-- Posted by Anonymous at 7:08 pm on July 5, 2009 Pick your poison, but hell be smart enough to choose it well. This chance you take, decision you make. No turning back now, you'll get through somehow. Don't take long, make sure you're headstrong. As it approaches, all hatred soon ceases. Nearly the end, time to make amends. So did you pick your poison, wisely and creatively? The only way through was by rescue. You knew you wouldn't win, so you put on a spin. Something so strange that it brought change. Your created outcome, brought amazing wisdom. So this poison, was it poison at all? -- Posted by ehmusic at 9:24 pm on July 5, 2009 NOTE: I don't normally go this crazy, but you asked for everything, and I'm bored. lol  Sorry if it's too much. A poem's form helps to shape it's meaning and how clear that meaning comes across.  Different forms are used for different things.  You can use a form that's already been used for centuries (formal poetry), or come up with one of your own (informal poetry).  For example, a pantoum would be an excellent form if word play was going to be a key part of your poem.  A pantoum is all about word play, taking a line and having it take on a whole new meaning, simply by tweaking the punctuation. I've actually written quite a few poems like this one, in which the second part of each line (as it's written here) plays off of the first part, and in most of the lines, it could be considered an afterthought, or like what you really think, the first part of the line being what you say, or what you're displaying outwards, i.e. your façade.   I put a lot of focus on the flow and layout of a poem.  The form that you have here, in my opinion, doesn't work well with the poem.  Whenever I write a poem such as this, I usually do (let's say that the first half of the line is called "a", and the second half "b"); so how I would usually approach a form for this would be one of two ways: aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa bbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbb aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa bbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbb Now, how you would differentiate b being a continuation of a, rather than it's own line would be to either change your line spacing, so that the b line was closer to the a line above it, than the a line below it, or to put a hyphen at the beginning of each b line, or you could merely indent. The other way that I would usually do this would be aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa                              bbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbb aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa                              bbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbb you could also make the indentions smaller, but having them like that, dropping them down a line, but not aligning them left, makes it seem like it's a continuation of the same line. I also like to throw some italics in, but it really depends on the person, the ways to format this poem are pretty much endless. Now, if the form is tweaked you can leave out a lot of unnecessary words. The first line could change drastically Pick you poison,                        be smart, choose it well. Or something like that, you could also get rid of more or less words, it's really up to you. I'm finished with form now, so I'm just gonna give suggestions on diction and syntax. Note that some of these suggestions will not be relevant if the form is changed Lines 1 The "but hell" throws me off, it's really unnecessary, and gives it a conversational tone, rather than a poetic one. 2 This is something that I commented on in another poem of yours: your decision to get rid of the article "the".  While this is alright to do, and gives a cool building effect, it doesn't really work in this instance.  You're going from a long, almost verbose first line, to a short/choppy second line, then to a sort of hybrid between the two with the third line. 3 You know I loathe rhymes, so this is just my own personal bias coming through: ax the rhyme in part b. To me, "Somehow you'll get through/come through. or something like that would sound better.  Some of the best rhyming poetry that I've read had either plenty of refrains from it, or rather one blatant one. 4 b is a bit cheesy to me. 5 Ok, I don't think that you need the intensifier "soon".  I think the flow is better without it, and when it's gone the consonant "s" sound is nowhere near as prominent without it there setting it up.  (4 "s" sounds is a bit unpleasant within two words in there, it doesn't go with the "music [that's the term I swear] of your poem) 6 Refrain? (again, it's up to you) 7 This line is very interesting because it has no b part.  Even though there is a common, it's not a separate entity.  Very cool. 8 Another part a only.  It could be considered to "feed" off of line 7, but in my opinion it could stand alone.  If the form was changed, these 'stand-alone' lines could create some visual contrast (typography is important!) 9 Is 'put on a spin' a slang phrase?  It's something I've never heard of, if it is, that would make this a regional poem, which is something to take into consideration. 10 Something's missing before 'change'.  I don't wanna make a suggestion; I don't want to influence that. lol 11 That's a comma splice.  But I agree with your thinking that it needs a part b, it seems a bit bare without one. 12 Change up b. "So this poison           was harmful (at all)" That's a bad suggestion, but something like that could be great. -- Posted by Anonymous at 4:19 pm on July 7, 2009 I love all the advice you nicely outlined for me. It was amazing, and at best so generous. I'm going to relook my poem, make some amends to it, and hopefully repost a better version down the road. Thank you so much. :D