First Born

This is a poetry piece I wrote expressing the hardships of the firstborn child.

I’m always first to become last
Everything seems to go by so fast
I cry here and there and it seems no one cares
oh , how the first borns cry

My mom looks at me with dismay
And I honestly wanna decay


I can never add up to my siblings
It feels like my world is crumbling down like buildings

I feel like I’m malfunctioning
I feel like I’m failing, unavailing, pointless, bootless, and most importantly useless

Oh how the first born cries.
Oh how the first born lies
Oh how the first born complies

Whatever they need I do it,
Whatever they say I improve it
Whatever they do I sit through it

Oh how the first born abides

I’d like to know if im good enough
I’d like to try and see enough
I’d like to try to be enough
And I’d like to be loved enough

I always end up dissapointing
They always end up finger-pointing
At me

That she

Can’t be

Anything

Oh the stress the first born deals with, with the kids and with the digs

It’s like a never-ending field trip

I’m on a roller coaster

My heart is like a closed door

I don’t think I can take this anymore

I wish I could be restored

To my former glory of innocence and kindness

It seems that all i can see is blindness

Here and there, no one cares

Oh how the first born cries
Oh how the first born lies
Oh how the first born abides
Till the day they die.

Author's Note

Please do not take my work and publish it elsewhere! I work very hard on my work and take pride in it and I'd rather not have someone else take it, thank you!

Reviews

[JayG]

• Please do not take my work and publish it elsewhere!
That's not a real worry. First, posting your work on a writing site isn't publishing it. It’s posting it.

But of more importance, there are two reasons why no one will steal your work:

1. No one does that. Why would someone steal the work of an amateur when they can copy that of a pro? Right?

2. I mean no insult, but the second reason is that you’ve not looked into the skills of poetry, so, like everyone else, you’ve fallen into the single most common trap in writing, the trap I call, The Great Misunderstanding: You believe that the writing skills we’re given in school are useful in all situations.

But think about it. What’s the single most common writing assignment you’ve had? Reports and essays, right? The ability to write them are useful on the job when writing reports, letters, and other nonfiction applications. But nonfiction is designed to inform, and so useless for poetry.

Why? Because readers come to poetry to be entertained. They want your writing to make them feel and care. As E. L. Doctorow puts it, “Good writing is supposed to evoke sensation in the reader. Not the fact that it’s raining, but the feeling of being rained upon.” But.... Did even one teacher mention that? Of course not. Their job is to ready us for employment. Professional knowledge, like fiction and poetry writing are acquired in addition to the general skills employers need us to have. In fact, public education was instituted at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution in order to provide employers with people who could read, write, and do basic math, which traditionally has been called, "The Three R's, Reading, wRiting, and aRighmatic." A bad joke, I know, but that was popular for a lot of years. Now, people tend to say it in a "hillbilly" way, as: Read'n, wRit'n, and "arithmetic. 🤪

And because the pros make it seem so easy, we assume that if we have talent we’ll write well with nothing more than those three R's and a knack for poetry. But we forget that talent isn’t the ability to do things without effort, it’s to learn them with less effort than most, and use the tools more effectively once we’ve acquired them.

So... In this piece, you’ve not taken prosody into account because no one explained what it is, why it matters, and how to do it, which is a fixable problem. And because of that problem, your focus is on rhyming rather than the thought being expressed. That matters, because it encourages simplistic Moon/June and last/fast rhymes. Also fixable.

For a super example of using prosody and rhyming effectively, take a look at Ribert Service’s The Cremation of Sam McGee:

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45081/the-cremation-of-sam-mcgee

Notice the way he rhymes within a line:
-----
There are strange things done in the midnight sun
By the men who moil for gold;
-----

In this first sentence, it’s the thought, not the rhyme that matters. The rhyme within the opening of the sentence acts as a kind of cadence that the reader will fall into because it’s repeated, faithfully, from top to bottom. So in many ways, the cadence adds helps the reader know how the author wanted it read. And the next sentence repeats that, but...adds a bit extra:
-----
The Arctic trails have their secret tales
That would make your blood run cold;
-----

The first section, again, contains that inner rhyme, but notice that the end of this sentence rhymes with the end of the first sentence. This pattern repeats, adding an interesting rhythm to the poem. It was written over 100 years ago, and still has the power to get the reader nodding in time to the beat — and smiling at the ending. So take a read. I think you’ll enjoy it. When it appeared, in Mr. Service's first book of poems, that poem, alone, resulted in a LOT of book sales.

For a great introduction to the world of metrical poetry, I love the excerpt from Stephen King’s, The Ode Less Traveled, on Amazon. He will amaze you with things you’ve not noticed about the flow of language.

