stars

look out the window at the night sky, this is what you find

The enormous burning stars

Shining through the vast emptiness of space

And shine though the thick velvety black of night

To appear to us down on this tiny planet

As pin points of immense light.

 

These stars are like hope

They are symbols of the heavens,

All the things out in the universe,

And guides for our travels.

 

Much like hope,

These stars cannot shine through the clouds in life

And when they’re gone

We loose our way

And wander aimlessly through our world.

Author's Note

be very critical please, I wish to improve my writing. and thank you for taking the time to read it.

Reviews

[Solst Rapture]

Hey, I am here. Firstly, I'd like to pint out that the review from Emily Rose, is a very useful review. In particular she mentions clich�. This is often one of the first things critics will criticize, however. It is not illegal. You control your artistic license. What would help is for it to be made clear that avoiding clich�s creates an effect on the reader that feels fresh, rather than common. I think that Poetry is often designed to be slightly mysterious, yet still create feeling, new thoughts and most importantly, it creates a relationship between the reader and the words. Your message is clear and is valuable, but as Emily says, you can afford to go a little crazy with your imagination. One of the problems is that we people want to make sense of things and so use language that explains our feelings, which is fine, but it depends on what angle you are coming from when writing. If you want to entertain, which is why some people do it, you can afford to put on a larger, more complicated show, but you don't have to. It's your choice.

I think Emily has written a very helpful review about Poetry in general. You can counter balance the fine art of ambiguity using structure - pentameter, syllabic rhythm. I don't do much of this, but such is the world of poetry that structural design can change everything.

Your writing is absolutely fine. That has to be clear. There is nothing wrong with what you have written, but the only criticism I can give you is similar to what Rose has given you. Play around with your message and see how far it takes you. A good exercise would be to re-write this same poem a few times, trying out different experiments. Use Shift F7 in word to look up synonyms and Antonyms. Sometimes is good to say the opposite to what you mean, to make people work a little harder. See if you can keep each line to a number of syllables etc. You might stumble across something that you really are fascinated with.

Keep writing! You will see your own improvements very soon and I look forward to reading what you write. I will personally keep coming back, so you WILL have an audience. Take care.

[Last Lying Look]

I enjoyed this. The poem itself had texture. Which I loved.

[Sarah]

This poem definitely has potential to be amazing. =) Your description is very beautiful & I loved the comparison to stars and hope in the final stanza (it was my favorite!) Great job!

[Kyle]

i think this is a great poem how it is, but just in my opinion (and im a perfectionist) i would take out some articles like "the, & and" to make the poem flow better, also i might use another word for shine, because you use the word shining in the stanza above, i think that this would make it read better. but overall i think it is a fantastic poem, i would like to read more of your work soon!!

[holly]

I can see you sitting by a window and looking at the sky with a sense of wonder, philosophising, as people have done for thousands of years, about the meaning of such beauty. This poem shows raw talent and as such is a good sign of things to come. As Emily Rose says, don't be afraid to take risks. And one of those risky things we do is to question our word selection. Are there words that will help the reader to feel your point rather than see it? Is using two forms of "shine" in the first stanza as effective as you'd wish? Are there good reasons to use the word "like" in the 6th line? If not, can you word this same idea in a poetically stronger way. Simile is sometimes needed in prose but isn't nearly as useful in poetry.
But whatever you do be proud of the fact that you have the guts to ask for and receive critiques. And please keep writing and posting. Thanks.

[Emily Rose]

Although the sentiment here is good, your writing lacks polish. You rely on star imagery that is rather cliche, especially in the first stanza. Also the structure makes it sound more like prose - it plod along as if it were a paragraph. Be bold! It's okay to use strange metaphors and to be vaguer than you feel is comfortable. The way it stands now I know exactly what you're saying, and that's good, but to me it feels suspiciously unpoetic. At least for me (and remember, I'm being totally subjective here) poetry is all about ambiguity - it's got to be open for interpretation. Of course, there's a delicate balance between enough ambiguity to make something interesting and so much confusion that no one knows what you're talking about, and that's something that I'm sure you'll discover for yourself as you progress as a writer.

As I'm sure you know, poetry is so much more than just a bunch of pretty words; it has depth, emotion, meaning. While this poem of yours does convey some of those aspects, it's leaning more toward a collection of pretty words that hint at depth, but lay everything out so neatly that it's impossible to miss the point. Don't be afraid to take risks. Some critics will be unhappy with such risks, but, again, literary criticism is a highly subjective art and you must take every critique with a grain of salt. I'm very impressed that you're actually encouraging criticism (there are many people I've found who claim to want critique and then shun it when they get it) - it's shows great maturity and skill. Keep writing! I look forward to seeing how you progress.