Comments : I knew you were trouble

  • 11 years ago

    by Robert

    That was a very well done poem!!! I really enjoyed the artistic way you weaved the insults throughout the piece very well done. If you get a chance please Check out I Never Knew. I would love to get your take on it. Plot121

  • 11 years ago

    by Colm

    This poem certainly ties in with the title, and indeed the song which has been stuck in my head for the last few days! But obviously it has its own identity as a poem too which is good. I thought overall it was quite an interesting piece and perhaps what I liked most was the speaker's voice in it: The way she is reflecting and looking in hindsight and also how she addresses the 'you' in the poem. It makes the poem a little more personal and meaningful rather than using 'he' - 'you' has the ability to be both personal and universal. The reader was an interested observer in this piece, as was, to a large extent, the writer, who is somewhat removed in the fact that she is looking back on these events. She is reflecting as an observer in he relationship and this opens it up for the reader too, which I thought helped the poem.

    Overall, the topic was one that was less interesting, through no fault of yours, as so many poems on here and in general are about failed relationships, regret etc. Poems with this subject matter have to compete with so many others to really stand out from the crowd and show some new insight into this often penned theme, and your poem, which it is well worth the read and is a decent example, doesn't stand out enough to make it that bit special. I don't think there were any images that I haven't already seen when reading poems dealing with similar themes, no truly original descriptions or phrases. It's solid in that regard: things like 'poisonous words' and 'heart turned to stone' while not entirely cliché, are nothing that hasn't been seen before. And obviously it's very hard to write things in an original way that work in love poems, and that's where most fall down, but its just something to think about in future and maybe experiment with.

    'your arrogance was intriguing, your sarcasm amusing whilst your
    intellect challenged me.'
    ^^
    This was fine but I remember thinking, I'd have liked to have seen something here to show instead of tell us how his arrogance was intriguing for example. It is more powerful if the reader can see a behaviour or character trait such as arrogance or intellect than being told a character possesses it. I'm not saying have this in your poem, but something like this would be a quick, probably poor example: 'I clung to how you smirked to the mirror each morning, thought of strategies to protect my king from your plundering knights'

    ^
    That is a bad example, but it's trying to show rather than tell a personality, which when done well, really improves the poem.

    Last bit of critique:

    'Those eyes were always the colour of midnight,'
    ^^
    This was both a good and a bad line. It was quite descriptive and not just telling a colour, and it left it open to the reader's interpration. But I picture midnight as romantic, stars twinkling, etc whereas I got the feeling you meant to use midnight as a way to describe darkness. It's only a minor thing, but just be careful about leaving descriptions too open ended in ways and try to imagine reading this from the view of the reader.

    That last point was being super-picky and probably only applied to me as I read it. Structure, overall word use and flow were good throughout and the reader can relate to how the speaker is feeling. It's one of the worst feelings, knowing you know something about somebody, chosing to ignore it and it comes back to bite you. Its as if you betrayed yourself, and that is one of the worst kinds of angry a person can have. I think the end summed that whole feeling up nicely, was short and to the point as was powerful because of it. Nothing major brings this poem down, only a few minor things as mentioned above and those are things other people might interpret differently, theres no right or wrong and overall it was a good effort that was well worth the read!