Poetry Forum

waiting watching
hoping hurting
tensions building
close to bursting
pain is deep
my eyes are full
feel so weak just want to kill
kill the pain and kill the hurt
think my dreams about to burst

Seems you took a wrong turn, don't know where you landed ... welcome!

Hi gb and welcome to the forum.

Please you could you check our rules and guidelines. You need to do 2 reviews for each poem you post and to post no more than 2 poems per day. This enables others to have time to read and digest your work.

I shall remove the last 2 poems you posted and will replace them when you have caught up on your crits.

Thanks
Nicola

no probs

Hi greybald. This is okay for a first post. But it's vague... it's about pain and anger, but what has caused these feelings? And what are they like? Your poem doesn't answer this questions, it just says 'I am in a bad mood.' This makes it somewhat unoriginal and uninteresting.

But it isn't all bad. Your poem comes across as sincere, which is a good thing - it doesn't sound arrogant or pretentious.

Have you read this yet? http://poetsgraves.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?t=31

I think the most relevant points are these:

*Avoid using abstractions. "Love", "Beauty", "God", "Truth" [and "pain", "tension" and "hurt"] etc mean different things to different people. So try to be specific.

*Show, don't tell. Remember Eliot's "objective correlative". Find a way of showing how an emotion affects you or your character. "She is sad" = telling. "She slumps on the sofa eating Mars Bars non-stop" = showing.

Thank you for the feedback. As you can pobarbly guess am new to the site but looking forward to learning...

This poem isn't bad, but I felt unsure as to if you were motivated to write it by an event that happened to you, or if you just decided to write a poem in that particular style. Either is fine, but your choice needs to be clarrified.

waiting watching
hoping hurting
tensions building
close to bursting

I liked this. It has a definite rhythm. Almost like the African 'Mammy Daddy' percussion rhythm. And it also creates tension, as is suggested in the third line. But, I am unsure about what you are waiting for? Is it death?

pain is deep
my eyes are full
feel so weak just want to kill
kill the pain and kill the hurt
think my dreams about to burst

I would suggest re-ordering the words here to correlate with the rhyming pattern of the previous lines. Maybe something like:

pain is deep
my eyes are full
feel so weak
just want to kill
kill the pain and
kill the hurt
think my dream's
about to burst

Remember to add the apostrophe with 'dreams', unless of course, that is the effect you want.

I feel that the last line is out of place, as it does not really follow the rhythm structure of the preceeding lines.

I suggest you look at using more imagery in your poem. It is images that people tend to relate to, as opposed to abstractions of emotions, such as pain etc. Using imagery also allows you to be more creative with your writing.

Keep at it, though. Good luck