Critics Wanted

In My Humble Opinion
1

Allright, I’m baring my work to the world. In school, my english calss is having a poetry write off and I’m thinking about submitting this:
 
Tears falling from sleeping eyes
she woke
demonic dreams plaguing sleep
shr remembered.
Cuts made with sharpened words
she bled

Slowly and painfully,
she looked
ashamed by her own reflection
she fell
whipped by her own actions
she bled

fumbling
she searched
groping for pieces to fit
she tried
trying to grasp
she fell

holding her broken body
she cried
forcing back tears
she held on
killed by lack of trust
she crawled

letting go
she wished
holding on love
she waits
hoping for the kisses
of reassurance

But I’ve never had this read by anyone but myself and I’m wondering how to make this a winning piece… any advice??

2

This is just a quick impression, but the word demonic sticks out at me for some reason…too easy, formulaic, media-ish ala Buffy. Try a more interesting, lyrical, complicated word…something that shows a bit more psychology and less youth.

Now it’ll bug me all day til I come up with one.

Fevered.

3

original imagery. that’s what you need. at the moment, to be brutally honest, it sounds like a typical teen-angst poem. hey, we’ve all written this kind of stuff in the margins of our notebooks in high school.

there’s nothing surprising about the rhythm of the words, there’s no lasting images that stay with me as i finish the poem. it’s all very obvious. give it some color. surprise me with turns of phrases, unexpected images, a new way of looking at things. as is, the poem is empty to me.