My First Poem! (wrote it last night, please be brutal)

First off, congratulations on writing your first poem! :) Now on to the brutality!

Well, not really. I just have some thoughts that might/might not spark with you. :) First, I think this is the kind of poem that needs a title. You're addressing vague concepts in the text itself, so unless you add more text and hint at what the "cycle" is, this is where a title would be awesome. For example, my own history of mental illness makes me read this poem as being about mental illness. If I wrote this poem, I might title it "depression". Using a simple, clear title would balance with the complexity/vagueness of the text to give the reader an idea of what I'm trying to say.

Second, the apostrophe in "it's" is incorrect. When "its" is a possessive (in this case the cycle is possessing its existence) then there is no apostrophe. In addition, I feel like the second line starting with a contraction is visually unappealing. That's definitely just a personal, nitpicky opinion though.

Third, I think the poem would benefit with some expansion on the second and fourth line. You bring up the idea that the cycle's existence is compromised by acceptance, but then on the fourth line breaking the cycle (i.e. not accepting it) is necessary if painful. So it feels like you're approaching how to live with the cycle in two different ways. I think these two ideas can absolutely coexist in the same poem, but to do that I think the poem should have some hint of why the speaker is changing how they approach the cycle.

Again, these comments might spark or not with you, but I'd love to hear your feedback too especially in regard to what you were going for with this poem. :)

Here's my experience of reading this poem:

a cycle fed by manifestation

A cycle of what? A manifestation of what? How does one feed the other?

it’s existence compromised only by acceptance

Does "it" refer to the cycle or the manifestation? Accepting what exactly?

an attempt to break it leads to pain

"It" refers to the cycle maybe? Because it references the phrase "break the cycle". But what cycle? Why does it lead to pain? What kind of pain?

necessary pain

Why is it necessary? For who?

And after I finish the poem: so what?

This poem lacks anything concrete -- it's all abstract ideas, which makes it extremely hard to connect to. I can't pin anything down, and I can't figure out why I should care. It sounds kind of like a "dealing with addiction" poem because of the break the cycle idea and how it leads to pain, but ?????? who knows. The nouns are all concepts, the verbs are all vague. Who is doing what?

You're going for deep meaning here, something philosphical. Try and find that in a really small well-described moment. If it's about the pain of addiction, show an old man shivering over a bottle in an improvised shack in the woods. Show a blonde man shooting up on a tattered mattress in an abandoned gas station. As a writing strategy, showing works way better than telling, because it makes the audience feel the image, rather than understanding it intellectually.

Very Buddhism. I like it. It's thought provoking. It says a lot even though it's short.

The open-endedness of this is nice because it leaves much the imagination and to interpretation. I believe that while this breathes well, it could definitely use more context and or depth,

I'd like to give my interpretation of each line because I think that would be helpful.

Line 1) The cycle repeats by the very fact it exists

Line 2) But it only exists because we accept it exists. The implication being that the cycle is undesirable. So if we don't accept it, we can break it.

Line 3) The line explains itself. I don't need to add anything more.

Line 4) The line again explains itself. I don't feel the need to add additional interpretation.

So I think the poem is a fun thought exercise, but it doesn't leave much room for me to add my perosnal reflection. Maybe that's what you wanted. Thanks for sharing : )

Hello,

I am generally new to poetry as well, but what I have learned is that you must be very specific in your poetry. Definitely a title would help to specify greater your struggle. But what is important with any poem is some sort of risk or necessary reason for the reader to care. Here I see a lot of abstract Ideas, no real concrete evidence and I sort of wonder what I'm reading about.

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That said, I think you have a knack for poetry and just have to work more on what is at stake here and helping us to understand the importance of it. If your goal was to create some sort of puzzle in your poem then I would say brilliant work. But if you want us to relate and understand to an extent what it is you are talking about, then I would say be more specific and try to use nouns rather than broad abstract words.

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Great work and keep it up!

Short, but definitely worthy of interpretation.

Personal growth?.. ive written a poem similar to that

Well, first of all it's too short. Nonetheless, it has this abstract form of wisdom. It reminds me of the Buddhist quotes. Well done, mate.

I really enjoy the brevity of this, you have a concise way of choosing words that I really enjoy. I agree with some of the commenters above about adding more context, but believe if you included this in a collection you have written that it could probably function as is

"A cycle fed by manifestation" has a really nice ring to it. The brevity of the poem adds a lot to its effect. There's a self-referential element in that the poem as a whole is alluding perhaps to the shortness of life, or maybe the fact that thoughts like these are so brief and rare? The sort of thing I'd love to recollect and whisper from a sharp shale jetty somewhere.

If there were anything I would workshop in this piece, it would be the focus and orientation. More and more in poetry, I find that what I enjoy is when direction or focus is shifted, when the poet notices the spaces between and around things more than the things themselves. To me, what makes a tree beautiful is both the tree's inherent beauty and the landscape surrounding it, but I find the second to be the most beautiful part. I wonder what this narrator does to try and break the cycle they speak of, and I wonder what their pain is, how it looks from their perspective. Maybe there's a metaphor that would be a more powerful reference to the cycle than a direct description?

Welcome to poetry! You're never allowed to leave. Thanks for sharing!

This is the beginning of a very good poem. What others perceive in a lack of title or concrete theme/elements could be skirted with more like this. Maybe another 2-3 stanzas.

What I like about this grouping is your referencing the main entities in other lines (cycle --> its, it). I'd like to learn more about the manifestations, and maybe just how you are accepting (accepting the cycle, or the manifestations)

Please give it some more flesh, and return here to show it off!

I agree with @dogtim. You're going in the right direction, we as readers though need some road signs though to know where it is we're going. There's pieces I've written that I've read to people and they don't get it, remember people can't read your mind as to why something is so wonderful.

This piece is a wonderful start, but give me reason why it's so wonderful. That can be difficult with intellectual pieces like this, you want the reader to come to their own conclusion. Criticism can be difficult but in the end, if there wasn't an audience everyone's art would be the best art. Criticism from other writers will be much harder to take than criticism from your mom.

It’d be cool to extend this poem! Can see a lot of potential for this!

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"A cycle fed by manifestation" I have to agree with other comments here. This line is a bit too vague. Manifestation of what exactly? That word doesn't have meaning by itself without context.

Other than that, I really appreciated the rest of the poem. "Cycle" is open to subjective opinion. Cycle of addiction, cycle of depression, etc...

"A cycle fed by denial. Compromised by acceptance. To break it leads to pain. Necessary pain."

Speaks to me.