Resilience
july contest, poetry, drama, fiction
Published on:
July 18, 11:04amWord Count:
285Work Description
If a brief description could explain my poem then what would be the point in writing the poem at all?
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Driven to right the wrongs; my eyes bleeding
New wars wage subtle, unspoken, alone...
Fresh minds shot down before they even bloom.
People outside the box, afraid to speak
Revolution can’t happen without you...
Break down this social cage; set it on fire
Hands were meant to write, unite, get driven
Sometimes out of war comes something so new-
Ideas can’t die, like a first kiss it’s fresh.
Thoughts unspoken are demanding. People,
Time is ticking, we need revolution.
Feel these levies bulge and about to break?
Fight wars we don’t approve with bloody hands;
News reports lie to you more than sometimes.
Masses stand stunned like sheep with no ideas
Rage... and this Pain! Does anyone feel these thoughts?
Systems push us through until it’s our time…
Die safe and old? What in life did you feel?
Leave now if you have no desire to fight!
Open your mind and turn off biased news!
Indifference is killing the masses.
Slaves to your lives instead of feeling rage
Religion? Money? Drugs of the system.
So what will you do? Lay down and just die?
Abandon ship get out make peace and leave?
Friends of yours taking bullets chest wide open
You… a prisoner of indifference,
Tried to avoid, tried escape... still a slave.
Still we fight over beliefs… religion…
Human life is a blink in the eye, so?
Why care? Forget everyone! Abandon.
Look out for number one; fuck all your friends
No. This I cannot do. For me, for you.
I can’t kill myself, trust me, I have tried.
Still I believe that we can find peace… still.
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Discussion
Hi,
So, you want a Revolution?
Well, you can count me out (in)
Don't you know, it's gonna be all right?
You made me waist an hour searching for that Beatles CD, just so I could play that song!
I hope yer happy. . .And then, I left it on, and Wow! It's got some pretty good songs. Now I'll have to listen to some more of my aunt's beatle (the spell check won't leave me alone) collection --just because of you.
Well anyway, so much of your 'preaching' (you shouldn't do this. If you want to 'preach', do it in an Essay) is self-evident and unnecessary to in a poem form.
Everyone is aware of what apathy can lead to and they are still apathetic (or should that be pathetic, I never know if I've gotten it right; do correct me if I'm wrong).
This could be shaped into an excellent essay. Get the steam out; rile the masses; freedom of speech, etc.
Keep it up and we'll see you on the 11 O'clock news!
But, above all else: BE SURE TO VOTE!
~K
I'm not gonna lie, I really didn't like this much.
here we go
Fire let loose my breath and spoke dreams to me
This doesn't make sense to me? How is fire loosing your breath? and speaking dreams?
New wars wage subtle, unspoken, alone...
The wording here sounds a bit Yoda like... Shouldn't it be something more like "New subtle wars are waged. Or the Subtle war is waged anew...
Ideas can’t die, like a first kiss it’s fresh.
The metaphor here is a bit lame...
News reports lie to you more than sometimes.
more awkward wording.
Abandon ship get out make peace and leave?
funny wording and grammar
Human life is a blink in the eye, so?
too close to the cliche blink of an eye. And it sounds funny.
I can’t kill myself, trust me, I have tried.
Ok, now it's just getting cheesy.
It seems like you have gotten into some weird habits with your poetry writing. I would suggest trying to take a completely fresh approach the next time you write a poem. Instead of telling the reader what to think, simply describe a situation or a scenario and see where it takes your reader. I think you will be pleasantly surprised.
Keep trying, we are all learning.
hey I can't write a proper critique right now, but I just wanted to tell you how much I enjoyed this poem! I think its great and you can definitely see your own writing style, which I enjoy very much. Please don't take a fresh point of view the next time you write a poem! Ok I will be back to write a real critique soon.
Are you a fan of Joyce?
Although like others, I am a bit weary on the subject, I was surprised at how well I ended up liking this. Though I still thought your theme, or rather the power of your theme, could've used some work.
Hm. From when I first read this, I've given it a bit of thought to try and understand what I really think of it more clearly. At first I wasn't certain what bothered me about it specifically, but now I'm able to specify. Of course your theme carries a particularly strong and evident message, but one thing that I did not entirely get was why, near the end of the poem, you seemed to back off a little from the message. As if you were gradually cowering a bit near the end, and the message was growing weaker. Almost in a panicking way. If anything, having a stanza like this:
So what will you do? Lay down and just die?
