"Failing Bonds" by Jacob Bowdin

Yes, I like the repetition. It brings such emphasis to the claws of the creatures, and the creatures’ purpose. I especially love how you drive the feeling of the poem home with those last to lines. "Who can find the light of life’s end / or will all hope the darkness rend" Powerful.

I do have a few crits, but as I am not really a poet either, you can easily take it or leave it. The rhyming is excellent in this, but the rhythm could use some work, ie, you might try to put a little more focus into the syllables in each line to establish some sort of meter. Meter can serve as an excellent framework to the poet, and then if you want to lend some line or aspect more emphasis, you can break the meter briefly to draw the reader’s attention.

My other crit is again just a preference, but it seems this could use some punctuation. Certain lines seem like the thoughts they relay could be strengthened by a caesura (break mid line) indicated by a comma, such as "No longer stable(,) no longer sane"

One more thing, and then I’ll be done I promise. This is an opinion I learned from one of my English teachers -- in poetry, it’s more often than not more powerful to leave out the word "The" at the beginning of a line or phrase. For instance "The darkness now free resumes the creeping / The eager claws reach out for reaping" could be stronger "Darkness now free resumes (its) creeping / Eager claws reach out for reaping" (the ’its’ was another preference -- seems your darkness is personified in the poem and can be called an ’it’ )

Jacob I like this poem , I am no poet. The darkness ever creeping.

The frantic claws are always reaping. how how very true those words can be.

Jacob Bowdin replies: "Thank you for the compliment Donna =) I am not much of a poet either, hence only one being up here. I am glad you found the imagery effective, I tried to create the idea of insanity/distress with the repetition and talk of darkness and claws, thanks again! "

I really liked this. Good job!

Jacob Bowdin replies: "Thank you for the comment, I am glad you enjoyed the poem =)"

This is really spiffy. i like the repetition of reaping and creeping. you did a wonderful job with the entire poem. ^_^ and you say you dont write poetry often??? seriously? cause.. then this is wow. ^_^

Jacob Bowdin replies: "Thank you for the very nice comment ^_^ This is one of the few poems that I wrote, that I truly liked. I am glad that the repetition seems to work as I wanted, perhaps I will try to put a few more poems up. Oh yes, and spiffy is a good word... it is... spiffy..."

I like your ryhming words!! Very interesting concepts You should put some more poems up I think you are a great poet.

Jacob Bowdin replies: "I am glad you enjoyed it, and thank you for the encouraging words =) I will try and get some more poetry up, unfortunately my current writing project that is non-elfwood in nature is taking up a huge chunk of my creative time... work the other portions..."

hmmm...curious.... *lost in thought* (Kel...) huh? what? oh.
you do repeat a lot, although I can tell it was on purpose... *cough* very good. I never could write poetry, which makes me appreciate it more, I suppose...

Jacob Bowdin replies: "Well, we have that in common... in all the things I have wrote this is the only poem I have been happy with... heh, oh well, thank you for the compliment, and yes, the repitition was meant to be there. The poem was a sort of look into insanity and odd things, and the repitition was meant to signify the creatures breaking away the person’s hold on reality... or something like that... y’know... yes."

Ah, as I am not much of a poet, inspiration for poetry comes and goes as it wishes and never leaves anything fantasy-ish for me, I can only sit back silently and admire. I really liked the description here with the repetition of the creep and reap. It does feel like it needs a bit of punctuation, to give certain parts emphasis. It definitely made me curious about what these creatures look like ... not that I would ever want to get close enough to them to find out!

Jacob Bowdin replies: "Yes... luckily I never figured out what they looked like either... anywho, thanks for the comment! I also am not of much use with poetry... as you can tell with only one poem on here, one of these days I shall have to try and look at the technical aspects and try and make it more correct."

Very nice work! i enjoy your writing!

this is great!!! I like it when u are repeating the same lines, though still in different order or wtvr ;P i like it alot good job