Young Writers Society

Thanks for informing me that you've revised this.

As I said last time, this is really good. I don't have much to complain about, but the line "I was shattered a," appears not to be what if should be ("I was shattered,"?). That's pretty much the only criticism I can give on this! Great poem, you're a great poet, it's all great, basically.

p.s. I'm slightly hungover.

Youps! Schowy! I didn't mean to post twice...

Erm..disturbing. I'm not a big fan of suicide poems, although I've only read a few. This one is definitely heart-wrenching, and that's a good sort of poetic quality I envy greatly. But this one lends just a slight hint of being sad-sobby. It's good to try depressed poems, and this one was well-written. Depressed and dramatic=good>dramatic and sad-sobby. But there were a few instances that I was disatisfied with. I'm gonna show you the whole thing and then point out the parts I dislike that made it sound a little cheesy, thus the sad-sobby thing...

{What is love?

What is life?

Life is sun,

And love it's light.} I liked this part. The questions. It's realisitic, and romantic, not lovey romantic, but beautiful. what happened when you said 'life is sun,'? I got lost. It broke me from its flow right there, because I don't know what you mean by the metaphor. 'sun'. Do you mean warm? Explain. I loved the 'and love it's light'. but the punctuation on that line wreaks. You so need a comma after 'love, it's'.



True love is heaven,

And in it lovers reside. (LOSE THE AND, might try inserting comma after 'it'.)

And without love, (LOSE THE AND, USE 'BUT' INSTEAD)

there is no life.



Maybe that's why my eyes are wet, (LOSE THE MAYBE, it sucks the depth and emotion right out of the line, just say 'that is' to take up the syllables.

As I lay in my bed. (I don't see why you're in bed there, but for whatever purpose, the 'lay' is gramatically incorect. say 'lie' instead. PS:YOUR TENSES ARE SKEWED)

From my wrists blood dripped, (TELL ME WHY THEY'RE DRIPPING!)

And from my eyes tears flowed.



I thought about my love,

I thought about my life.



I remembered all those moments we spent together,

I thought they would last forever.

But alas I was wrong, (screams for a comma after 'but')

My life is like a very sad song. (very just doesn't cut it. try something more dramatic like 'horribly'.)



I remembered the first time my lips touched your cheeks, (sentence cries out for period after 'cheeks')

It was our very first kiss.

I remembered the time when you whispered in my ear,(I have no idea why you put this line here. it doesn't make a lick of sense her/him whispering in your ear when we have no idea what they said.)

Now these moments haunt me as a nightmare.



But you said we werent meant together, (lose the but, and put in the dang apostrophe)

Then you left me forever. (enough with the forever's, try another word to convey finality, such as eternity or something else along those lines.)



I said I was strong,

But inside I knew I was absolutely wrong. (I love that last couplet. beautiful.)

I was shattered a, (why is there an 'a' there?)

and parts of me were scattered. (I'd lose the 'and' and the 'were', going for a fragment and the dramatic effects achieved therein.)



?Then?(Lose the then, bubs) from ?heavens?(I'd say, 'from the heavens') descended a light, (so skewed, just try what I put in.)

It was truly a beautiful sight. (lose the 'it was truly' use the truly, but in the order of 'a truly beautiful sight')

That light filled me with a feeling of ease, (don't use the 'that!!!' just say 'the!' and: SAY: 'SENSE' INSTEAD OF 'EASE'!!!! I don't care if it doesn't rhyme--it would totally make for a more powerful last stanza!)

And at last I rest in peace. (nothing wrong with this one!)

Pretty darn good, if I say so myself. You took a cliche scenario and wrote a good, original-sounding poem. But Remember: don't sacrifice good words and tone for the ring of a rhyme. Rhyme when you can, and the rest of the time, use good words. Keep writing! PS: I really did enjoy it!

Hi again - here for a second time to check out your improvements! ^_^ I'll run through all the things I think that you could perhaps think about messing about with, and then I'll give you my verdict about whether it's improved or not! ^_^

By the way - I'm genuinely interested in how you progress as a writer, so this is a very detailed, picky review. Please, please, don't take it personally - see it more as... constructive critisism at it's finest! *laughs* Feel free to read it in parts, or to copy and paste it somewhere and come back to it later. This is going to be quite hard to digest in one sitting.

And now that you have been warned - *rolls up sleeves and puts on a ridiculously large pair of glasses* - let's begin!

First Stanza

What is love?
What is life?
Life is sun,
And love it's light.

