A poem of sorts

TMH

Financial Constraints

The freedom of youth is destroyed by the Green Monster,
A woe most applicable to me and my fellows,
The beast makes us toil in order to earn our right to flee,
Those who decline, their fate is sealed,
For they are resigned to defeat,
That great paradox of the plebs,
Shall we ever be free?
Soon, for a momentary release.
The shackles will remain regardless, loosening fugaciously,
Will remain until we re-enter the lair of that many-faceted fiend,
Until that once faithful ally we call youth has left us forsaken,
Freedom now forgotten,
Formerly firm ideals become fantasy,
I will not return.


Let me know what you guys think!

steve_

Very impressive. Liked it allot

TMH

steve_ wrote: »

Very impressive. Liked it allot

Thanks, appreciate that

dawvee

I found it a bit bland and archaic, to be honest. First off, there are a ton of really bad cliches you're relying on for meaning and effect. Terms like "monster", "beast", "fiend", using "shackles" to stand in for (figurative) slavery, martial/battle imagery, and so on. It's all a bit melodramatic.

There's also very little solid imagery here, so it's basically just you telling us things when you should be showing us something.

TMH

dawvee wrote: »

I found it a bit bland and archaic, to be honest. First off, there are a ton of really bad cliches you're relying on for meaning and effect. Terms like "monster", "beast", "fiend", using "shackles" to stand in for (figurative) slavery, martial/battle imagery, and so on. It's all a bit melodramatic.

There's also very little solid imagery here, so it's basically just you telling us things when you should be showing us something.

Thanks for you're comments. Don't pull any punches!
Well, if I'm talking about how I feel like a slave to money and 'the system', if you will, so to use a word like 'shackles' seems pretty apt to me. And to me that system is a 'monster', a 'beast', and a 'fiend'. They may be fairly trite terms to use but hey, that's the way it came out of my head.

Thanks though, for me all criticism is constructive.

dawvee

TMH wrote: »

Thanks for you're comments. Don't pull any punches!
Well, if I'm talking about how I feel like a slave to money and 'the system', if you will, so to use a word like 'shackles' seems pretty apt to me. And to me that system is a 'monster', a 'beast', and a 'fiend'. They may be fairly trite terms to use but hey, that's the way it came out of my head.

Thanks though, for me all criticism is constructive.

No, I get what you're saying, but I guess a more constructive comment from me would be this: Instead of using the first words that come to mind to convey the sense of being a slave to the system, maybe try thinking of an actual parallel between, say, being an actual slave and modern debt slavery. Think of one concrete thing or situation in common and use that to pull the reader in. The problem with cliches and trite language isn't that they don't mean what you want to say, it's that they're so well-used as to be emotionally dead to the reader.

nietzy

why is the title of this thread "a poem of sorts?"

surely this (amateurish as it maybe) is a poem?

TMH

nietzy wrote: »

why is the title of this thread "a poem of sorts?"
surely this (amateurish as it maybe) is a poem?

Because of its 'amateurish' nature, as you kindly put it, I felt it mightn't really deserve to be called poetic, that's why I wanted some feedback.

Feel better now that you've got that off your chest? Sorry that it bothered you...

nietzy

not so much bothered me, more appealed to me that it might have been something a little more creative then just a poem.

but i suppose that was expecting too much

TMH

nietzy wrote: »

not so much bothered me, more appealed to me that it might have been something a little more creative then just a poem.

but i suppose that was expecting too much

You cut to the core of me. Boo hoo.
Thanks for your comments, appreciated.

north.

That's not even sort of a poem lol!