You might also want to read the excerpt from Mary Oliver’s, Rules for the Dance. If you decide to ask your personal Santa to get a book for you, you might favor Mary’s. It’s a warmer read. 😆

And for poetry, in general, try a read of Mary’s, A Poetry Handbook. The lady is brilliant, and the book is filled with unexpected gems, like why we sometimes use the word rock and at others stone, for the same thing. And you can read or download it from the site linked to below.

https://www.docdroid.net/7iE8fIJ/a-poetry-handbook-pdfdrivecom-pdf

So... This was not at all what you hoped for, I know. But as I said, you have LOTS of company. And since it’s the kind of problem that’s invisible to the author, I thought you might want to know.

But whatever you do. Hang in there, and keep on writing. It never gets easier, but with a bit of study and practice, we can become confused on a higher level. And perhaps, shift the ratio of crap a bit toward gold.

Jay Greenstein
Articles: https://jaygreenstein.wordpress.com/category/the-craft-of-writing/the-grumpy-old-writing-coach/
Videos: https://www.youtube.com/@jaygreenstein3334

-------------
“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.”
~ Mark Twain

[Selensial]

I'd first like to say that publicizing doesn't specifically mean posting with the intent to earn profit, as much as readership. Also as much as you think you sounded cool, knowledgeable, old, this is not a review. You think for someone who is trying to quote so many sources they'd actually comment on the work instead of listing issues with the US education system, which by the way is completely off topic. Second, I mentioned plagiarism, because as you so eloquently put it, the school system is too focused on preparing us for jobs instead of teaching us literature. I disagree, I agree on the fact that the school system could better it's literature programs, but I also disagree on the fact that people should learn literature more than they should trades. So, students will go on to site like these where they can find non copyrighted, pre-written pieces with a very low chance of their teacher finding out. You should take it from me, since I'm one of those "kids", not being taught "proper literature". I know it's been awhile since you've been at that age, and since these sites were invented for another 40 years after you left school, but you should try to leave your own head and project yourself to someone else's. Which by the way, is a very important part of poetry and writing. So thank you for your "review", and I hope you have a wonderful rest of your night.

[JayG]

• Also as much as you think you sounded cool, knowledgeable, old, this is not a review.
read more• Also as much as you think you sounded cool, knowledgeable, old, this is not a review.

No, it's not a review, it's a critique. This site doesn't have reviews, which are professional responses.

And in this case, the critique was given by someone who had 29 novels on sale; has sold his work in short and long-form fiction, poetry, and nonfiction; has owned a manuscript critiquing service; and taught writing at workshops. I don't look at writing as a destination, but as a lifelong journey. Mark Twain put it well with: “When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be 21, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years.”

• instead of listing issues with the US education system, which by the way is completely off topic.

I listed no issues. The job of public education is to ready you for adult life and employment. And only greeting card companies need poets, so they teach you none of its professional skills.

Professions are acquired in addition to the general skills we're given in school. Will you have the skills to write a screenplay when you graduate, without additional study? No. How about work as a journalist? Again no. Well, that applies to poetry, too.

When you read published poetry you see the RESULT of having studied the field, not the tools in use. So that "literature" training in school teachers appreciation for the result of using those tools. To write it requires acquiring those tools because your reader expects more then Moon/June rhymes that they could just as easily write.

In other words, it's time to take of the training wheels.

• I know it's been awhile since you've been at that age, and since these sites were invented for another 40 years after you left school,

Sorry, but, I helped invent them. I spent 40 years designing computers and computer systems. And there have been poetry clubs forever.

Making assumptions about people you've not bothered to even read their bio, or work, is foolish.

Someone you'll not meet, who didn't have to do it, took time to point out problems that every beginner suffers from, and, provide a way to solve them.

Your reaction? To complain that you weren't given a gold star for simply trying. So, let me give you a few hints:

1. When someone tries to help, you don't have to take the advice, And if that's your choice? You say thank you and shut up. You even have the option to delete the comment.

2. EVERYONY'S work sucks when they begin because, 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.” And when it comes to poetry, like most who turn to writing it, me included, you have a whole lot of "just ain’t so." But ignorance is no crime, and fixable.

3. A critique is a set of comments on where the work stands on this day, not a personal attack. As Sol Stein puts it: “A writer, shy or not, needs a tough skin, for no matter how advanced one’s experience and career, expert criticism cuts to the quick, and one learns to endure and to perfect, if for no other reason than to challenge the pain-maker.”

Want to get back at me? Follow those links I gave you, and after reading, come back and tell me why what they say is unnecessary, and that you have nothing to learn. The last person who did that wrote fiction, and as a result of doing it he thanked me on the dedication page of his first novel sale.

4. Give yourself the right to make mistakes. You make them because you lack experience, like everyone else. And how do you gain experience? By making mistakes.