True love is heaven,
And in it lovers reside.
And without love,
there is no life.

Maybe that's why my eyes are wet,
As I lay in my bed.
From my wrists blood dripped,
And from my eyes tears flowed.

I thought about my love,
I thought about my life.

I remembered all those moments we spent together,
I thought they would last forever.
But alas I was wrong,
My life is like a very sad song.

I remembered the first time my lips touched your cheeks,
It was our very first kiss.
I remembered the time when you whispered in my ear,
Now these moments haunt me as a nightmare.

But you said we werent meant together,
Then you left me forever.

I said I was strong,
But inside I knew I was absolutely wrong.
I was shattered a,
and parts of me were scattered.

Then from heavens descended a light,
It was truly a beautiful sight.
That light filled me with a feeling of ease,
And at last I rest in peace.

Oooooh! This is better than your last. I love your new stanzas! Oh, and I'm not emo and i love your poem!

I love your last three stanzas. Those are my favorite.

I think I saw a few minor errors, but you could probably just proofread it and find them. Thank you so much for telling me you edited this. I haven't read a really good poem in a while.

hi guys never had so many replies for a poem.
thnx guys
and i cant decide
if u all like it or not
cause some of them say my poems fantastic
and others say its crap.
i think non-emo people dont like such poems.
watever thnk ya for ur replies
gud or bad dnt care.
and for da last time
thnxxxxxxxxxxx

wow. that was an amazing poem. it was extremly deep though... i hope thats not how you are feeling. i love the "And without love,there is no life." because that is so true! and serously for a 14 year old... nice. I can't wait to see some of your other works =D

Okay. Everyone pretty much said what is wrong and what is right so it's a bit pointless for me to critique.

What is love?
What is life?
Life is sun,
And love it's light.

True love is heaven,
And in it lovers reside.
And without love,
there is no life.

Then a heavenly feeling filled my heart,
A feeling of ease.
And at last I attained freedom,
At last I was at peace.

It was depressing, sad, but super! How did you come up with that. you gotta tell me how to write like that. I love writing a reading poems. But your 14? that's amazing! The " Love is light" is awsome, that's a really cool ( in a poetic way) poem. Its deep and expressing, i like it a lot

keep writing

Eh. Wow. There are some mixed emotions going on in this forum. *scratches head* I can see where they're coming from... but you're only a novice! Aww.

Well... I thought it was good. *shrugs* I thought the rhymes weren't as forced as a lot of the poems I've seen, and I thought it conveyed sadness. Maybe didn't convey depression, or anguish, or whatever, but it got *some sort* of a emotion across.

I think... I think it's sweet. I think it's a pretty decent poem, although yes, the last stanza is a little cheesy *laughs* no, it's not Oscar winning, but please name me one director who won an Oscar with his first movie? ^_^ That's what I thought.

Keep at it, and write, even if you feel discouraged by the comments. There was one really harsh one, but I can see where he's coming from - he's only trying to help. There are a lot of poems about suicide on this site, and many of them read very similarly to your own. He's trying to help you to become more creative with your words, ideas and rhymes. Read more of people's poetry, and then read their reviews. Reading what other people think of poems that you think are incredible can really affect - in a positive way - how you write, and how you sculpt your words to get the message across.

I don't want to critique this too much because you're a novice, and suddenly coming down on you like an anvil doesn't seem right to me. ^^;; However, at least take on board some of the comments, and whatever you do, don't let it get you down. The only thing you can do is get better. *hugs*

Bye-de-bye!

Hey there, Spike!

There's good emotions here - but it's all a bit overdone. Make it original, make it your own.

Use concrete imagery and vivid descriptions.

Love, hate, happiness: these are all abstract concepts. Many, maybe all, poems are, deep down, about emotions and other abstractions, but it's hard to build a strong poem using only abstractions - it's just not interesting. The key, then, is to replace or enhance abstractions with concrete images, things that you can appreciate with your senses: a rose, a shark, or a crackling fire, for example. The concept of the objective correlative may be useful. An objective correlative is an object, several objects, or a series of events (all concrete things) that evoke the emotion or idea of the poem.

Really powerful poetry not only uses concrete images; it also describes them vividly. Show your readers and listeners what you're talking about--help them to experience the imagery of the poem. Put in some "sensory" handles. These are words that describe the things that you hear, see, taste, touch, and smell, so that the reader can identify with their own experience. Give some examples rather than purely mental/intellectual descriptions. For example: "He made a loud sound" versus "He made a loud sound like a hippo eating 100 stale pecan pies with metal teeth".

Hope this helps.

Sarah
xxx

Hey Spike!

I've been doing video critiques a lot lately, especially for poetry because it's a really cool way to see how your poem sounds to the other person. Or people, considering that my sister, the lovely Sgt Salt, is helping me critique. Anyway, basically we read your poem and we commented on it. And... um... my sister and I are kind of crazy together, so if we laugh hysterically, it's because we like being around each other, not because of your poem.

http://revver.com/video/1348226/affilia ... f-suicide/

Anyway, hope this helps! If you can't see the video or you don't understand us or anything, just shoot me a PM and I'll explain.

Ok, sweetness. The poem's opening stanza is pretty weak. It doesn't grab you, or even make much sense:
Well that's not exactly true,
but maybe it is.
Cats are fury.
True.

See... It's a bit "qoui" if you get my drift. I see where you're trying to go, I often try it myself and come out with the same problem. What you have to think about is, how you can convey your meaning to the reader; just because you understand it, doesn't mean that everybody else will... Trust me it's a very easy trap to fall into.

Another little gripe is the unusual rhyming structure - when you're writing a bit of an avent garde poem, it might be advisable to keep some typical conventions... Just so that the majority of your readers don't get put off.

Please don't take what I have written as disparagement - it isn't meant to be at all. I often have the exact same problems.
If you want to talk about it a little more in depth, PM me.

Love
Kris
x

Read on only if you appreciate truly honest reflection. First of all, since you are only fourteen, the problems in this piece aren't permanent to any extent and you have an almost-infinite amount of time to better your skills as a poet, so don't interpret my comments as anything but a suggestion for extreme revision.

This is a bad poem. Utterly void of any idea I haven't already heard from a token emo and strung together by a laundry list of cliches, namely sunlight being love, death being tranquility, and the ever-popular method of cutting yourself when your two-day boyfriend decides that there's a new hot girl in town. This was, in essence, typical teenage nonsense that's going nowhere and has little to offer the reader in the way of meaning or even entertainment, because of the hazy ideal the thoughts are formatted in and the disdainful, choppy, and confusing style it was written in.

spike71294 wrote:What is love?
What is life?
Life is sun,
And love it's light.

True love is heaven,
And in it lovers reside.
And without love,
there is no life.

Maybe that's why my eyes are wet,
As I lay in my bed.
From my wrists blood dripped,
And from my eyes tears flowed.

I thought about my love,
I thought about my life.

I lay there rejected,
Absolutely unaffected.

Or so I thought.

I said I was strong.
But inside I knew I was absolutely wrong.

I was shattered,
And pieces of my heart were scattered.

I stared into the mirror,
My face was serene.
I wondered how much,
This world could be mean.

Then a heavenly feeling filled my heart,
A feeling of ease.
And at last I attained freedom,
At last I was at peace.

WOW O.O very deep... Love it! How depressing it is... I completely understand you!
I didn't find any grammar mistakes.
Some people might say that as you changed the rhyme scheme it would normally don't sound good, but this one worked out! Loved the flow.
Good work! Keep writing!

Hmm, it's not a bad poem by any means, its actually quite good, but one or two things are irking me.

Firstly, you veer dangerously close to cliche in your choice of images. The whole blood dripping from your wrist thing could have been pulled from just about any emo piece on the internet. I know you didn't mean it that way, and this isn't nearly as bad as most emo poetry, but still- it's just on the wrong side of cliche. Try to be more original when writing about things like that.

The other thing is the rhyme you used. Here's the worst offender:

I said I was strong.
But inside I knew I was absolutely wrong.

Wow. That was deep. Very good, though.

I've read so many stories on this topic and you seemed to fit it all into one short poem. Good job!

I agree with Face Engine on the "And love it's light." It interrupts your flow, and I know you wan that there for meaning, but it might sound better if it's "And love is light." I know it goes against the message your trying to get across in that line, but flow is important in a poem. People who don't even know your meaning will at least know your flow. (Hey, that rhymes! ) Otherwise, I didn't see anything. It's a great poem and I'll be looking for your next.

Blimey. That's depressing! But then, the title was more than enough warning of that.

One tiny thing, where it says "And love it's light." I get the feeling you meant to say "love is light", but I could be wrong.

I just hope this isn't how you're actually feeling! A good poem, though-it's good to see something which is genuinely "dark", rather than the usual teenage "my heart's been broken, and I feel like I'll never get over it," kind of thing. Not that I have anything against the latter, it's just nice to see something different.