Young Writers Society

Well this poem seems a bit depressing if I read over it but I wrote it at the end of a bad day so... I'm not sure if it's too repetitive... any criticism or comments welcome!

How can one feel so alone,
In a world bursting with people?
How can one wish to die,
When their life has barely begun?

Why do I feel like I am drowning,
In an endless sea of emotion?
Why do I feel buried deep,
In a dark bottomless hole?

How do I reach the light?
How do I save myself?
How do I stop drowning?
How do I stop falling?

All I know is that I can’t.
I can’t grip reality,
This world is just too crazy for me.
So I’ll stop fighting, I’ll give in.

I’ll leave this world and start to fly.
I’ll leave this world and drift through the clouds.
I’ll leave this world and sit on the moon.
I’ll leave this world and never look back.

And that’s when I pulled the trigger.

This.... This gave me chills. Maybe because I can relate to it so much, or maybe because it's just that good. Either way, I liked it. It is a bit depressing when you think about it. But, as I said I can relate to it, and I know others can. I adore the first stanza, it's my favorite Great job!

So, did you really pull the trigger? Kidding!

I like how depressing your poem is. Simply reading it made me feel sad, it made me give in. You made a beautiful reflection of your sadness and made it a deathly feeling disguised as words. Additionally, the last part of your poem gleamed a small pinch of hope that made dying seem a good choice.

Only one weird thing I noticed:

Why do I feel like I am drowning,
In an endless sea of emotion?
Why do I feel buried deep,
In a dark bottomless hole?

The first two verses are truly emotional and redemptive. The last line didn't give much impact as the first two. See, you used an overstatement on "a sea of emotion". You added a small pinch of figurative speech on that part. But "in a dark bottomless hole" seemed to literal, and possible, unlike the "sea" which is quite impossible, making it beautiful to read.

Bear in mind that i'm not the best writer around. I'm just fickle about grammar and sensibility.

Just add these few spices and you can make the most depressing soup, I mean poem, in YWS.

Love,
Al (mood: hungry)

Hai Deanie

I haven't ever reviewed something of yours despite my attempts so here goes nothing xD

My review will be split into two sections: (1) Repetition and (2) Digging deeper

1.

I understand that you're trying to get a point across, and repeating

How do I reach the light?
How do I save myself?
How do I stop drowning?
How do I stop falling?

gets it across, but at this point it's gotten a bit mundane. You have pushed the "How do I" as far as it can go. I suggest you use other words to get your point across because sometimes people stop reading and glaze over the subject.

You do this several times in the poem, it's not really necessary.

2.

This isn't really a critique as such, it's really just advice. What I see is an outline of a poem, someone is tired or life, someone wants to pull the trigger, but why? Life sucks, but why? The narrator is alone in a world teeming with life, but why? You need to keep asking yourself why. You need to keep bring out a different side of your story in this poem. Show someone something they see and understand all the time, but in a different light.


2 and a half.

Use more poetic devices in your poems maybe to create the beauty that is the poem


I like what I see here Deanie, but I think you could be doing a lot more. Writing a lot better, read more poetry to further understand poetry as an art form.


Keep Writing
Anger

Cheers! Usual procedure, the poem with my comments is in the spoiler =)



All in all, this poem isn't all bad - you're using good imaginery, even though it's darn too abstract (It's really variable and far, but it's got its pros), the message is quite belivable and sad, but it lacks deeper impact and I had problems reading it due to the rocky flow. It's not like it's horrible and all, but the flow is important; without it there are just words and no magic, makes it just... quite less worthy remembering, let alone reading again.

Best regards,
Shinda~

Hai there my deanie dear!! <3 *huggles*

So first thought: AIAIAIAII OO This is totally depressing!
But since this is a suicide poem, it's supposed to be depressing! So congratulations on getting that feeling across!

You did well on the imagery and you described that hopeless feeling very well. There's one thing you might consider changing a bit and that's this stanza:

I’ll leave this world and start to fly.
I’ll leave this world and drift through the clouds.
I’ll leave this world and sit on the moon.
I’ll leave this world and never look back.

I think you should leave out the repetition in this one, because it kind of breaks the flow that I was following when reading the poem.

But other than that, good write dear! And next time you have a bad day, crash me in my pm!!! <3333
Oh and my favorite part in this poem (yup I just totally want to mention it because it's very good):

How can one feel so alone,
In a world bursting with people?
How can one wish to die,
When their life has barely begun?

Awesome way to start your poem, dear!

Hope this review helped a little and keep writing awesome poems! 8D
-qaralynn-

Deanie,

You've gotten a lot of great reviews already, and I think they've each highlighted different aspects to help with the improvements. I'll try not to repeat anything and give you my overall thoughts. Reading this, I felt cheated. You presented quite an interesting concept and a dark topic (you know I love dark topics) - and given the structure of this, I definitely feel a sense of rhythm. I'm also glad this doesn't try to rhyme, however the execution may be a little bit off. Mostly because the speaker here is someone prepared to take his/her own life, yet the voice sounded more contemplative than determined. Are these really the last thoughts that goes through the speaker's mind before pulling the trigger? Though, they are more questions than they are thoughts.

I can see how the fourth stanza serves to answer all of my points, but it's why I felt cheated. The fourth stanza is not really an answer to these questions. And I feel the questions in the poem itself are not really questions, either. Think about it. If you would have written, "I feel so alone / in a world brimming with people / I wish to die / though my life has barely begin" - it would have amounted to the same sentiments, though the tone and voice would have differed. I always preferred the active voice to the contemplative one, anyway. But you still run into the same problems the other reviewers mentioned, there's a lack of specific imagery, similes, metaphors...

I’ll leave this world and start to fly. <- cliche
I’ll leave this world and drift through the clouds. <- cliche
I’ll leave this world and sit on the moon. <- cliche
I’ll leave this world and never look back. <- cliche

There's a difference between "telling" as opposed to showing a sentiment. The former is flat, uninteresting, and vague. When somebody says they are "sad" - they give you an abstraction. The word itself has no meaning, because you don't even know what the word really is. Everyone experiences sadness for different things, in different ways, and has different expressions, reactions, and ways of handling it. So the best way to describe what a poem's function would be in this lyrical sense of handling emotive abstractions - it would be to take an empty word like "sadness" and extrapolate it to best describe your experience of it. Through this, you get the reader to care and connect with you, but most important of all, you get the reader to experience with you. This is but a form of empathy, no? That's why poems are beautiful.

What I ask of you is to show. Show this feeling. What would it feel like? What would it sound like? What would it smell like? What would it look like? This way requires using images, going deeper - and this by default would make it interesting.

In my reviews, I always feel as though I'm telling people what to do. So here's my attempt to show...

Telling: I am lost forever and I feel the world is ending.
Image: I am stranded alone at sea, hair entangled with fish-bones, nose overwhelmed with the world's salt
Scene:

Under the light of Orion's belt,
I end up stranded in island hell,
waves always overtaking,
naught but fishbones to enrapture me,
and I give in to the swell of the tide,
sliced in half by horizon's edge,
I fall to space and leave the world
spiraling with the stars.

Obviously not the best poem in the world, but I hope it serves to help model the differences between vague abstractions, specific images, and then scene. I hope you do flesh this out more, I'd love to read it if you go back to it. Just have fun with it. Be creative ^_^

~ as always, Audy