poem

why can't i sleep at night ?

was it all the late night snacks
or all the caffeine contained in them
or maybe just the regret that another day had again had passed.
maybe it was the deafing silence which had fell over my room
whilst cheerfull "whistles" from the birds outside had already begun.

The silence was my enemy making my mind wonder and letting
previous actions reek havoc among my thoughts.
i've always had trouble sleeping at night -
you know that frustrating feeling one gets when tring to achieve something, putting all your committment into achieving it and loosing the battle.

A ray of light still shone through my window.
It was as if a star choose my house to reflect its light through.
As i write this i still have come no further to accomplishingmy task,
do you have any suggestions?


what you think the hidden message is here ?
is this a good poem ?

Yes, a good poem! Did you write it yourself? There are a few mistakes. The correct version is below;

Why Can't I Sleep at Night ?

Was it all the late night snacks,
Or all the caffeine contained in them?
Or maybe just the regret that another day had again had passed.
Maybe it was the deafening silence which had fallen over my room
Whilst cheerful whistles from the birds outside had already begun.

The silence was my enemy making my mind wander and letting
Previous actions reek havoc among my thoughts.
I've always had trouble sleeping at night -
You know that frustrating feeling one gets when trying to achieve Something, putting all your commitment into achieving it and losing the battle.

A ray of light still shone through my window.
It was as if a star chose my house to reflect its light through.
As I write this I still have come no further to accomplishing my task,
Do you have any suggestions?

Sorry, one more mistake.
Or maybe just the regret that another day had again had passed. SHOULD BE　ＥＩＴＨＥＲ
Or maybe just the regret that another day had again passed. ＯＲ
Or maybe just the regret that another day again had passed.

I don't think there is a "hidden" meaning to the poem. I don't think there has to be. Everything seems to be communicated on the surface, though the past regrets we understand that there is something that the poet is not telling us. You may consider playing with how you break up the lines and stanzas . . . if it is your poem or if you are set on critiquing it. As most poets will tell you, the most important word in a line is the last. The second most important word is the first. So you have to make sure that your lines don't end with something gratuitous or in an awkward spot if possible. I've provided an example below of how one might cut the lines for better effect. But it is a good poem for a new-B. One other thing to consider when cutting lines and stanzas is its effect, how it looks on the page.


The silence was my enemy/ making my mind wander/and letting
previous actions reek havoc among my thoughts.
I've always had trouble sleeping at night -
You know that frustrating feeling one gets when trying to achieve Something, putting all your commitment into achieving it/ and losing the battle.

thanks for the replies !

yea ill take all your veiws into consideration, yea i just jotted that down last night.

ive really no experince writing so i knew there would be some mistakes as im only 17 :L

thanks keep repling ! :D

does anyone know a good site i could post my poem on ?

What to know when attempting to get your work published:

First, get to know the journal whether it is online or in print,
this well help you to establish what types of work they usually publish and the competitiveness of the journal. It would not make since for a traditional poet to try and publish in a journal that focuses on language poetry, and it would not make since for a novice to waist his or her stamps trying to send in to the New Yorker just as it would it be good for an established writer to send work in to a less reputable journal.

Secondly, journals typically like to see a group of poems that are related to each other . . . around four or five. This allows them to estimate the strength of multiple works and select from those works while allowing the poet to show multiple dimensions of the same subject.

Finally, presentation is everything. If it is a print journal, send the manuscript in a large manila envelope. Include a self addressed, stamped envelope. Do not staple individual poems together. (Nothing pissed me off more than when I had to pull poems apart while doing my review, and mood can often affect opinion. You have to realize that each editor has to go through 50-100 separate submissions a day and write three or four sentences addressing the strengths and weaknesses of each individual poem—when you have four to five poems for each, this adds up to a lot of work. Don’t add to it.). Staple them individually and then combine them with a paper clip. The manuscript should be printed from a computer or written on a typewriter. Do not send in notebook paper with you chicken-scratch handwriting or scribble little unicorns in the corner (yes, I have really seen pieces come in like this). Print the document in easily readable, uniform font unless font style is part of the poem (this should be indicated). Include a brief history of your writing, previous publications, awards honors, and education (This rarely makes a difference. The individual works are usually judged based on their own merit and not yours. The only exceptions to this rule is when a writer has something fairly significant in their background, this typically leads to the manuscript being passed on to a more senior editor for review). If you wish for your original manuscript to be returned to you and not recycled, you must indicate this in the letter and include a full-sized manila envelope that is stamped and addressed. Electronically submitted texts should be in word format unless otherwise stated. These should also include a brief history of your writing.

I hope this helps. You should be able to find several electronic journals just by perusing google.

How do you find these poems for a non-native? Are there any errors you can find?

Poem 1:
The great black jumper
fell smoothly over my shoulders
covering my lukewarm body
in a sleek gleaming coating
My body bag
My deathday suit


Poem 2:
If I were a bird
I should soar away
hastily borne beyond yonder
carried away into the wind
free, frightened and frivolous
carried away into the wind
above, eternal loftiness
below, infinitesimal grandeur
carried away into the wind
away towards the howling steel hawk
and mutilated and whipped
in the fervour of a metallic whirlwind

Quite a good site might be www.deviantart.com - it looks like it's for art but it's for stories and poems as well.

