Virtual Reality

Good afternoon, suryavegeta! I'd like to say, this is a fairly good poem you have here. Nicely done! Concise, nicely written, and sensible, this poem has an almost lyrical feeling to it, which you accomplish through your usage of repetition and a basic rhythm. It was amusing to see the narrator's comparison of reality and technology, and the benefits afforded by each one of them, particularly when it came to technology's comments and witty banter. To be honest, it would be more amusing to have technology emphasize "virtual reality" by italicizing the word virtual, like so: virtual reality. The code for italicizing text in general is "" (just be sure to remove the quotes). But I'm probably going on a tangent, aren't I? In the end, I admire your narrative, sense of humor, and the nicely-written nature of the work, particularly as it applies to what is clearly a futuristic world where a convenient option invites the narrator to enter its embrace.

However, I think this poem generally suffered from its short length, and a strangely arranged narrative brought about by your excessive comma use. In the case of the former, I'm given just enough to understand that the narrator is "suffering in the future," and The One's comments on "phantasmagoria" (which I had to look up in a dictionary, by the way. Given how many words I know, the fact that I'm stumbling over this word means the rest of your audience is doing the same.) indicate that it isn't a pleasant future. However, nothing more is mentioned, and I get the impression that the plot seems rather lacking or neglected. Personally, I'm curious to know more about the narrator's surroundings, and a more in-depth comparison of reality and virtual reality. Beyond that, when it comes to my latter point, you always want to place your commas and periods within the end commas - that is a basic English grammar rule, and it makes your poem come across as less sloppy. Too, you never want to incorporate a comma or period when there is already a punctuation mark within the quotations, as in "Oh phantasmagoria!"

I suppose my major complaint in that regard might simply be that your comma usage does not contribute to this poem. As in, with the way that commas connect components and lines together (much like pieces of a sentence, and both with the same intention - to communicate coherent thoughts), I'm running between thoughts that I do not think should be together. For instance, the narrator's opening and closing their eyes in comparison to what The One has to say, and what technology responds with. You are much better off separating those with semicolons, which allow you to indirectly tie the ideas together and serve a similar purpose to the comma, while also preventing those distinct ideas from running into each other. In the end, I simply see no point in maintaining a repetitive comma/period structure at the end of a set of lines. It's arbitrary, often awkward, and is often neglectful of the benefits provided by variety and experimentation. Besides, you don't incorporate other restrictions, like a rhyme scheme, so why adhere to this rule?

However, that doesn't mean I hate this poem, and I love what I'm seeing so far. It's clever, witty, well-developed, and nicely written. However, I'd suggest that you focus on your implementation of grammar and punctuation rules, as well as expand upon your key plot and theme points, to expand the impact of this poem even further. Nevertheless, thanks for presenting it, and I enjoyed reading this from start to finish!

Hi survavegeta12! Mage here to review your work! So let's get to it, shall we?

The title was made me check this work out. With things like the Oculus Rift being developed, and animes like Sword Art Online taking the gaming world by storm, it was an interesting title.

I have two quick comments I would like to make that can help you improve your poem. The first is to put the punctuation (such as a comma or period) before the last quotation mark in dialogue. The second is to format the poem so it's separated into two parts, the latter of the two being before the sixth line.

Opened my eyes just to see myself longing for more,
Closed my just to open them again,

Hello. I don't usually review poetry because it's not my niche, but I'm running out of stories to look at so here goes nothing. This is an interesting concept, and I enjoy poems like this one that actually tell stories. I like the contrast between the first line and the sixth, and the message of using technology in order to escape from a harsher world. I also like poetry (or writing in general) that teaches me a new word, I had no idea what phantasmagoria was. The ending was a bit unclear to me -- I guess the speaker was trying to purchase something, maybe...? I'm also a bit bewildered at the use of the word "unblemished" in the fifth line and if it has context it has in the meaning of the poem, or if it's just filler to complete the line.

But rambling aside, I thought you did a lot of really good things here and I enjoyed reading it. Nice work!!!