Whispers

A Poem by The Outsider

I lie awake listening to the murmurs of the devil himself whispering into my ear. I feel the corruption over take, I feel the demons fly high, I feel my soul turn black. I can do nothing but struggle, I'm pinned, I'm trapped, forever damned only one can save me and he's no where to be found, where is your god when you need him most. He saved my soul but not my faith, he saved my heart but not my life. What have I believed in all my life but false hope? I pray that youll stop him, I pray I'll break free and find the light, yet my breathe slowly stops, my soul begins to shrivel and I feel my heart die before I do, were all damned until death, there is no hell because we live in it already we suffer and fight to show how strong we are, whether or not it gets better after death is up to your thoughts....

© 2014 The Outsider

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Emma Olsen

Did you publish this poem? And was the grammar the same in this as in the published version? Because, if not, you needed to look over it again. You have a number of errors. For example: over take should be over-take; no where should be nowhere; where is your god should end in a question mark; you're missing an apostrophe in you'll; breathe should be breath; were should be we're; and, personally, there are a couple of areas I believe you should add commas - though I accept that those commas may be up to debate as I'm comma-friendly.
Now, I think your work does have an eloquence to it, but parts of it are awkward. I'll put down phrases:
"I lie awake listening to the murmurs of the devil himself whispering into my ear." I'd argue that 'murmurs' is not necessary here because you already have the verb 'whispering' included. I'm glad you're showing you have a strong vocabulary, but two words for the same action aren't necessary.
"I can do nothing but struggle, I'm pinned, I'm trapped, forever damned only one can save me and he's no where to be found, where is your god when you need him most." I know you're going for stream-of-consciousness, but you're packing too much into this. While a prose poem can be powerful, I'm not sure you're fully exploiting the form and I feel this would, honestly, be better if you included more purposeful line breaks. I want a prose poem to play with the idea of a poem being told the way a story would, which, to me, means knowing how and when to use poetic devices in order to highlight that this is not a story or flash fiction, but rather a poem that has chosen to take a prose shape in order to say something about the subject matter and, usually, something about the form chosen to tell the story. Honestly, I don't see any word-play or use of poetic devices, so I question why you've labelled this a 'poem' and not something else. It feels more like a midnight depression musing - which, I want to say, is totally fine, I'm just questioning the form as a 'poem' because I'm not sure I see this as one.
"whether or not it gets better after death is up to your thoughts...." I think this is too wordy. I'd rather you left me with a short, pungent message at the end, rather than an ellipsis. Specifically, the phrasing 'up to your thoughts' is awkward. Why does the speaker think it's up to thoughts? Why not words, deeds, actions, beliefs? I think, besides the phrasing, I want more justification leading up to this. Why is this believed? Why is the speaker so convinced? What has the speaker gone through to reach this conviction and to be so convinced that the devil is whispering in his (or her) ear? What whispers are leading to corruption? What thoughts make things better after death, and what thoughts make it worse? Where does the speaker fall? Why does the speaker not believe in God and what's caused this crisis?
Perhaps these are all questions to answer in other poems, but I want hints of the answers here.

To be honest with you, I think this poem is relying too heavily on cliche. I've heard the tale of the devil and God fighting over a soul, I've heard about crises of faith. What I want to hear is what makes this crisis different, what makes it particular and noteworthy. I think you have a way with words, but I think you need to stretch a bit. Art, as a general practice, is about what new interpretations you bring into the world, whether it's a riff on an old trope or an entirely new idea. If you give me what I've read before, it doesn't resonate with me. I'd rather you personalized it, give me YOUR story, unique to you. Answer questions, lay yourself bare and hide behind the idea that the 'speaker' in a poem is not always the 'writer.' If you want to present me with the heaven vs. hell cliche, give me more imagery to sink my teeth into. You start with your first line, but then it all starts to fall into mental abstractions. I don't know where the speaker is, I don't know who they are, I don't really even know the reasons behind their suffering, beyond the fact that they are currently doing so.
I wanted to say, also, the speaker refers to a 'you' . . . who is this? What is their significance? Why even mention them at all? I feel like this is a very personal poem where the core of the work is being kept from me. While I understand that sometimes secrecy is a cloak we hide under, I must tell you that the most effective works I've read have been those which decided to reveal personal struggles. One of my favorite poems I read as an undergrad had to do with a girl struggling with bulimia due to abuse she suffered as a child, but what made it powerful wasn't the situation or the trauma, but the way she approached it in the poem, by describing her eating patterns in accordance with her emotions. I remember her describing eating as a process by which she ate to fill her (emotional) emptiness and purged in order to rid herself of the evil she felt lay within her. Here, I think you have a similarly powerful message to give us, but it's too philosophical, I think, too abstract, not rooted in some process which is both easily understandable and comparable. The speakers struggles aren't painted for me on the page, rather, I hear them being spoken to me. I want to immerse myself in your speaker's world for that moment in time, not simply hear him tell me musings which have no context for me and very little grounding. I believe a lot of this can be solved by educating yourself on poetic devices and using them effectively.
Here is a .pdf which lists poetic devices: http://www.chaparralpoets.org/devices.pdf