<<How do you find these poems for a non-native? Are there any errors you can find? >>

There are some unusual usage (e.g. beyond yonder). Yonder is an old fashioned word that is rarely used today in English. Besides this, both beyond and yonder are very general terms, that is to say you have two somewhat abstract descriptors of place in a row. Since poetry is an effort to communicate concisely, it is best to stay away from most abstractions--specificity is key. Also, while it was the fad to be rather grandiose during the Romantic period, the modernists and postmodernists have moved us away from these things . . . taking a skeptics view I suppose. So, "above, eternal loftiness /below, infinitesimal grandeur” might not fit well into most contemporary styles. Too, you may wish to hide, or some how mitigate your alliteration. It is a bit too startling for most contemporary readers when one comes across "free, frightened, frivolous" in one line. One way to mitigate the effects of the alliteration while also keeping it, because alliteration can be quite useful, is to separate the alliterative words with non-alliterative words. Also, putting a kind of slant alliteration where the first letter is not the "f" sound but the word has a dominant "f" some where in it--probably in the accented syllable.

As far as content, both these poems put a surprising twist on some old themes. I find this very interesting. There have been a million poems that imagined someone being a bird. I think this is the first one where the bird was actually chopped up in a propeller. It is this uniqueness that would make you stand out to many editors. I also think that your ability to write in verse is very adept. Most people just write sentences and paragraphs and then try and chop them into verses. Your economy shows here. Also, you have a strong grasp on the English language, which is important. You just have to remember that no one is going to be impressed by the fact that you are a non-native speaker writing in English. Remember, Nabakov was a non-native speaker and his works are considered some of the finest written in the English language. In other words, your predecessors have set a high standard. I had to read "Lolita" with a dictionary beside me.

Here are a couple of poems I have been working on. I was wondering if I could get some fresh eyes on them and see what you think. They both have been part of a submission I've won awards for, but I'm still not wholly satisfied.


Poem I:

Sun Worshiper
"All things in the sun are sun"
—Wallace Stevens, New England Verses

Photons in light velocity are ageless bundled energies.
This is eternity: To consume ripening light through the body,
its rupture on the tongue and in the eye
absorbed, refracted, transposed on the mind
in idioms of chroma and shadow.

It breathes in me the taste of sun's spice
violet-blue and orange-red light like ginger,
palm fronds, the florescent glow of algae blooms.

The heliotrope turns its violet head.
Sunset in the West. A light-surge, staccato on blue,
rearranges star systems in the ocean's surf.
(Recall how Chaos poured into salt spray
bore Beauty effervescing from its waves
and how the abyssal plane stretches its dark axis in even increments,
traces end to end the churning magnetism of an iron core.)

Here the Pacific surface shifts sudden along the California coast
merging the counter flow of eddies.

I draw at the ground beneath me.
Bits of sand, roots, brittle leaves like stained lace
become me: a collage of the body, remnants of all pasts.

Drops of water slide from dark into light.
condensation on a glass splits beams into spectrums
blending to form the citrus from these days,
and I pull with my lips the pulp.


Poem II:


Binary Refraction, 1:24 A.M. November 15



Outside my bedroom window, the American city:

a gutter-wash of pornographic magazines

stutters its endless celluloid in a death rattle of pages.



And in the dark: his nylon jacket, open fly,

the jolt of flesh held between palm and four fingers—

Chaos stands outside my window,

leaves his pale tracers in the dark hours of morning.



Fear and pleasure: our faces in shadow

disclose themselves through transparent plains.

One overlays another, and the glass' structure,

a constant flux, moves Chaos to order.



At night my bedroom window is a thin veneer,

a molecular lattice that puddles in its casement.

These are the open and diminish of emblems

sustained by anode and cathode.



I wonder, shifting in the silence,

how long have I lain here,

how long have I looked in at myself as another?

hello thanks for the replies ..

wintereis you sound like you have a great background working with poems, what is your opinon of my poem at the top of the page .. why cant i sleep at night ?

your poem is well set out and structured, a good read !

Why Can't I Sleep at Night ?

Was it all the late night snacks,
Or all the caffeine contained in them their caffine?
Or maybe just the regret that another day [had passed].
Maybe it was the deafening silence which fell over my room (tense disagreement between past perfect and past imperfect)
[While (whilst is a bit old fashioned) ] cheerful whistles from birds outside began. (tense)

The silence was my enemy making my mind wander/
and letting previous actions reek havoc among my thoughts.
I've always had trouble sleeping at night—
You know that frustrating feeling one gets when trying to achieve smething/
putting all your commitment into achievement and losing the battle.

A ray of light still shone (replace verb with another, more contemporary verb) through my window.
It was as if a star chose my house to reflect its light through. (Is it reflecting if it is traveling through?)
As I write this, I still have come (tense disagreement. You can switch tenses, but it is usually best to separate the tense shift with a stanza break. And limit the number of times it is done) no further to accomplishing my task.

Just keep an eye on your tenses, try and eliminate all things that are gratuitous (e.g. “a” and “the” and “all” when they are not necessary) and try not to use “it”, replace "it" with something more specific when possible. Concision and precision are the name of the game in poetry. And don’t feel bad about me picking your poem apart; it is, as I said before, well done for a new-b. You should have seen where I started. You can take my suggestions or leave them. It is not like I am the king of poetry. My own writing tends to be a bit daunting for many readers. It can be hard to penetrate (which can be worse than overly simple). You may try and write a poem that addresses the thing you are or were trying to achieve. The best suggestion that any writer can give to another is to read, read, and read. So, get to the library and grab some poetry books. Read several different poets not just one. I've had many a friend succumb to reading to much of one writer. One in particular tried to turn all of his poems in to the "jabberwocky". And he succeeded; they were all horrifying beasts that had to be slayed.

Oh, a couple of mistakes due to the post's in ability to take some text formats, but you get the general idea.

thanks guest , no no i take all critizism with a pinch of salt .. i posted it to see if i could improve obvious i knew it could .

im considering taking english at A level .. just wanted to see if my poem would give me an insight wiether i should go onto a level or not !