Young Writers Society

Listen to Claw and Colly. I do, and I'm a better poet for it.
I just thought I'd add this:

Google wrote:Results 1 - 10 of about 153,000 for "Life is a battery". (0.20 seconds)

Hey Thinker! I thought it was a nice metaphor, but I also agree that you should make it more subtle, I think the overall effect of this would be better. If toned down this poem could be very powerful.

~Tempest

It is a bit wordy, but the message gets through. It is a great comparison.

Comparing life to batteries is not a bad thing. Any metaphor can work if you pull it off. The thing is, what you've written isn't quite subtle enough.

Metaphor. When you want to compare life to ___place object here___, as so many poets have done, you've got to do it without saying, "Life is like __object__." That just ruins all the fun for everyone! You want your reader to make the connection...don't make the connection for him/her! It's like giving someone an already-finished puzzle. You want to put some of the puzzle together, and give your reader all the other pieces, and have him/her finish the rest.
So how do you make a metaphor like that without slipping into boring old simile? You've got to present both ideas without screaming, "THIS = THIS!" Your speaker (male or female? where is he/she? etc.) might be putting batteries into something, and at the same time thinking about life, or the death of someone he/she knows. Erm...I'm not explaining this very well, and that's just an example, but try to write it without using the word "like."

Voice/Tone. As I think Clau pointed out, this feels rather prose-ish. It comes off flatly...how is a reader going to connect to this poem if it sounds like a speech? It needs to be made more "poetic" and I don't really know how to tell a person to do that, except to say, "Read lots of good poetry." So, read lots of good poetry. It'll really help if you show more of your speaker's character. Show his/her surroundings, show his/her emotions. The magic word: show. Not tell. Remember the puzzle thing?

Line breaks. It seems that you've broken them at the ends of sentences or phrases. That can work, but it looks weird here. You can use line breaks to emphasize words or phrases, and they're really important in terms of the look and feel of your poem. So think about that.

Keep at it, Thinker!
-Colleen

This might be a little more effective if you didn't say right out that you're using batteries as a metaphor for life. As it is, it seems like a T-chart: one side for batteries, one side for life.

What I'm suggesting is you fold over the column for "life" and use the one for batteries to write this poem from. If that made any sense? With that in mind, I'd suggest editing out some things, and expanding on what's left. As magicman said, it's a neat idea, just work on polishing it up

PM me if you have any questions.

Huh.

I'm not sure how to critique this as a poem. It didn't have much of a poetic format to it, and it kind of seemed like a stream of consciousness, the way you used, "Speaking of..."

Overall though I think you are just talking about things we already know through the extended metaphor of batteries. Life is energy, not all paths are the same, we eventually die. Don't we already know that?

So in the end you have to wonder what this poem is giving us that hasn't already been told. All that is is the metaphor, which is interesting.

But you're new to poetry? My suggestion is that you read more poetry, and find ways to make your poetry more unique and new.

Best of luck.

I don't crit poetry much, but I liked the way you used batteries as a metaphor for life. It worked, at least for me, and it's an interesting way to look at it!

So great job on the concept! ^_^


MM