Thread: The river

The river cuts its way through the rock
Glinting in the sunlight and dancing like a star
It carries with it the life of the outside
The soul of the Earth
But it is not just the life that it carries
For it also carries hope
Hope of peace, joy and happiness
For no matter what cruelty and horror happens elsewhere
The river will still be there
Still emitting its beauty for all to see
And it will forever more
With the hope man can eventually realized the beauty
And lay down their guns
To gaze at the river instead

Its a poem I wrote for use in a short story. I hope you like it.
Cheers!

The theme here is good, and there's a lot you can do with it. What you're doing now, to me, feels cliche. I think it's lines like "The soul of the Earth" and "And it will forever more" that give me that impression. What I think you need to focus on (before I get into all of my nitpicks) is finding your own unique voice. This is something I frequently encourage. Because it seems that there is a "form" that a lot of writers, especially when they first start exploring poetry, use. I don't even know how to describe it. And while there's nothing fundamentally wrong with it, and while a lot of people actually enjoy it, there's more that you can do. If this is your voice, then by all means, embrace it and make it grow. But don't be afraid to try new things.

Anyway... Now that my rant is over... Ha, ha. Lack of punctuation is something that I rarely enjoy, with the exception of poetry about water (depending on the type of water). I like the idea of everything running together. So that was good. But you're talking about the river being this constant, and yet the lines are all over the place in length. I feel like the poem should look more like this:

The river cuts its way through the rock
Glinting in the sunlight and dancing like a star
It carries with it the life of the outside
The soul of the Earth, but it is not just the life
That it carries for it also carries hope
Hope of peace, joy and happiness
For no matter what cruelty and horror
Happens elsewhere the river will still be there
Still emitting its beauty for all to see
And it will forever more with the hope man
Can eventually realize the beauty and lay
Down their guns to gaze at the river instead

And notice that I changed "realized the beauty" to "realize the beauty."

So go back and do some editing. Take out the cliches. And, most importantly, find your voice. Hope to see a revision of this. Keep writing!

cheers for the help! Its been fantastic in helping me re-edit and improve it!
Ive worked on abit, mainly focusing on tightening it up and removing the cliches. Im still struggling on a substitute for soul of the earth so that part might take some time.
Heres my revised version and thanks again for the help.

‘The river cuts its way through the rock
Glinting in the sunlight and dancing like a star
It carries with it the life of the outside
The being of the Earth, but it is not just the life
That it carries for it also carries hope
Hope of peace, joy and happiness
For no matter what cruelty and horror
Happens elsewhere the river will still be there
Still emitting its beauty for all to see
And it will for the rest of time with the hope man
Can eventually realize the beauty and lay
Down their guns to gaze at the river instead’

max, improved poem with re-write. Here, something else to consider. Stanza breaks which can highlight all that in your poem. You will also create a smoother read if you only cap the first word in each stanza. Kind of an unwritten rule for contempory verse. Also, you don't want your wonderful words all clumped together as this is not prose. And use an economy of words. Here's another take:

The river
cuts through rock,
glinting in the sunlight,
dancing like a star.

It carries with it
life of the outside,
the being of Earth.

But it's not just life
that it carries.
It also carries hope,
peace, joy and happiness.

No matter what cruelty and horror
the river will still be there.

It will still emitt its beauty for all to see
and it will for the rest of time.

With hope man can
eventually realize the beauty.

And lay
down his gun to gaze
at the river instead.

Very, very powerful ending but keep tense. Let it stand on its own. It's spended. Keep writing! Laurie

Hi maxmorch, another thing you may want to do, is to go through and cut out all the unnecessary words. This will strengthen the impact of what you are saying. I've taken the first few lines and cut out some of the words, below.


The river cuts through rock
glinting in the sunlight, dancing like a star
it carries the life of the outside
the essence of Earth

Also, watch the capitalizations. I know that Word takes control sometimes, but if you leave the first word in each line capitalized, it's very distracting and detracts from the beauty of your poem.