"Beast Inside"

[psuedojesus]

It is inside; it is soon
To waking. A creature with
The power to destroy you.
This beast lives inside
Us all; gives us all some
Strength; feeds us vice
And sins of the flesh. We
Must not give in to this
Creature in ourselves; we
Must be strong without it;
We must fight it valiantly,
But without it we will die.

[Strength]

At 7/29/10 07:04 PM, psuedojesus wrote: some
Strength;

oh hey.

but yeah make it longer.

[CaptinChu]

Only if you believe in such things as good or evil. "There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so."

Good poem. Succinct. I like it.

[psuedojesus]

Why does length matter?

[TheThing]

First, I'd like to say that this is a very good poem. While the message and symbolism feels a bit cliche (the yin and the yang of life is a beast within us), it was presented with good imagery and diction. I also liked the rigid structure of the poem; you tried to keep each line the same length, adding another layer of symbolism.

But I have to agree with Strength; it feels like it should be longer.

At 7/29/10 11:41 PM, psuedojesus wrote: Why does length matter?

First off, when someone says "make it longer", this is a good thing. That person enjoyed your piece so much that they want to read more of it (feed the "Beast Inside", so to say. God I'm so witty.) But while having a compact, succinct piece is nice, sometimes making it slightly longer will allow a deeper exposition into the ideas behind the poem, and help the reader understand the point you are trying to get across to them. Specifically, you need to extend the ending. You spend the entire poem talking about how the Beast is evil, yet only one line on why we need it. While you spoke very cryptically about fighting the Beast, you were very plain on why we need it. I think if you delved into what the Beast does positively for us, you would have a much more satisfying poem. Hell, you can even take the same amount of lines as you did to explain the evilness, giving it good parallelism.

That's just my thoughts though. I'm no professional, and I'm relying on what I've been taught in my few English classes and what I've discovered through practice and critiques, along with tips from around the net. So do what you feel is best for your poem.

[psuedojesus]

You should be informed that this poem is one of my much older ones, and since then I have written longer poems, but at the moment I'm reusing my older ones here as a way to gain more feedback while I continue to post new ones on my own site. I assure you; I know how to write out longer, more in depth poetry.

[MonkeyV]

I actually like the ending.
I think being quick and to-the-point is better for conveying irony, especially of the dark or cold variety.

[psuedojesus]

I appreciate that Monkey.