Young Writers Society

Today, you start.

You’re running from the Devil.
Your mother cries as you leave,
while your father just looks away.

You’re running from the Devil.
Hell is coming to claim you,
but for now, all you can do is flee.

You’re running from the Devil.
You made a deal with him then,
now Satan’s got your number.

You’re running from the Devil.
Because once you drank this,
and once you smoked that…

You’re running from the Devil.
You know you can never stop,
tears are streaming down your blood and dirt-streaked face.

So now, you’re running from the Devil.
And nothing and no one can help you.
Your soul is his
and you’ll never get it
back.

Wow... I really hope this isn't from personal experience. But anyways, I thought it was pretty well written overall. You kept my attention through the whole thing. (not an easy thing to to ) Maybe you can explain how he/she started running from the Devil, why they made a deal with him in the first place. Obviously the character has done bad things in their life, but why?

Well I'm not good at reviews, but I hope I helped out at least a tiny bit!

Keep Writing!!!

--Jalmoc

Ok so I'm going to be really honest... This is so beast!!! But yeah I'm gonna try and find what few mistakes you have. ANything I change will be in a different color that the other text.


Today, you start.

You’re running from the Devil.
Your mother cries as you leave,
while your father just looks away.

You’re running from the Devil.
Hell is going to claim you,
but for now, all you can do is flee.

You’re running from the Devil.
You made a deal with him then,
now he’s got your number.

You’re running from the Devil.
Because once you drank this,
and once you’d smoked that…

You’re running from the Devil.
You know you can't stop,
tears are streaming down your blood and dirt-streaked face.

Now you’re running from the Devil.
And nothing and no one can help you.
Your soul is his
and you’ll never get it
back.

Wow.
This is really, really good. I love the emotion and the idea behind it and it really just captures me.

Today, you start.
Great hook.

You’re running from the Devil.
Your mother cries as you leave,
while your father just looks away.

You’re running from the Devil.
Hell is going to claim you, I think 'going' sounds a little awkward. Try 'coming'
but for now, all you can do is flee.

You’re running from the Devil.
You made a deal with him then,
now Satan’s got your number.

You’re running from the Devil.
Because once you drank this,
and once you smoked that…

You’re running from the Devil.
You know you can never stop,
tears are streaming down your blood and dirt-streaked face.
(This is my favorite stanza)

So now, you’re running from the Devil.
And nothing and no one can help you.
Your soul is his
and you’ll never get it
back.
(I think this would look better, sound better, and fit the style better if 'back' was on the same line as the rest of the sentence. I think your trying to give it a bigger impact, but this way is cleaner)

Wow.
This is really, really good. I love the emotion and the idea behind it and something in it really just captures me. I hope this helped.
Love,
Sierra

Interesting . . . it's good, but you could have been a little extensive. Great ending. Keep on writing!
Dragon Rider

Hi
Firstly, well done on writing this poem, "Running from the Devil" tackles an important issue of existence and the boundaries we all sometimes cross.
Nobody in the comments for this poem has really given you feedback beyond the grammatical realm. So....
Firstly, I would like to say that for your age this poem has great flow, as in there are no awkward words that significantly break the sound pattern. It is great that you have not chosen a rhyme scheme, this makes the poem much more modern and in line with contemporary poetic tone.

Now, the other stuff. If you are going to deal with the devil (literal or figurative it does not matter) than you are going to need some more imagery in this poem. I felt it was extremely cautious in its approach to sounding over written, which is okay-but please note that you should add more imagery to make it a memorable piece.

"You’re running from the Devil.
Hell is going to claim you,
but for now, all you can do is flee."

This stanza needs a good image of hell to give it depth beyond a basic description. What do you imagine it would look, feel, sound like to be claimed by hell? This is something you should consider and by building the mental imagery in this stanza it will make the overall concept of running from the devil more ominous and attention grabbing.

The best stanza was infact:
"You’re running from the Devil.
Because once you drank this,
and once you smoked that…"

What you did here was use basic basic basic language but it was specific enough to warrant poetic merit because you gave specifics of alcohol and cigarrettes. Do you see the difference? That other stanza was dealing with the concept of hell, which is an imensely complication image and requires further image based development in order to work in the same way this stanza does.

Once again, well done on a very good draft of the poem. If I was writing like that at your age I would be pretty proud of myself.
Thanks, Oliver

This poem reminds me of Pat Benetar's Love is a Battlefield, especially the first stanza where it describes the reactions of the mom and the dad. Then again, this dad isn't shouting that she can forget about coming back, so I guess it's not as similar as I first thought.


The sentiments expressed here make me very sad, particularly because I know that people believe this. My mother grew up Catholic, and she used to think God would punish her for the bad things she'd done; so she would try to hurt herself to make up for it. The reasoning: if I do it, then God won't have to. And this hurts me, because I'm eternally, stubbornly hopeful. As long as a person is still alive, I believe that they still have hope--that there is a way of reclaiming their soul from the devil. He is not the most powerful being in existence! He is one of them, but there are being far more powerful than he.

You’re running from the Devil.
Because once you drank this,
and once you smoked that…

I'm not sure about the ellipse at the end of this phrase. I've used ellipses in a poem or two, and people said they didn't belong in poems... now, I'm inclined to agree, but then again there's this thing called artistic license, so it could be fine. Still, it has the same form/feel/type of phrasing as the other stanzas (a good thing), and you don't have any ellipses in those. Then again... I guess, since you're using normal punctuation, the ellipse is fine. It just gave me pause.

Hmmm. I'm also reminded of the song "If You're Goin' Through Hell". It's rather more upbeat, but the concept of "running from the devil" is still very much there. May I ask what your inspiration was for this? I'm very interested to find out.

So now, you’re running from the Devil.
And nothing and no one can help you.

I don't think the first period belongs there. Try a comma or something.

Your soul is his
and you’ll never get it
back.

I love the way you phrased this, but the "back" on just one line is a digression from the way you've written the rest of the poem. This can be a good thing, it's just different.

On the whole, this piece was rather amazing. I had a very difficult time finding things to critique. Good job! And thank you so much for posting this here, so that we could see it. I really enjoyed reading it.