I think you should also put more consideration into your punctuation and spacing so that I get a better sense of the rhythm you intend. I do feel a certain rhythm in this, but I'm not quite sure that your punctuation (or lack-thereof) is purposeful? Usually enjambment gives the reader clues as to how a poem should be read, and, since it's missing, you need to clue the reader in in other ways. (Some of your grammar errors might also be throwing me off. I might think it was more purposeful if those were fixed.)

I do think you have promise, but you still have a long way to go. I don't mean to discourage you, rather to encourage you to think of the way your poetry should taste, feel, look, and smell to me, rather than how it should sound. What is your unique vision and how can you communicate that? Certainly your idea of a demon is different from mine. I am an outsider to the way you experience the world, educate me. You have a good base with your verbiage (which does give me some imagery as to how the speaker might be reacting in this undefinable space) and I think you have a message, it just feels masked to me right now.

Posted 10 Years Ago

To be honest with you, I think this poem is relying too heavily on cliche. I've heard the tale of the devil and God fighting over a soul, I've heard about crises of faith. What I want to hear is what makes this crisis different, what makes it particular and noteworthy. I think you have a way with words, but I think you need to stretch a bit. Art, as a general practice, is about what new interpretations you bring into the world, whether it's a riff on an old trope or an entirely new idea. If you give me what I've read before, it doesn't resonate with me. I'd rather you personalized it, give me YOUR story, unique to you. Answer questions, lay yourself bare and hide behind the idea that the 'speaker' in a poem is not always the 'writer.' If you want to present me with the heaven vs. hell cliche, give me more imagery to sink my teeth into. You start with your first line, but then it all starts to fall into mental abstractions. I don't know where the speaker is, I don't know who they are, I don't really even know the reasons behind their suffering, beyond the fact that they are currently doing so.
I wanted to say, also, the speaker refers to a 'you' . . . who is this? What is their significance? Why even mention them at all? I feel like this is a very personal poem where the core of the work is being kept from me. While I understand that sometimes secrecy is a cloak we hide under, I must tell you that the most effective works I've read have been those which decided to reveal personal struggles. One of my favorite poems I read as an undergrad had to do with a girl struggling with bulimia due to abuse she suffered as a child, but what made it powerful wasn't the situation or the trauma, but the way she approached it in the poem, by describing her eating patterns in accordance with her emotions. I remember her describing eating as a process by which she ate to fill her (emotional) emptiness and purged in order to rid herself of the evil she felt lay within her. Here, I think you have a similarly powerful message to give us, but it's too philosophical, I think, too abstract, not rooted in some process which is both easily understandable and comparable. The speakers struggles aren't painted for me on the page, rather, I hear them being spoken to me. I want to immerse myself in your speaker's world for that moment in time, not simply hear him tell me musings which have no context for me and very little grounding. I believe a lot of this can be solved by educating yourself on poetic devices and using them effectively.
Here is a .pdf which lists poetic devices: http://www.chaparralpoets.org/devices.pdf

I think you should also put more consideration into your punctuation and spacing so that I get a better sense of the rhythm you intend. I do feel a certain rhythm in this, but I'm not quite sure that your punctuation (or lack-thereof) is purposeful? Usually enjambment gives the reader clues as to how a poem should be read, and, since it's missing, you need to clue the reader in in other ways. (Some of your grammar errors might also be throwing me off. I might think it was more purposeful if those were fixed.)

I do think you have promise, but you still have a long way to go. I don't mean to discourage you, rather to encourage you to think of the way your poetry should taste, feel, look, and smell to me, rather than how it should sound. What is your unique vision and how can you communicate that? Certainly your idea of a demon is different from mine. I am an outsider to the way you experience the world, educate me. You have a good base with your verbiage (which does give me some imagery as to how the speaker might be reacting in this undefinable space) and I think you have a message, it just feels masked to me right now.

Rating /100

2 of 2 people found this review constructive.

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10 Years Ago

This one is not published in my book. This one and others are my first rough draft (I'm not the best.. read more

10 Years Ago

Okay, I'm glad to hear that. =P I was going to get a little upset. Someone else asked me to post a n.. read more

10 Years Ago

Yeh, I'm not e-published though (:

My punctuation has always been poor, I had to sit do.. read more

Reviews

Jennie Baron

You've received some extensive advice from Emma below and I think there is much to learn from it. This does express a sense of hopelessness and a raw emotion about it that are compelling, though.