Abandon ship get out make peace and leave?
Friends of yours taking bullets chest wide open
You… a prisoner of indifference,
Tried to avoid, tried escape... still a slave.
Still we fight over beliefs… religion…
Before this:
Human life is a blink in the eye, so?
Why care? Forget everyone! Abandon.
Look out for number one; fuck all your friends
No. This I cannot do. For me, for you.
I can’t kill myself, trust me, I have tried.
Still I believe that we can find peace… still.
...could also give off a hypocritical vibe, which will essentially not leave the reader inspired or empowered or with any type of sparking emotion (assuming that was the kind you were reaching for), but instead thinking of you as, yet again, another part of the angered-but-still-working-on-fixing-things sheep.
For example, the two emboldened parts I highlighted above got me thinking, and a bit confused. Maybe it's something I still have to fully digest, but why would you accuse your readers of being prisoners of indifference, saying that they've tried to avoid and escape it, when you yourself have confessed "to have tried to kill yourself"? Even if it's meant to be reassuring, this doesn't leave the reader that inspired, provoked, etc. Just left with the feeling of still being in another hopeless lost cause. That if even the strongest leaders and accusers have broken down, what good would they be? Unless that part was meant to be in subtle sarcasm, or your theme had to actually do with the accusing people being hypocrites themselves, this could otherwise render the poem a bit confusing in that aspect.
Like I said, I could see how it would work in the assurance way, in how you're saying "I know this is tough. Trust me. I myself have been through very hard times, but I've come to realize that we have to face this. We can still have peace". But as we all take things in differently, others may not see that as readily, just as uninspiring hypocrisy.
Of course it's not as personal as I'm making it sound now, but we're speaking in terms of a reader/author relationship. I thought the beginning and middle of the poem was very good, and it kept me wanting to read more... but the ending just didn't have that something to make the whole thing really stick. The picture of an angry man standing up admist a crowd to prove a point, but quietly sitting back down when he's finished and going back to drinking his coffee comes to mind. The reason why I'm pointing this one detail out is because it can really have a considerable effect on the mood of your poem, the look of it, and what your reader takes away from it - and obviously that's one of the most important things you can have.
Mainly, I liked this. I think with some improvements
to the power of your theme/message, it could be better. Remember,
exceptions discarded, if you have a strong message in your poem, go
forward with it. Don't let them see you waver ![]()



Thematically speaking, I'm a little sick of hearing a bunch of "The masses are ignorant sheep" things. I mean, YES, it's true. But I'm sick of hearing about it all the time. Maybe you could cut a few of those out and try to get people to just feel what you're saying and agree to it of their own free will without you having to remind them how ignorant and media-controlled they are?
There was a very angry feel to the poem, although it was undermined a little by the end. I love the first stanza, and wish the rest of the poem were more like it.
I think this poem might work better if it were a bit shorter. You could cut out some of the stanzas and lines that seem a little extraneous, and give a lot more oomph to your (obviously angry) message.
In the first few stanzas, I was really feeling it, but then it started to drag a bit and by the end I felt a little "not with a bang but a whimper."
This might have had something to do with the ellipses you use, as well. Their use in this poem makes it seem like you're starting off angry and then just kind of saying "Eh, but whatever"
as an example:
gives a very "But hey, whatever." feel to the line. A period would make it much sharper.
They do work sometimes, like this line:
It may just be the word choice, but the ... in this case implies that you should keep thinking about this as you go on through the poem. I'm not sure how a war is alone, unspoken or subtle, but I still really like this line.
This is a beautiful bit of imagery, and possibly my favourite line in the poem.
In this line it seems like you were putting a word on the end of a line just to put it on the end of a line, when it'd work better at the start of the following one.
Some of the wording is a bit weird. This may be intentional, or it may be just the first-draft-itude of the poem.
If nothing else, "Ideas" is plural, so "it's" should be "they're". In general, though, I think that line could do with some work.
This sort of inversion pops up in a few places, and is very distracting.
The second question there is an example.
Lines that I really liked: