This poem has a neat idea and I love the metaphor. I would, however, try and pull the metaphor through the poem. You quite often literally mention the words 'the shark' which doesn't help the flow of the poem. Ideally, (at least for me) you only repeat phrases that you repeat for a specific purpose :D

If that exists, I'd love to hear it and read your thoughts!


Hello readers, welcome to OCpoetry. This subreddit is a writing workshop community -- a place where poets of all skill levels can share, enjoy, and talk about each other's poetry. Every person who's shared, including the OP above, has given some feedback (those are the links in the post) and hopes to receive some in return (from you, the readers).

If you really enjoyed this poem and just want to drop a quick comment, to show some appreciation or give kudos, things like "great job!" or "made me cry", or "loved it" or "so relateable", please do. Everyone loves a compliment. Thanks for taking the time to read and enjoy.

If you want to share your own poem, you'll need to give this writer some detailed feedback. Good feedback explains from your point of view what it was like to read the poem, and then tries to explain how the poem made you feel like that. If you're not sure what that means, check out our [feedback guide](https://new.reddit.com/r/ocpoetry/wiki/feedbackcritiques), or look 

Hello! So you have a strong and consistent metaphor throughout the poem, although I'm not entirely sure what it's a metaphor for - it could be society, mental illness, a toxic relationship, or even something else. The idea of a goldfish being swallowed by a shark is something that could make for a really good read. However, there's a couple of things that I think could do with ironing out. First of all, you mention the word "shark" far too often - I mean, of course it's a central part of the poem, but I just feel like it's too frequent. My second issue is some redundant words here and there - "dreaming dreams", "conspiracy of forces", "alive and functioning", the entire third line - that could be removed and make for a far snappier poem.

Go at it again, but remove the words that you don't think are completely necessary and you'll see that it's a very tight, coherent piece. I largely like the ideas and I think there is a really good poem in here!

Master of Nets