Better future

[MT-EMPTY]

Oh i have plan, to be the owner of a piece of land,
harvest from a garden I myself have sowed
take advantage of the hands the skills i’ve been bestowed.
I know the way, to sow the seed for a better day
A better future is on it’s way, that I to myself can say.
Not the bitter ending, that I once was expecting
i have a plan, I feel like a different man,
I now know where I stand, and where to go
I walk erect no longer crawling low.
i no longer see myself as a foe
I see that it was not the truth, it was not so.
That lie i leave behind me now,
And if I ever ask myself again,
are you really without hope.
I know the answer should be, no
On I go, forward I go
Leaving behind the old and cold,
Now the day is warm and new
There is a landscape of opportunities in my view.
I was a failure but I found success
I’ve planted a seed and now I can tell,
That it is growing and I soon can harvest.
Oh the smell is new, the troubles were many, but now just few
Bye bye troubled mind I will not regret
Leaving you behind

[Erthona]

Empty,

Rhythmically this shows some poor choices. Your first line, which should be the strongest is rhythmically weak.

L1 "Oh i have plan, to be the owner of a piece of land,"---> I have a plan to be the owner of some land,

L2 "harvest from a garden I myself have sowed" --> and a harvest from the garden I have sown.

L3 "take advantage of the hands the skills i’ve been bestowed." You cannot talk about "hands" and "yourself" as the same. You need to choose between "skilled hands" or talents "bestowed". Personally I would drop "bestowed" as it seems awkward and forced, at least in the way you are currently using it.

I could go line by line and point out the same sorts of things, but I've already re-written more than I prefer, however, sometimes it is easier to show than to tell.

In general, a large part of this could be cut, as you keep saying the same thing over again.

Things are going to be better.
I am a new man, with a new plan.
My life is like a garden
and I am going to be a better gardener
I'm going to harvest a better life,
leave my troubles and/or troubled mind behind.

Also, as a favor, please drop the little "i". It does nothing for your poem, and has probably never done much of anything for anyone's poem, except for cummings, and that is doubtful.


Best,


Dale

[Tiger the Lion]

Hello MT. I agree with Erthona's observations. If you find a rhythm in the first line you might find the whole piece coming together. The lowercase "i" never works, IMO. I've tried it myself and it always comes across as falsely modest. You almost need to exclude any capitalization just to hide it. There is an awful lot of metaphor available to your subject. Brainstorm as many as you can and do the weeding later, so to speak.

I have a plan to one day own
A land to reap what I have sown.....

I'm sure you'll find the right rhythm.

[ellajam]

Hi, MT, while your poem clearly expresses your thoughts, I'd like to point out an issue with your rhymes. Take these two lines:

I know the way, to sow the seed for a better day
A better future is on it’s way, that I to myself can say.

Way, day, way, say. These short, common rhymes do nothing to add interest to your poem. Rhyme can be a wonderful way to really stretch, searching for interesting words that can keep your reader involved and lead you to express yourself in ways you've never thought of.

I think there's room for improvement here. I suggest you read more poems and figure out what interests you about rhyme, when you think it's successful and when it just lies there. Then you can try to develop your own skills.

Thanks for the read.

Oh i have plan, to be the owner of a piece of land,
harvest from a garden I myself have sowed
take advantage of the hands the skills i’ve been bestowed.
I know the way, to sow the seed for a better day
A better future is on it’s way, that I to myself can say.
Not the bitter ending, that I once was expecting
i have a plan, I feel like a different man,
I now know where I stand, and where to go
I walk erect no longer crawling low.
i no longer see myself as a foe
I see that it was not the truth, it was not so.
That lie i leave behind me now,
And if I ever ask myself again,
are you really without hope.
I know the answer should be, no
On I go, forward I go
Leaving behind the old and cold,
Now the day is warm and new
There is a landscape of opportunities in my view.
I was a failure but I found success
I’ve planted a seed and now I can tell,
That it is growing and I soon can harvest.
Oh the smell is new, the troubles were many, but now just few
Bye bye troubled mind I will not regret
Leaving you behind

[MT-EMPTY]

Thanks to all three for your input. I see some of the problems that has been brought up, though i think some part are ok, i can see that some are boring and not very creative. To people who think this is all metaphor it is really a mix, i work as a volunteer in a garden, and i'm going to take an agricultural education, so this is about becoming more self sufficient and finding something for the first time in my life, that i like to do.
Many parts have a double meaning, as f.ex "I know the way, to sow the seed for a better day" it is a metaphor but it's drawn from the fact that i want to grow my own garden and make a living as a farmer/gardener

I don't have a lot of english texts as i live at a school where i have just taken a course, and the teacher wanted me to write in danish. I have some old text (song texts, that could be turned into poems) but they are on a computer i don't have with me. I have a few english texts that i have somewhere here which i will post when i find them. I just started writing in english again when i found this site, and i will post my poems in order, from those i like the least, to those i like the best, with some possible exceptions though.

