Falling Heroes

Hi there, so I really liked this, you wrote it beautifully, the only thing I found, was that this stanza sounded... off. It didn't fit into the whole rhythm very well.

"The haunting presence of a fissure cracking wide between two shapes of different size
Beckons thoughts of origin, and angels near shout out my sin.
The calling echoes through my mind, the fear of who will come and what they’ll find."

There are too many syllables in it and so it doesn't fit. That's all I saw. It was wonderfully written, I really enjoyed it. I hope that was... kind of helpful...

~ Nightlyowl

Hey there Nicholas! First, assuming I am reading this the way you intended it to be read, I really liked the theme I picked up. The idea that we shouldn't be constrained to any set or rules or habits or books or whatever. The idea that instead, we should reason for ourselves and sort of take life in stride. That was what I got out of it anyway Feel free to tell me otherwise if I am just a complete idiot on this.

Hannah did a good job of explaining what my main problem was. That fourth stanza really threw things a little bit askew. The meter got a little bit off with that first line (Hannah explained this, there were just too many words for it to sound right. Try reading the whole thing out loud and maybe you'll catch it), and then the rhyming on the second line seemed like a real stretch to me without any true purpose behind it. It is okay to stretch rhymes occasionally, but there should be a purpose behind it and I find that it works a lot better when it isn't in the middle of a stanza or in the middle of the poem. More of a finality thing. The third line too was a smidgen too long.

The last critique I have concerns commas. I'm not going to go through and point out where they need to be as I feel it is more beneficial for the writers to find these mistakes on their own! But I will show you one spot that just as an example.

You wrote the following in the final stanza:

Habitual actions that are bred in times of struggle only spread.

The problem here is that it reads as one complete sentence which sort of throws off your rhythm a bit because it causes the reader to want to race on through to the stop sign, the period. It would be a good idea to put a "yield sign" or a comma in the middle of that sentence to break it up and slow the readers down. For instance:

Habitual actions that are bred(,) in times of struggle only spread.

You did a good job of doing this in most places but there were a few lines where there needed to be some form of punctuation. With that said, it can be tricky! Not every line needs to be broken up like that. Some of your lines sound just fine without the punctuation because the wording and the syllables naturally cause the reader to sort of pause. The reason you are encountering this problem is because of the internal rhyming scheme (that Hannah pointed out) that you use instead of breaking the lines up. It isn't a problem at all as long as you handle it in the correct fashion!

My biggest piece of advice would be to go through and read it aloud, making sure to exaggerate the syllables. Otherwise, I loved the message, the word choice was good and it was a nice little poem. I enjoyed reading it a great deal! Keep writing and let me know if you have any questions or if I didn't make myself clear at some point!

Hello!
I really enjoyed this poem, yet I feel that the stanzas could have been broken up a little better.
There were a few punctuation mistakes, but otherwise, it was very interesting.
I really liked the rhyming scheme you chose, and I felt that it was continued throughout the entire poem, which is great.
Here are a few changes I would have made:
"avoid the sight I cannot stand"
- cannot to could not (I don't know why, it just sounds better?)
"free and sets a few apart."
- I would not include the a before few

This poem gave me shivers: please continue to write and share your work!!
- Kelsey

Hey there!
I want to say first of that I'm really impressed with the quality of the rhymes here. Not once did I feel a hint of Dr. Seuss, throwing in a word or two just because it was all he could find to rhyme. I love Dr. Seuss, because that was what he made his trading card, and so it worked for him, but if that had happened in this serious poem, then it would have been a problem.

The problem that I did encounter, however, was meter/rhythm. I'm torn. Because I love that you've written this with internal rhyme, meaning the middle of the line and the end rhyme instead of the ends of two different lines. It feels closer and kind of reads faster. The problem is that I often found myself expecting the wrong word to rhyme. For example, here:

The haunting presence of a fissure cracking wide between two shapes of different size

Shades of yellow block the view. To sheets of green, he’s pointing you.
Where ghosts of idols lie in wait and jealous whispers feed on hate.

Hey Nicholas!

I'm just going to dive right into this - so immediately, the thing that caught my eye (or ear was the internal rhyme scheme. I thought for the most part, it was done well, and they're always a pleasure to read -- but I thought this sort of played like a double edged sword for you, because your lines are typically longer than the average poem, and this bogged down your pacing quite a bit. So much so, that halfway through the poem, I'm feeling like it's running a bit too long.

The description here was really interesting and felt a bit like prose, which is an interesting match with the longer lines - so that aspect of it, I liked, but I didn't feel like it was strong enough to bypass the other complaints I had about the pacing.

Overall though, it was an interesting story and I quite liked the progression from beginning to end! I hope this helps and let me know if you ever wish to chat this one up.

~ as always, Audy