Cupid

This poetry is inspired by the music video of "Give me love" by Ed Sheeran.

She was a girl,one of her kind

No one loved her, thinking she was out of her mind

Her loneliness grew stronger and stronger,

The hunger for love so unbearable,she couldn't bear it longer.

 

One day she woke up in surprise

she had a pair of wings on her back,with bow and arrows in quiver

The heavens had some plans for her with these gifts in disguise

She felt the power from her heart,for a moment she felt a shiver

She went for her late night walks

Aiming at people,shooting the arrows

At random strangers, who felt a surge of affection

Their barren hearts had finally been treated with a harrow

She saw in surprise the wonders of her power

The change in feelings to sweet from sour

She hit a man,and he fell for the woman next to him

It looked like mad love,developed in a whim

She saw two women kissing after they got hit

Showing their true passion with the conviction of a writ.

She continued this venture till her legs were sore

She was happy that she was spreading love around,living happily daily,a little more.

Till she felt the need of love for herself

went back home and took an arrow 

She felt the pain as it pierced her marrow

and became unconscious, till someone called for help.

As the doctor arrived, to inspect her wounds

The arrow disappeared,and he saw her rise up,a new love story had just bloomed.

Reviews

[Ted Kniffen]

Hi, Shaurya. Jay has covered the technical aspects of your poem quite well, so I won't add any more thoughts to that. I liked your subject matter and the way you told the story. You used an Ed Sheeran song for inspiration, that's okay.
One thing I was taught was the best readers make the best writers.
Study Robert Service, Frost, Poe, the romantics, in fact, read any poetry you can get your hands on. Not to copy their work, but to get a sense of how they write.
We each have a style, a voice if you will, but we need to develop it.
Song writers all had influences to draw from to help them develop their own style.
Poets do as well.
Good luck, get reading, keep writing.
Ted

[Ashwin Shanker]

A Female Cupid... Finally...

I loved the story angle and the flow in this poem. I am actually planning to write a poem with a story theme myself and this write is a good example for me to learn from.

Great job man

[Avinash]

It is good for a writer to write on something which deeply moves him/her. Keep writing.

[JayG]

One of the things we need to watch out for when writing structured poetry is forcing the line to the rhyme. For example:

“Their barren hearts had finally been treated with a harrow”

You needed a rhyme for arrow, so you created the line to fit the rhyme. A harrow is a blade that breaks up the soil, which doesn’t fit getting together. But you just said that she shot at random. So if everyone she hits has a barren heart, that says everyone has a barren heart, and that she’s breaking up marriages and families by splicing random people. That makes her more a troublemaker than a cupid.

See the problem? The story you’re telling is of far more importance than the rhyme, and must come first. You need to look at logic problems, like telling the reader that she wakes up with wings, which are pretty obvious, then saying they’re gifts “in disguise.”

But more than that, it’s structured poetry. And there’s a lot to it that’s not obvious to that form, so adding the techniques of the form to your toolkit will multiply your possibilities. For example:

• With your first stanza you set up a reader’s expectations. So when you use two rhyming couplets there, in an AABB rhyming configuration, the reader expects that to continue. But in S2 you use ABAB. In S3 it’s ABCB. S4 is AABBCC, so stanza length changes, too. And S5 just meanders, and relates to the rhythms you’ve set up not at all.

• In addition to the flow of words, the stresses placed on the words within the poem add a cadence that keeps a beat, which is why it’s easy to set a poem to music. That means selecting words to keep that beat, in addition to any rhyming at line ends. That’s something that matters even in unstructured poetry to make it flow, as Shakespeare said, “Trippingly from the tongue.”

Have your computer read the poem aloud and you’ll hear the problem. And it matters a great deal because poetry is meant to be read aloud.

It’s not a matter of talent, or how well you’re writing. It’s that lots of things, in any field, aren’t obvious till they’re pointed out. And as Mark Twain observed, “It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.”

Take a look at Robert Service’s, The Cremation of Sam McGee. The link below sends you to Shmoop, where they not only present the poem, they explain what the writer was doing, and why. The poem was written more than 100 years ago but it’s still fun to read.
http://www.shmoop.com/cremation-sam-mcgee/

Another great resource is the excerpt to Stephen Fry’s, The Ode Less Traveled. He provides exceptional insight into the basics of rhyme and prosody.

I’m sorry my news isn’t better, but no matter what, Hang in there, and keep on writing,

Jay Greenstein
https://jaygreenstein.wordpress.com/category/the-craft-of-writing/

[Shaurya Gulati]

Thanks for the wonderful review, I honestly need such advices and honest reviews. I'll surely make a changes in this poem and will ask you to review it again! Thanks a lot,Jay. :)