Young Writers Society

Thanks for everything. I right poetry to show my feelings and to relieve strees. I do it to help myself and also to show others where I'm coming from.

I agree with Colleen. It's fine if this is a poem journal/memoir, but if you're putting it up here, you're asking for reviews and critiques, and it's out of respect for your work that we give them.

You write like you have this image in your head of what poetry should be like, should talk about, and it seems to involve deep messages, words like "love", "hate", "light", "dark", "friendship", "trust", "ocean"; all fine, but published poems tend not to be about sunsets and roses, and if they're trying to say something deep (which half of them aren't) they stick to one message and use extended metaphors or heavy description of concrete images to explain themselves. Here's one about a butterfly (which, though it would seem a cliche topic, is masterfully presented and without cliches).

Flying Crooked

The butterfly, a cabbage-white,
(His honest idiocy of flight)
Will never now, it is too late,
Master the art of flying straight,
Yet has- who knows so well as I?-
A just sense of how not to fly:
He lurches here and here by guess
And God and hope and hopelessness.
Even the acrobatic swift
Has not his flying-crooked gift.

~Robert Graves

As others have said, don't take critiques personally. If the poem means something to you, I'm all for that. Writing poetry to express emotion can be very therapeutic. Still, posting something in these forums means that you're exposing it for criticism.

I came back to look at this poem again because I remembered something Broken Wings said about bigger vocabulary. In six short stanzas, you used "friends"/"friendship" three times and "bond"/"bind" three times. These are extremely overused in writing. Using words or phrases that aren't quite as conventional will make your work more interesting.

Above all, go read poetry! Lots of it! Go to your local library and take out some books of great poets. Find someone whose work you like, read as much as you can, and learn as much as you can. Every great writer learned to write because he or she read other amazing writers.

Colleen

Oh, and the Star Wars thing seemed very out of the blue to me.

Honestly, I really didn't understand this poem. (Although, I'm assuming it's about friends who stay together forever?) But that's okay. You don't have to modify YOUR poem so that it fits every person's satifaction. You don't have to listen to every psycho’s critique (no offense to the people that have already critiqued this). Write poems for yourself. If you understand it then that's all you need.

Just some friendly advice I got from a friend.

Listen man, don't listen to what she said (her above me.)
Sometimes, like with this poem, you're writing for your own benifit, and not really for others to relate to. This is more like part of a poem memoir so don't worry and keep writing.


Jearjioe

This poem has failed for me because it didn't make me feel anything or appreciate anything the author said. It was a bunch of cliches, except for that random Star Wars thing. What does that mean, anyway? You found a friend in Star Wars? Your friends like Star Wars? They act like they're Star Wars characters?

Next time, I suggest taking on something smaller. Trying to write poetry about something as large as friendship, love, or life is like trying to sew a quilt with three inches of thread. Stick to something small and take time to describe that one small thing in detail, and try to connect with the reader.

Good luck!
Colleen

I was lost in darkness.
Wondering without a light.
Then I found friends,
who pulled me out.

Life was good,
things were going up.
I had respect,
they had time.

To this day it stands,
burn as strong as before.
Or trust as grown,
as well as our hearts.

Together we stand,
a forever bond.
The binds of friendship last,
from now till the end of time.

It is a very sweet poem, but it's a little dry.

It could be very colorful and interesting, if you used a bigger vocabulary and maybe make the sentences a bit longer and use more metaphors and similies and what not.

Also:

Together we stand,[stay?]
a forever bond.
The binds of friendship stand,[stay?]
from now till the end of time.