This simple word,
though yet unheard.
We live it's meaning,
and hold it beaming.
Some understand
some do not.
With it underhand,
it will be fought.
Strong emotions fly,
pheromones attract.
People come together,
as they become light as feathers.
in our hearts, we have our sea.
In this sea we hold our memory
our secrets which came to be.
As within this sea our feelings show
join together with one we bestow.
We fight to have, and some lose the war.
So what is love?
the highest power to fight,
the never ending courage, the rise of emotion,
flare of compassion for one.
That my friends....we call love.
Author notes
PO Contest. The simple, blissful meaning of the word we call love.
A contest entry
- Poem of the Month - POM by Arkbear.
1500 points, ended May 1, 2008, 14 entries
• next poem in this contest, remove from contest
Thoughts?
Comments
1 - 11 of 11
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Thanks for your verdict. I'm glad you liked it. ^^ as for following the advice of course i won't ignore good advice and tips on making my poetry come out better.
This contest was by far a fun thing to enter and hope to do better if i can enter it again next time.
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Hi there ~
Welcome to the PO' contests :)
I see your other Judge, trista, aka, Julie, has mentioned quite a few of the things which I would have said as well....so.......I must urge you.....take your time when you enter the PO' contests, as they have the tendency to change now and then....making it Very important to read every single Rule, all the time....ok?
:)
With that said, This Theme is not going to cause your score to soar, but it the beauty and format in which you penned it will place you above 85 I do believe....but things like, cliche' Title, not capping the beginning of each line of a new sentence, rules, originality of Theme, are all going to cost a few points.......so let's just see how well it is going to do on MY scoreboard....shall we?
Remember to read Julie's review (advice) over and over until you grasp everything she has said.....as she did not waste any words telling you something you will not need to know for future PO' contests...ok?
Here we go!
Be well and God bless you,
Bear ~
Title 7.0.....very cliche' and unoriginal -
Flow 9.25
Depth 8.9
Theme 6.5
Feelings 6.95
Grammar 9.15
Presentation 9.3
Uncommonness 5.0
Sit & Ponder Affect 7.25
Ability to follow Rules 8.0...1 pt for rules.....1 pt for originality (rules)
Bears Score: 80.3
Not a bad score for being new to the PO' contests.....at least now, you can see what we are looking for, outside of the contest rules :)
Please bring your talent back and join us again :)
God bless,
Bear ~
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Hi and welcome to the POM! You picked a tough challenge to join us for if this is your first time here, which I think it is, but I see fellow poets have given you a lot of encouragement and hints on following the rules. Unfortunately...you still missed a couple.
“There shall be no letter -a- in your first or last lines, of each stanza” and “You may NOT use the Filler Words, *is..*but..*and..*with..*for “ So...there will be a couple of deductions there. Those are not standard rules for the PO contests, but something we've thrown in a couple times to keep poets on their toes, and hopefully it's a fun challenge as well. It makes reading all the rules carefully very important.
Oh, and a note about line count, we go by the actual number of lines in your poem and not what the counter on the side says, so this would be considered 23 lines. AP counts the spaces between lines as well, which is why it shows 28.
Okay, rules aside, let's get to the poem itself.
The very first thing a person sees is the title of a poem, so it’s important to give that just as much consideration as the rest of the write. “Love” is pretty generic, often used, and while it certainly fits the poem I’d like to see something a little more creative and worthy of what you’ve written. Try thinking about what would make you want to read a poem when you see a list of titles; that’s what you want - something to capture the readers attention and pull them into the poem.
One of the keys to doing well in any PO contest is to pick your theme wisely. We look for unique themes or a fresh approach to old ones. Because it is written about so, so often...it’s incredibly difficult to do that with a theme of Love. I enjoyed reading your interpretation of what I consider to be the grandest, most important feeling and action in life, but I’d encourage you to really dig deep when writing on this subject. You have views of the world like no one else, so really question what love is to you and uncover some unique views and phrases, maybe use a few metaphors and/or imagery to bring your message across. I think your rhyming may have hindered some of what you wanted to say as well. Several lines came out sounding forced, IMO. I notice you lost your rhyme scheme completely at the end of the poem, and that is where I thought this started to shine. It’s better IMO to write free verse and really say what you want than to have your words limited by rhyme.
I was really happy to see some careful attention to spelling and punctuation. Just a couple notes on grammar: There are a couple spots where you weren’t consistent with capping letters at the beginning of a stanza. Not sure if it’s typos or intentional, but probably best to be consistent throughout the poem. Also, be careful of repeating words (unless done for reasons of form or musicality) as in using “sea” 3 times and “fight” twice within just a few lines, also emotions/emotion. Repeating words can lessen their impact and/or make it seem as if you’re repeating thoughts and not really adding anything new to the poem. There are so many words in the English language to pick from! Using a variety will also keep your writing interesting, so have a thesaurus handy if necessary. Or if you aren’t familiar with it, Rhymezone.com is a good online resource, and great for definitions, synonyms, etc as well as rhymes.
I can see a lot of potential in your pen, so my best advice is to read as much poetry as you can (other PO contest entries are a great place to start
) and to just keep on writing. The more you read the better, to learn the difference between fresh and cliché poetry, as well as learning some of the great tools available to enhance your writing such as alliteration and other sound effects, imagery, metaphor, meter, etc. Start to incorporate more of those things into your poetry and I think you’d be amazed by what comes out. Your stanza about the sea holding our memory was intriguing to me, and I’d have especially loved to hear more about that. I think you have an interesting metaphor there, I just felt like I needed a little more information.
Thanks so much for your entry and for sharing a very genuine and loving poem. I hope you’ll consider joining us again. We love to see poets return and their scores nearly always begin to soar once they start to figure out what we look for in not just good, but grrrrreat poetry! My scores will be revealed in the final notes of the contest. If you have any questions, just let me know.
Peace and Blessings,
~J.
Remember...NO EDITING once a judge has commented!
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Love depicted excellent...nice poem to read
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Nice read....I can see you are editing away on that end, lol....I edited mine so many times I stopped counting...I had no idea how sneaky the letter "a" could be....like a ninja in the night.....But you keep at it, you'll get it. Good luck to you!
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Very nicely done, love the theme. The flow and rhyme are good but you have a couple of -a- where they shouldn't be. They have certainly tortured all this week with the rules. You have done a superb job. All the best in the contest with it
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Yeah i noticed it was my slow internet that was a bit laggy on renewing the line count. So now i've focused on complying with the rest of the rules. Hope i got it to the standards of the rules now. I'm rereading them as we speak ^^; lol
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Line count is fine..but there are other rules that you may have missed..read carefully! It's a beautiful write, by any standard, but there are some issues with the rules for this particular contest.
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I've been editing this quite a bit, but no matter what i try the line count won't go down >< I've deleted pieces and respaced them quite a lot and still it says 36 lines
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Nicely done, but you need to edit to comply with ALL of the rules, or you will lose points.
best wishes in the contest.
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Aloha!
So nice to see new faces....I'll give you some hints to winning this contest....READ all of the rules carefully...put PO in AN and also your theme.
Best wishes to you! If you are serious about poetry this is the place to be!
Write on!
*PEACE*
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