Thank you for entering "Invalid Item"  with your poem, "Invalid Item"  Please keep in mind that the following comments are only my opinion as a fellow reader, writer and poet, and are offered in respect for your work with the intention of encouragement and constructive feedback.


An excellent take on the prompt - I like how you slipped "fire" and "peak" in there so naturally. You chose the Inspirational genre, and inspirational it is! The reader comes away feeling encouraged and with refreshed purpose. It made me think about my goals and reminded me not to be timid about chasing my dreams and carving out my own future instead of relying on circumstance.

Each line has something fresh to say, something more to add to the previous line, and there are a lot of little truths in here. The way you put them, what could be trite takes on new meaning. I like it how you create a kind of insistent voice, a chant that can't be ignored. So much information can be cluttering but instead it felt like a whole choir of voices piping up in my head, one at a time offering their arguments in sweet, persuasive tones.


The meter is iambic pentameter and the rhyme scheme is ABAB, with all masculine rhymes except "want" and "taunts". There's a touch of metaphor, with "fire" representing zeal and passion and "peak" portraying the highest standard, the best you can be; also, "walk" represents taking things slowly, step by step, and "run" shows getting into the spirit of things more and racing towards the finish line of success.

The message is excellent and should be heard by everyone.


The writer seems to speak from experience, as if you've enjoyed the benefits of that "happiness within", yet are still urging yourself to keep going. A foot in both worlds, you seem to speak half to the reader and half to yourself. I'm fond of poetry like that, since I write a lot of it myself and find it reinvigorating, and I also enjoy reading personal/emotional poetry (not so much writing it, though!).

The flow of the poem is good, but some of the word placing feels unnatural. I'll discuss this more below.


A few lines stood out to me as favourites:

this one life is your only turn I like the idea of taking turns, like players in a game. A gamble. With high stakes.

Live your dreams, come what may A nice combination of catch-phrases. Separate, they're cliche, but together it really works.


First off, make sure the first letter of each line is capitalized, to remain consistent with your form.

Secondly, too many commas! You could actually remove most of them and the poem would flow just fine. The commas are currently interrupting the flow, breaking up sentences where it isn't necessary, for example you can remove the commas from the following lines:


Lastly, the rhythm could do with a polish up. Some of the words seem awkward, as if placed there simply as an excuse for rhyme. Sometimes just removing or replacing or even adding a word can change a line so much that it flows perfectly. Other times, no matter what you do it just won't work, so play around with other possible rhymes and sentence structures. Here are some of my suggestions:

Don't let your passion die out You could replace "don't" with "never".

Work hard, till you reach the peak Maybe "till" would be better as "until"? i.e. Work hard until you reach the peak

Happiness from within, you shall seek, Replace "you shall" with "you'll". "Happiness" doesn't fit the meter. You could try another word, such as "Joy" (although it's not really the same, I know).

and no bigger victory you will ever know This line has too many syllables. There are a number of options you could consider to fix it, and I'm sure you'll come up with something, but you could try: no bigger triumph will you know.

You just need to start off slow. Replace "just" with "only". Two syllables fill the gap nicely.

the world's heart you will have won. I like this line, especially as the last line, but it contains too many words. Fortunately it's a simple fix. Remove "heart": the world you will have won. See? Perfect rhythm! :-[


Thank you for sharing this poem. I have enjoyed reading and reviewing your work, and look forward to more over the coming days. I hope you find my feedback somewhat helpful. Good luck in the contest!

Fi



My review has been submitted for consideration in "Good Deeds Get CASH!" .