Humanism is (Revised)

[nibbed]

Revised


Humanism is

the result of mankind
thinking they are all that
when they are just victims
of a cuppa every bit of nothing
that has been fed to them
from the time they were cruelly yanked
from mother's free food.
No matter what chalice of lies
that has been dished out
we are here for one purpose:

to choose or reject
a Mighty God who loves us
Who wants us to choose Him
so one day we can spend
an eternity with Him
in His perfect heaven.

[Todd]

Hi nibbed, this is too directly said for my liking. There's very little imagery or figurative language driving this piece.

Ironically, the opponents of this poem's view could use the below passage to prove its opposite point.

every bit of nothing
that has been fed to you
from the time
they yanked you
away from
your mother's
free food.

Now if you instead build the poem around an image (some of which is hinted at and not used), you could allow the ideas and consequences of those ideas to be expressed more organically through the presentation.

It doesn't matter if the audience agrees or disagrees with the message. The issue is with its execution. Not sure that will help much but I wanted to give you my initial reaction.

Best,

Todd

[nibbed]

Hi nibbed, this is too directly said for my liking. There's very little imagery or figurative language driving this piece.

Ironically, the opponents of this poem's view could use the below passage to prove its opposite point.

every bit of nothing
that has been fed to you
from the time
they yanked you
away from
your mother's
free food.

Now if you instead build the poem around an image (some of which is hinted at and not used), you could allow the ideas and consequences of those ideas to be expressed more organically through the presentation.

It doesn't matter if the audience agrees or disagrees with the message. The issue is with its execution. Not sure that will help much but I wanted to give you my initial reaction.




Best,

Todd

Hi Todd, thank you for considering my poem for critique. Opponents? Yes. Admittedly it was free flowing thought and I penned it as it flowed, perhaps that's why it is very direct. I was feeling a great passion after learning about lies from the enemy, life long lies and how cleverly done. I suppose some may see this as contrary verse and it could also be viewed as somewhat drab and generic, but it certainly didn't feel that way when I penned it! Thanks for taking the time to read it. I will look it over and see what I can do to improve imagery. I hope your day is filled with beautiful light and joy today and people are better to you than they may have been in the past.

janine

[Richard]

Hey Janine,
I have to still agree with Todd's initial comment about this poem needing more figurative language. I'll go into more detail below:

Revised


Humanism is

the result of mankind
thinking they are all that -What does "that" mean here?
when they are just victims -I think the image of victims has potential, but needs to be developed more.
of a cuppa every bit of nothing
that has been fed to them
from the time they were cruelly yanked
from mother's free food. -I feel like the image of being yanked from one's mother could work, but you need to add a metaphor or some sort of poetic device to make it stronger.
No matter what chalice of lies
that has been dished out
we are here for one purpose:

to choose or reject
a Mighty God who loves us
Who wants us to choose Him
so one day we can spend
an eternity with Him
in His perfect heaven. -The message in this stanza is clear. However, you need some figurative language here to spice it up (to use a cliche). 

Since this is a basic critique, I didn't want to go into too much detail. I do think you have a decent starting point here for a poem, but it needs some work. You communicated your passion and beliefs in this piece. The next step is to ask yourself how to take those two things and express them more poetically. I hope I wasn't too harsh in this critique.

Keep writing,
Richard

[vagabond]

Revised


Humanism is

the result of mankind
thinking they are all that
when they are just victims                     so .. humanisn isn´t the result of mankind at all?
of a cuppa every bit of nothing
that has been fed to them                                 i think in order to connect that to the metaphor in the following 2 lines ("free food") you could state the price of whatever humanism fed to the poem´s subject.  i think you´d have an answer to that  
from the time they were cruelly yanked
from mother's free food.
No matter what chalice of lies
that has been dished out                      i would leave the word "that" out
we are here for one purpose:

to choose or reject
a Mighty God who loves us
Who wants us to choose Him
so one day we can spend
an eternity with Him
in His perfect heaven.

"every bit of nothing... all lies", those are heavy statements!
the message of your poem is clear and you show conviction

[billy]

my problem with the poem is this, it's too preachy. the last stanza says everything the first one states secondly you equate humanism according to the 1st person is what he says it is. castigation of half of mankind is probably more akin to humanism than the love of god. the next is which mighty god do you speak of. will any mighty god suffice. for all we know he could be allah? odin, sheva. if we write of god [any god] we need to show him through imagery. we need to do so without being preachy.

Revised


Humanism is

the result of mankind
thinking they are all that all what
when they are just victims no need for when
of a cuppa every bit of nothing i know cuppa is cup of but for me it doesn't work here
that has been fed to them
from the time they were cruelly yanked
from mother's free food. this and the line above work well
No matter what chalice of lies
that has been dished out
we are here for one purpose: these three lines pose to many questions of the reader

to choose or reject
a Mighty God who loves us
Who wants us to choose Him
so one day we can spend
an eternity with Him
in His perfect heaven.

[nibbed]

Thanks, everybody.
I agree it is too preachy, though the revised version was much more in-your-face. I thought I had lightened it up, but I had only poured it on in a different manner. I used "yanked" to express how even the most natural care of a mother nursing her young has been disregarded and replaced by humanism through commercialism ("we have a better way than the way God has made, do it like this, instead:"). I felt the poem needed to maintain a level of preachiness to convey how I felt during a flow of revelation. Angry, I guess...betrayed, buffaloed, hood-winked, dense, slow, blind...It's rather a difficult poem to write I imagine, just how we can fall into trusting human efforts over God's already rich bounties. Why do we trust man over God? Reading through it now it seems cheap and unworthy. It certainly is not clear on the loveliness of the Trinity for which it was to lift up. Thanks again, everyone, for taking such kind consideration to my poem!

[annikajprice]

needs more context as to how the first section ties into the second, and address why God is the ultimate goal of humankind