My people

My people, we walk around and spread happiness

That is a job the we the have

A task from God, that we should nod

Something we should never deny

We all have hopes and dreams

Always believe, there is no limit

Go beyond your dreams

Don’t expect to achieve it so easily, you’ll break a sweat from now and then

But that’s what life is, life is a path

A path that you’ll walk, you’ll never know where it’s going to stop

Don’t expect the path to be smooth as silk

But always expect and be prepared for the things you never saw coming

Reviews

[Emma Olsen]

"That is a job the we the have" Somebody else pointed this out, but I don't know what you were going for here.
"you’ll break a sweat from now and then" Don't think you need the 'from.'

So, this poem's a bit all over the place. I get the 'keep truckin' message, but this feels like a random grouping of thoughts rather than a poem to me. I think there's quite a bit you can do to improve it and make the whole piece feel more unified. First, I would urge you to consider the ordering. The first six lines are working together for me, but there's something disruptive in the seventh, and I think it's that it is addressed to a 'you' and is a command. Throughout the poem it's 'we' and then suddenly very focused on a singular individual (whether or not you mean the 'you' generally.) The tone also dramatically changes so that it goes from a kind of observatory piece to a didactic one. At the very least I think you need to break this into two stanzas, but I would encourage finding a way to better transition the tone of the piece, to find some reason to turn the spotlight onto the 'you' - who I assume you mean to be the reader. You might consider, perhaps, inserting something like "My people say:/Go beyond . . ." I'm also wondering who 'my people' are and why the 'you' is not included in the 'we.' I need the groups to be more defined, I think, so that I understand why there's exclusion and where this is supposed to be coming from and who, exactly, this is supposed to be addressed to.

Basically, I have a lot of questions right now: Who are the people? How do they spread happiness? Why is it a job? Why is it considered a task from God? (Is this a church group?) Why shouldn't the task be denied? What are the hopes and dreams? Do they coincide? Are they spreading happiness in order to fulfill hopes and dreams? Whose hopes and dreams are they fulfilling, then? Everyone's? No one's? Some people's? Give me a scope and a setting. This poem desperately needs some grounding in imagery, especially in the first six lines. Right now I feel like you know what's going on, but you aren't communicating it all clearly so it's a bit confusing. You have one image (the path being as 'smooth as silk'), but I want more to sink my teeth into. Poetry without imagery feels a bit floaty to me, like I'm in space with nothing to grab onto because the narrator isn't trying to relate it in terms we can both understand. Imagery allows me to see the narrator's (and poet's) world view so that I can connect it to my own. If we were both asked to describe a lion without the word 'lion,' we would both describe something different because we both see different parts of the lion as being worth emphasizing (maybe you would say 'claws' and I would say 'mane,' for instance.) We both are describing the same thing, but our different approaches reveal significantly more about how we perceive the lion (maybe 'claws' means you see it as threatening, while 'mane' means I see the lion as stately or something - get what I mean?) Imagery is important because it shows us how another person thinks and allows them to define and expand the larger words we substitute in for an idea that's so much more expansive and has so many more shades to it. For instance, happiness. What is happiness? Is it a sip of tea while watching the rain pour down outside? Is it in the smile your significant other passes you after a long day at work? Is it the rough bark of a greeting from an old canine friend? You haven't defined what happiness is to the narrator or to the 'people' or to anyone, so how am I supposed to know how it is spread and whether the attempt to spread it is successful? Moreover, if you're spreading happiness, should it really feel like a job or a task? You start to give me a look into the narrator's world view more in the second stanza with the description of life being a path, but I want more before that. You have a lot of generalities in here: happiness, job, task, something, hopes, dreams, believe, 'it', things.

I think you could also do with eliminating the following verbs: is, was, were, had, have, has, do, does, did, should, could, would, feels, seems. These verbs aren't interesting. They don't show me anything, they don't stick with me. Try to substitute other verbs: "Always believe, there is no limit" to perhaps something like: "Always believe, always sink your fingers in to climb past the limit". See how that resonates a bit more? I'm sure you can craft something better, but verbs are your powerhouses in your sentences, make them do everything they can for you. You could use more adjectives, too.

You should check out some poetic devices, too: http://www.chaparralpoets.org/devices.pdf
I think trying to include more of those will help buff up your writing and can help your second half to be more persuasive. I'd urge you to pay some attention to your line breaks, punctuation, and capitalization, too. Breaking a line in the right place can be effective, and since you don't seem to have an established rhythm in this poem, it might help it to seem less jagged. If you're not going to rhyme, at least make sure that the rhythm in your poem is obvious. Rhyming can kind of patch that (though, honestly, I find it's often a bad patch), but it'd be best for you to try to read it out loud that way you've placed it on the page so you can see where the line sounds like it should break.

Keep working at it and good luck!

[Tai Ryens]

Not my cup of tea, I'm afraid, but well done!

[Bluefire]

This reminds me of D. Gray-Man in a way, I love that. ^^
Aside from that, there's a lot of truth in this and inspiration.
Well played!

[Eddie Davis]

Very nice and positive in focus, well done.

[Aethereal]

Outside of a few grammatical errors this poem had a good uplifting message. Our path isn’t an easy one, but if it was easy, then why would we want to take it. Life is all about challenges, and adventure.

[Jo King]

You have a great idea and a nice voice to your words. Not complex but not simple.

[VVhiteRaven]

I enjoy the fact that you did not try to draw up life as paradise.

[George Gordy]

I like it, very positive and uplifting message. There are some problems here and there with spelling and grammar though.

[Lost in Wonderland]

I loved this! Very positive and well worded message. Keep spreading joy! God bless(:

[Sam]

This one is good. But I caught a few issues with the grammar. 1) The second line... I'm afraid I don't know. I believe you may just be missing a word. 2) The last line: expect and be prepared, adding the d, or to remove 'be' so the line changes to expect and prepare, which I personally prefer. Other than that, I like it.

[hanna]

thank you for seeing the error. I meant to saw prepared but i forgot the d. Thank you for your review and helping me change my error