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Anonymous
Anonymous asked in Arts & HumanitiesPoetry · 1 decade ago

Is this a good poem, and how do I get it published?

Here's the poem:

The Battle

Hiding in the shadows of others

Knowing the brightness will bring you pain

By not throwing ourselves into the spotlight

We get confused with the insane

It's hard for us to be examined

We have a fear of being critiqued

Scarred of seeing sneers and giggles

By everyone we meet

You want to be in the center

You have a longing to be seen

But your head processes the worse of it

Your sense for anxiety is only keen

Some reach for the comfort of "strangers"

But you feel emotions tugging at your heart

Something in your head malfunctions the trust

The friendship is now torn apart

You may have many strengths

In your body and your mind

But memories in your head knock you down

Your dreams are left behind

So we go on with our lives

Only trying to stay our of the way

Fighting, hiding, feeling the pain

Fearing what others have to say

In everything we try, we feel wispy

To athletics to academic, it's always the same

Your head tells you, "Your imprudent."

And now everything is just plain

We are not the dull, we are still the sane

But we share a common weakness

We may be smart, we may be strong

But we loose a battle to shyness

Is this any good (if you have comments please share!) and how do I summit it to publishing?

Update:

I agree with the first answer (by the way thank you for your thoughts! ; :) that last stanza has always bothered me, so I made up a new one:

We are not the dull; we are still the sane

We just don't see ourselves as a highness

We may be smart; we may be strong

But we loose a battle to shyness

Any better?

2 Answers

Relevance
  • Dondi
    Lv 7
    1 decade ago
    Favorite Answer

    Your poem interested me. The subject is good and doesn't seem to ramble or change, and your rhymes, although many are slant, are not bad. The meter needs work. Rhyming poetry really should follow a metered arrangement in order to flow properly. I am going to give you two links. The first is a reference site for meters that I use a lot, the second is the web page of The Tangled Web Press. They have published many yahoo authors and starting in January will host a true poetry contest with categories for students, amateurs, and professionals, so that everyone has an even chance to compete.

    http://www.uncg.edu/~htkirbys/meters.htm is the meters site

    http://www.poetsofmars.com/index.html is the Tangled Web site

    Enjoy.

  • 1 decade ago

    I really like it, but the last stanza where you rhyme weakness with shyness, doesn't work as well. I would work on the last stanza more.

    Look around for local/state/national poetry contests, and enter yours. Send it off to a magazine or two. If you win enough contests, and/or get published in enough magazines, then you can try publishing a book of poetry. I have no idea how individual poems might get published though.

    :-) Good luck!

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