllables followed by six, the "ballad meter", think of Amazing Grace. Basically put, you need your lines to be more regular if it's to flow nicely off the tongue.

Then there's the rhyme. Contrary to popular opinion, rhyme does not automatically make a poem better - the fact is, it's one of the most difficult aspects of poetry to utilise effectively, and so it often ends up making poetry worse: that's what has happened here.
The problem is that all of your rhymes are in the same pattern, and all of them are very basic. For example:

--------- proud
--------- crowd

Here you have the lines one after the other, and it's an absolute rhyme.

--------- said
--------- head

Once again, the same pattern, with an absolute rhyme. Very basic, like children's poetry.
There are other examples - the point is, it's both repetitive and technically simple. You need to vary it - try half-rhymes and discreet rhymes, couplets like "bed/defend" or "read/defeat"; without being so glaringly obvious that they detract from the poem, they still hold the rhyming structure together. Also, don't feel the need to work in couplets all the time; ABAB or ABCB rhyme schemes are just as good if not better.
And, uh, try not to rhyme words with the same word. Such as, y'know, "back". And "back".

Now onto the content of your poem. Bit of a different problem there - it just doesn't hold the interest. By the point at which you say "stand out from the crowd", I'm thinking 'great, remember that cliche you mentioned?' Lines like 'stand out in the crowd' really aren't going to do you any favours - they've been used a million times before, and they're not exactly great to begin with. The same goes for "what's done is done".
Now, I understand that you're kind of attempting to write a poem about cliches, or certainly with that as a sub-theme. My advice? Don't do it with cliches! Or if you must, at least be clever about it - change them around, mix them up, make them seem out of the ordinary, but for goodness sake don't just write them down and then say "well, I was writing about them." People will just look at the poem and say 'unoriginal and boring', because they've heard it all before.

So, yeah; get that rhythm and rhyme sorted out on the technique front, and try to be a little more creative and innovative with the way you use language and ideas.

Keep at it, I hope we'll see you around some more.