Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-26475800-20160607015942/@comment-24101790-20160610001341

Not trying to discredit A.O. here, but as our standards for poetry are much higher (due to the influx of poems, the typical style in which they're written, and the relatively subjective nature) for poetry and we tend to be a bit more critical when analyzing it. We recently purged the poetry category and almost cut it in half due to these renewed standards. An old admin named ImGonnaBeThatGuy really covered this topic well with his guide on poetry that will help clear up any points I'm about to make and go a bit more in-depth with creepy-poetry in general.

There are some issues here. The one that stands out most is the frequent slant rhymes. The -A-A rhyme scheme is a pretty lax one to start with and the inclusion of the slanted rhymes really messes with the lyrical flow. ("what happens after death?"/ "and just your soul is left.", "is not the truth to me." / "I think they’re in the seas.", "with so much eagerness." / "as tranquil heavenly bliss?") A few slant rhymes can produce an intended jarring effect, but when there're five quatrains and three of those rhymes don't set a good cadence/rhythm, it becomes problematic.

If I may also focus on the plot/story of the poem for a moment: "There’s nothing more incredible, / there’s nothing more absurd. / Then (Than) listening to the people / who claim to know God’s word." This premise could be made into a creepy plot/poem, but as it currently stands, it feels more like a treatise focusing on religious differences. There really isn't much horror to be had here and on a horror-lit site, that becomes kinda problematic.

Additionally, most of the poems featured on this site are more story-driven whereas this feels a bit more theme/ideologically-focused. This really makes it hard to convey a sense of terror/horror as there isn't a narrative to focus on or understand. The best example I can give would be The Cremation of Sam McGee for plot-driven poetry. Thank you for sharing the poem with us and asking for feedback, but I don't know if it's the best fit for the site. If it were posted, I would likely be leaning towards deletion as our standards for poetry have been raised (due to a previous petition to add poetry to the blacklist based around the lower-quality of poems that were on the site which recently were removed).