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Assembly Line

I got the idea for this before I went to sleep the other night. I have no idea where the inspiration came from, so I just wrote what I thought made sense. If it doesn't, who cares? I pretty much just wrote whatever came to mind.


Going down the assembly line,
Being made to their design,
What’s mine is refined,
Cause’ I’ve been assigned
To go down the assembly line.

My mind, my soul, my heart
Being taken apart
Reformed and refined
On the assembly line

“Take that outâ€
 

mawk

Sponsor

Wow. Uh, the nonconformist message in this poem is really treacle-thick and really quite hackneyed. The anti-ritalin thing is newer ground to tromp around on, but you fail to refine it, and instead lapse back into the loss-of-individuality scheme which (and I believe this to be one of the most hilariously tragic things I've seen in my life) has been used by so many people that it's hardly poetry material; A good poem will introduce the reader to something new or interesting, whether it's a mental image, a point of view, or just a catchy rhythm. "society is a bunch of fuckin clones;; cant they see im special not like those robots" is neither new or interesting by this point.

The rhythm, it so happens, is another element of this poem that escapes me entirely. I've tried reading it out loud, but the words don't flow. The number of syllables in each line is very inconsistent, as is the strain on each syllable. I've seen poems work fantastically which didn't follow these kinds of conventions, but they work by virtue of emphasis, wordplay, tone, and that sort of thing. This doesn't really carry anything like that. The rhymes themselves sound forced and clumsy more often than not, and your vocabulary seems fairly limited; as the rhyming word, you use "line" five times, "design" three times, "refined" thrice, etc. You even rhyme the same two words adjacently in two places -- this would be fine if your intention was to repeat that earlier line, but I can see that's not the case. Your rhyming scheme itself remains consistent for about two lines in the middle of the poem, but otherwise it's all over the place.

One other thing bothered me about this, but it's a minor context thing and so it shouldn't be your first priority. Regardless, to have a good poetry review you need to have things in quotes, so I'm gonna point this out. This ties in with my "forced and clumsy rhyming" thing...

I come to the end, but I’m still defective
I didn’t go to the end of the assembly line

... because I'm thinking that you put one of those lines in just for the sake of having another -ive or -ine in a stanza, without consideration for the textual aspect. The same could be said for a lot of your lines, really.

Bottom line: don't rhyme for the sake of rhyming (my favourite sort of poetry has no rhymes at all and works by virtue of rhythm, stress, emphasis, tone, and all that other good stuff,) and if you're going to post something in Writing, please put more thought into it than "hey, society's making me feel pretty down. I think I'll write a poem about how I don't fit in but that makes me better than them."
 
Yeah, I probably should have put more thought into writing it. Especially before posting it. I admit, I don't know a lot about poetry, and I don't "get" non-rhyming poems. This poem isn't really about me, though. I'm not really the "non-conformist" type, and I'm not quite sure where the inspiration for it is from. I wasn't thinking of myself when I wrote the poem, though. I was actually thinking a little bit about my cousin, who is on one of those drugs for ADD. Despite the somewhat depressing nature of the poem, I don't truly believe that society wants everyone to be mindless clones or anything like that. But, thanks for the review, even though it was negative, I appreciate the time you took to write it.


EDIT: And I never even realized you were miek...you mods need to stop changing your names >_<
 

mawk

Sponsor

DAMN miek why don't you give me a reply like that

Because all in all I don't know shit about most poetry. I sound eloquent here because the mistakes kaze made are all easy mistakes that were paraded out in front of us in last year's English class, but the higher technical aspects escape me entirely and I'm incredibly self-conscious about talking out my ass, and I'm rather averse to posting when I don't have much to say. The Post-Telochian World stuff was part of what I had in mind when I said I had seen poems work really well without sticking to patterns and rhythms, though.

EDIT: And I never even realized you were miek...you mods need to stop changing your names >_<

Seems a fine enough time. I was gonna change it soon anyway since the "hi I like the beatles do you like the beatles too?" thing had pretty much run its course.

The ritalin bit was pretty good intellectual territory, as I mentioned before. I was on the shit myself in my early childhood before everyone realized I didn't have anything, and I can definitely tell you that it messes a kid up. If you can explore that tangent a little without making it sound like every thirteen-year-old's favourite vent (and pay more attention to the flow and the words,) I think you might get something cool.
 

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