Forever Faithful

Hey! I had no idea that you could write Poetry. I was honestly impressed. A few minor things I noticed were that when you wrote: "it would tale a whale of a tail", you need to put: It would tell a whale of a Tale."
Also, at the end you wrote,
If I had a boat, faithful and true
I would never leave its side, would you?
I thought that this totally changed the feel of the poem. Once you said that it made it seem like something out of a Childrens book, instead of a poem from from a hal-mark card, so to speak.
But hey, you did a great job writing this, and this is your writing, not mine. So if you like it, then by all means, keep it.
Keep Writing.

I like what you say in the poem. In some places, even how you say it is neat. But as some have said, you may want to relax on the rhyming. Don't let it get you down; a lot of poets never get past rhyming . . . A lot of poets can't get past rhyming and can't even rhyme! At least you're not that bad, lol! You can rhyme, but I think you reach for it a little too often. A great poem I suggest reading is "The Ancient Mariner," by Samuel Taylor Coleridge. I don't recommend trying to match his ability, because that would leave even the greatest YWSers a little disappointed, but it is a great example of when rhyming does work. If you want to see an example of when it doesn't, check out nineteenth century American gothic poetry. Some of it is fantastic . . . But some of it is dreadful.

Some ways to see if your poem rhymes too much: If it creates tongue twisters. Granted, tongue twisters can be fun, but it's not good literature. Also, if you feel rushed to spit out the line to fit in the rhyme, then it doesn't belong. Rhythm should never be sacrificed for rhyme; to the contrary, good rhythm is probably superior, I think so and I'd imagine many others would agree. Another thing is if you have to stretch meanings of words a little too far or throw in a word that just doesn't make sense, just to rhyme . . . Think of an Adam Sandler song. In your case, I think what's kind of hurting this poem is the rhyme scheme: aabbccddeeffgghhiijjkk . . . try changing it up a little, you know? Maybe have some rhyming within lines, or switching the rhyme scheme, say, to ababcdc, something like that. Granted, this will take time, but in the end, you'll be pleased with the results.

All that said, remember that The Eccentric Scribe is by no means a poet. In fact, he is probably one of the worst poets in the world. So don't take his advice too seriously. He does, however, read a lot of poetry, and knows one thing about it: Some of the greatest poetry doesn't even rhyme at all! But, like I said, I'm no poet, so don't think I expect to be taken too seriously. But, all that said . . . I was only being tough on you because I'm trying to be helpful. Really, I liked the poem, and the only reason I have substantial critiques is because this is a forum where critiques are asked for, lol. It's a cute, nice poem, and I think if you work with it, you can make it into something better, or at least use it as a benchmark and a lesson in moderating rhyme. I hope what I've said is helpful!

I have to agree with the rhyming critique above. Sometimes it works out okay, but sometimes it doesn't here. Typically when rhyming words...the last letter or two of the words should be the same, or at least something like a like-vowel and the same end letter, but you kind of break this rule a few times and it throws it off.

The waves call it to its watery grave,

If a boat could talk it would tale a whale of a tail

good subject matter - it's something different, and not too vague and out of its depths in made up philosophy. it's definitely worth working on. the rhymes come out as being very forced... if you take every other line of the poem, its purpose is almost always to hit the rhyme at the end, it seems. try taking every other line out, or making it a non-rhyming poem. the effort to rhyme also seems to be deterring you from the rhythm of the poem; read some lines out loud and you'll see what i mean. they come out stumbling over each other in places just to get that one word in at the right spot. i love rhyming poems, but they're hard to write, and they tend to need a lot of revision. that's all this poem needs; otherwise, great start.

This is cute, and has a lot of potential. I think the idea is completely original and worth working on. The rhyming isn't very organized, and the vocabulary could perhaps use some revision, but this is a positive review. I would love to see a revised edition of this!

Sometimes rhymes hit the mark and add a whole new dimension. Other times the rhymes come of forced and uneasy, and disrupt and distract from the content. I think the latter happened here. The rhymes aren't as smooth as they could be, and there was little rhyme or fluidity to back it up.

Read it out loud and you should spot the faults. It's harder to do so with your own work, but you should find them.

-Fantasy