09-05-2013, 08:28 AM
I'd advise you to first work on your imagery - lesson #1 of Poetry 101 is "show, not tell." A poet uses language to elicit an emotional response from readers, which is why lines like "The line for funerals is long" don't work. There's a place for literal language in poetry, but keep in mind it should be used deliberately by the author and compliment the style of the poem. Descriptive language is your new best friend. I recommend you also think more about the best way to utilize punctuation and capitalization, and try to keep them consistent.
More specifically, if you choose to use rhyming, make sure it works. For example, rhyming "have" with "pass" is a stretch. I don't know what your inspiration for this poem was, but as a rule of thumb rhyming is rarely used in modern poetry. I'm not sure what the general opinion of this forum is on rhyme schemes in contemporary poems, but I personally find them dated and sophomoric. Definitely hard to pull off as a novice writer.
From one newcomer to another, keep writing! You can only get better from here.
More specifically, if you choose to use rhyming, make sure it works. For example, rhyming "have" with "pass" is a stretch. I don't know what your inspiration for this poem was, but as a rule of thumb rhyming is rarely used in modern poetry. I'm not sure what the general opinion of this forum is on rhyme schemes in contemporary poems, but I personally find them dated and sophomoric. Definitely hard to pull off as a novice writer.
From one newcomer to another, keep writing! You can only get better from here.