[ellajam]

Thanks to all three for your input. I see some of the problems that has been brought up, though i think some part are ok, i can see that some are boring and not very creative. To people who think this is all metaphor it is really a mix, i work as a volunteer in a garden, and i'm going to take an agricultural education, so this is about becoming more self sufficient and finding something for the first time in my life, that i like to do.
Many parts have a double meaning, as f.ex "I know the way, to sow the seed for a better day" it is a metaphor but it's drawn from the fact that i want to grow my own garden and make a living as a farmer/gardener

I don't have a lot of english texts as i live at a school where i have just taken a course, and the teacher wanted me to write in danish, and i don't have any old material (song texts, that could be turned into poems) and only few english texts that i have somewhere here. So i started writing (in english) when i found this site, and i post them in order, from those i like the least, to those i like the best

There's plenty right here on the site to read:

Selected Poems To Read

[Jimmy Stark]

I don't intend to come off as mean or rude with this, but I was bored. I LOVE internal rhyme and trying to rhyme as much as possible, but you went for really low hanging fruits. I am definitely guilty of doing the same thing, but I am working on alleviating that from my poems because it is easy and, as ellajam pointed out, doesn't really add to your poem. It sounds cool when a rapper says it over a beat, but when read off a page rhyming a bunch of one syllable words doesn't really improve anything.

Erthona already broke your poem down so I will not do that, but I see the same problems he does. There is potential with this, you just need to work on it some more.

All that being said, KEEP WRITING! I am not a great writer by any stretch of the imagination but I can see myself getting better the more I write. Just keep putting the pen to the paper!

[MT-EMPTY]

Don't worry about being mean or rude, you say it in a constructive way, i can handle critique, and i'm not losing courage over a bad poem or two, or three for that matter. I don't think i can edit this at the moment, when i write i'm in different states of mind for each text (of course there is a certain mood i usually write with, but sometimes i stray far from the usual style) and this one is not my typically way to write. I just can't write stuff on command, so i just go back to things and edit when i feel like it, sometimes i never do for. But being brutally honest is good, then any praise will have so much more weight behind it, and it's not mean to be honest, in some cases it is, but mostly not. And i will keep writing, it's a hobby i have had for many years, so i wont stop now, and i have improved a lot. I also have gotten good feedback for some of my danish poems and other writings from people of varying experience in reading and reading, but it's harder in english

[Pyxx]

Oh i have plan, to be the owner of a piece of land,
harvest from a garden I myself have sowed
take advantage of the hands the skills i’ve been bestowed.
I know the way, to sow the seed for a better day
A better future is on it’s way, that I to myself can say.
Not the bitter ending, that I once was expecting
i have a plan, I feel like a different man,
I now know where I stand, and where to go
I walk erect no longer crawling low.
i no longer see myself as a foe
I see that it was not the truth, it was not so.
That lie i leave behind me now,
And if I ever ask myself again,
are you really without hope.
I know the answer should be, no
On I go, forward I go

Ok, so to be a part of this forum I have to critique so I am not intending to be a critic, but merely hope to offer constructive criticism.

I had an issue with the way that this work flowed, in that how the written expression changed mid poem.

harvest from a garden I myself have sowed
take advantage of the hands the skills i’ve been bestowed.

Sowed and bestowed appear to be intelligent choices in structure. The line below breaks conformity and thus the flow of the poem.


I know the way, to sow the seed for a better day.


Leaving behind the old and cold,
Now the day is warm and new
There is a landscape of opportunities in my view.
I was a failure but I found success
I’ve planted a seed and now I can tell,
That it is growing and I soon can harvest.
Oh the smell is new, the troubles were many, but now just few

Bye bye troubled mind I will not regret

The final line may need more work as it appears to end the poem prematurely. I am a novice so hopefully this critique has been of some help.


Leaving you behind