"nothing left"

Have Faith and stay strong

When your days and nites seem so long

Stressed and depressed, nothing goes right

No hope left, nothing but dark in sight

Tired of fighting and tired of trying

As it all ends up, I'm just left crying

I've gave it my all and tried my best

Never get sleep, no time to rest

Trying to get it together, just do what i do

Just left thinking....what's left for me to do?

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Lynlyn
Review
Lynlyn wrote a review · Tue Aug 14, 2007 9:18 pm

Something euclidean just gave you some great tips, so I'll try not to repeat what has been said before. I agree that "nites" really should be "nights" and your Is should be capitalized - e.e. cummings breaks the rules, but he's allowed to do that kind of thing. ;) Also, any reason why the lines are spaced that way...?

write_ma_hustle wrote:Stressed and depressed, nothing goes right
No hope left, nothing but dark in sight

I like your use of internal rhyming there, but... the "nothing but dark in sight" doesn't sit well with me. First, it sort of adds extra bumps to the rhythm, but it's also kind of... vague. There are more vivid words that you could use to describe the darkness.


Tired of fighting and tired of trying
As it all ends up, I'm just left crying
I've gave it my all and tried my best
Never get sleep, no time to rest

There's nothing wrong with these lines, per se, but there's nothing that really makes them stand out. Try giving us some visuals here, or using creative vocabulary to make it "click."


Trying to get it together, just do what i do
Just left thinking....what's left for me to do?

The end of your piece really needs to have some zing to it. "Rhyming" the same word twice isn't the strongest ending you could manage - try and pinpoint a more specific concept or image as you end the poem.

You've got a good start, but try to give us a deeper look into the speaker's thoughts by giving us a little more background.

A couple of technical things to pay attention to:
-- Spell out your words. Nobody is going to take a poem seriously if you have 'nite' instead of 'night'. I'm sorry. That's the breaks. Readers and critiquers will think that if you can't be bothered to spell out your words you can't be bothered to care about the poem, and they're not going to care about responding to it.
--Capitalize "I" unless you have good artistic reasons for not doing so. At the moment, you don't.
-- You don't need to start every line with a capital letter. Capitalize as you would in sentences. Which leads us to ...
-- Punctuation! Punctuation is your friend. It can direct the flow of a poem and help highlight meaning, as well as give you access to more complex phrasing and ideas. Punctuation and Poetry guide. Read. Learn.. Also: you should smite those ellipses [which are the '...'].


The rhyming isn't obviously forced but it's getting there. Poetry doesn't have to rhyme, and you don't have to pummel your writing into a rhyming format - especially rhyming couplets, egads! which are difficult. Learning to rhyme well and learning to make rhyme flow are very important skills for a poet, even for one who likes freeverse better, but cutting the worn-out, trite phrasing and getting in some original images and metaphors is far more important than rhyme at this point.

Start this poem over with the same idea in mind but none of the words from this poem. Try and convey that feeling off tossing and turning, not being able to sleep because you're so tired you're beyond sleep, and not knowing where to turn -- and try and convey it with images and metaphors. Close your eyes. What does it feel like? Maybe you're hemmed in by the covers, they're wrapping around your legs, you can't move anymore, it's hot and you can't breathe ... then how does that relate to the bigger picture? Imagery will bring the ideas alive, make the reader care about them. If we can see/hear/smell/feel what's happening, we'll care about it and care about the emotions more than if someone just told us "I'm trapped and depressed".

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Jasmine Hart
Review

Ok. First off, I wouldn't capitalise the "F" in "Faith", as it hasn't been personified. "Nites" should be "nights", and I'd change "dark" to "darkness".Also capitalise your last "i". You have no punctuation, so you need to put some in. I'd suggest a fullstop after "long", commas after "right" and "sight" and "trying", and a full stop after "crying". A comma after "best", and a full stop after "rest."
Your rhyming was spot on, but I think it kind of tied you down. I'd try approaching this again from a different angle. Hope this helps.

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Snoink
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***Moved to Other Poetry***



Owning our story can be hard but not nearly as difficult as spending our lives running from it. Embracing our vulnerabilities is risky but not nearly as dangerous as giving up on love and belonging and joy—the experiences that make us the most vulnerable. Only when we are brave enough to explore the darkness will we discover the infinite power of our light.
— Brené Brown