Poetry / Definition of Death (Analysis)

Very powerful and moving it brought tears to my eyes. I lost my father in 05 and I can relate. I think you should only make some subtle changes such as ” I am left with a hole in my chest” than skip the next line and go straight to “pick your vice and momentarily kill the pain” or add something else there. It is very powerful and wonderfully written. I look forward to reading more!

I feel that the format needs some way to emphasize or separate ideas or verses.
Also there are placesthat you change tenses that confuses me. It seems that the path is piercing your heart in the 1st,4 verses.You’ve used the word “again” too many times…I like the ending which really could be used as the major theme of the entire poem..”death defines me”..keep working on it..there’s a lot of emotion and potential…thanks

Very good effort overall.  I think the poem is tight, certainly economical in words, good images and a consistent, earnest tone that is immediately available to the reader.  The emotional content, too, is unmistakable.  There are some lines, however, that seem out of place and create a real impediment to the flow of the work.  For example, from line one to twenty-four, it seems one poem then there is a thematic and structural shift in line twenty-five with “who can take me back to the beginning”.  Now, rather than expressing the loss and the shock and the change, we see the narrator seeking to undo, to re-write, no longer addressing time and a forward movement but a “you” and a backward movement.  The tone is a bit different here, too.  Up until this point the narrator strikes me as hurting but gutsy and line 25 leads into a more pitiful and helpless expression of sadness.  Also, from this point, I feel the poem is somewhat over-explanatory.  

To point to some specifics, I believe shortening the poem—particularly in the over-explanatory passages will strengthen it.  For example, delete lines 25-32, beginning “who can take me…” and ending “what’s happening to me”.  Also cut the lines “maybe my ignorance keeps me numb/maybe I like it that way” and see how the poem sounds.  The worst that can happen is that you’ll decide to put them back.  Good luck with it.  

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June 26, 2008

by ashleygriffin0117

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thank you so much for your insight. sometimes with the first draft of my poems I do get a little carried away. as far as publishing purposes goes I will definitely play with your suggestions! that’s why I enjoy posting on here because someone else who is unbiased can show me where my raw emotion makes my poem weak. I agree with you that the theme of the poem changes! I’m going to play with it some more! thanks!

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good poem and i don’t think i want to try and change anything in it….
self-destruction could be hyphenated
pierce my heart starts a new stanza so i would leave a line of empty space before it

Wow, now that is deep. I loved the spaces between certain words- it really adds more of an emotional effect of the poem. The imagery of the in…out…in… etc really creates a vivid understanding of the situation.
I’m sorry about your mom. Cancer is horrible.

I like this poem. I think it would be more beautiful if you didn’t use contractions. I also think it could be made more effective if you dropped the periods and instead used more white space to cause the reader to linger on these words longer:

nothing

no sound

no motion

Just a suggestion.

This has a lot of feeling in it!