A poem on the Holocaust

[sidespin]

Never Give In

Ripped from your home
Separated from your kin
You almost want to give up and let them win
March in a line
Screaming from behind
Keep on pushing don’t give in
On the train to more pain
People cry as you watch the trees go by
Two lines
Neither fine
Both lead to death and pain
But you don’t give in
Assigned a block
Forward walk
Flavorless soup
A chunk of bread
Never let them get ahead

Time goes by
Never flies
Tears leave your eyes
No more to cry
More people die
You look a Nazi in the eye
Selection
Rejection
Either way you lose
Sick and weak leave
Yet you are reprieved
And you must try and believe
Sick in bed
Thoughts messing with your head
Racing through your brain
Meet your demise now and let go of pain
No
You won’t give in
Clear your mind
Never let them win

Feeling better
You survived this time
March in a line
Evacuation
Relocation
Young and old
Running in the cold
Can’t feel your legs

Wishing for your bed
But you can’t let this get to your head
In a few days time
You are nothing but body
No mind

You finally arrive
And are deprived
Of everything you desperately need
But you will
Never Give up
Never give in
Never let them win

Sleeping in your bed
Dreaming of times ahead
You hear a noise
You leap from your bunk without fear
Run outside
Don’t bother to hide
Liberation
Reincarnation
The war is over
You have won
Plenty of food for everyone

You never gave up
You never gave in
You never let them win

I wrote this poem last year hope you like it, I have many more to post

[bug14]

I'm not a writer myself. I'm not sure if it's just me, but when I read a poem that rhymes like this, I perceive it in a cheery/happy tone. When I read this about the holocaust, it wasn't "happy/cheery", but to me it still wasn't on a level that really captures the tragedy and pain of the holocaust.

Not happy, but still too happy.

[sidespin]

Hmm well thanks for the critism, I see your point but I don't think I agree.

[Fortunato]

I agree and disagree with Bug.

I've read poems that have rhymed and yet very effectively pulled off a melancholy tone. However, the trick is in the pacing and rhythm. The cheery/happy/upbeat feeling comes from the "Da-da da-da da-da" uniform sort of rhythm, and the rhyme in those cases just serves to emphasize that tone to a sickening point.

In the case of this poem, I didn't actually feel that it was upbeat. I found myself not liking the pacing of it, though; it didn't flow very well. While the rhyming is generally consistent and the rhyming choices are sound, without the proper rhythm, the poem as a whole suffers. As early as the third line, you introduce large breaks in the flow of the poem, and I think the overall piece suffers for it. It's a sound poem; a decent poem. I think it could be a lot better if a bit more attention was paid to flow.

[sidespin]

Yeah that makes sense, thanks for posting, I need all the constructive critism I can get =D.
I'll put more of my work up soon

[FireWrath]

I don't see much point in saying what's already been said, but here's something I want to add.

When writing a poem, especially one that you want to have a certain feeling, consistency is very important. Needless to say, it lacks in that department. There aren't two stanzas that I saw that have the same flow, and there's not one that didn't have some sort of break. I also don't like that you have one word on the entire line, and a total of two words in certain couplets. I realize that you're trying to put emphasis on them, but you have to realize that if overused, it loses it's meaning. Imagine having bold words in a sentence that you really want to stand out. Now imagine more than half of them being bold, and all of a sudden, it does not have that feeling that it should have.

[sidespin]

This is grave dug a little bit xD.

Well this was actually for a school project and my teacher actually told me to have those stanzas repeat. I can see how it may lose it's meaning after being repeated alot, but I've read many poems that have stanzas repeated many times that still sound great and really get the meaning across.

[FireWrath]

Well I'm not talking about entire stanzas repeat, that's actually an often used device, I was referring to the single words. Here's an example:

Text text text text
Word
More text here
Word
Word
Crap stuff text blah

One two three four
Five
Six seven eight nine ten
Eleven
Twelve

Usually when you a single word is seen on entire line, much like what I've bolded, is used to emphasize feeling of some sort, but the fact that you've done it so much takes away from the emphasis, and makes it just look like it's poorly done.

[Wilfukguys]

that was really good =o

[sidespin]

Oh, yes I do see your point. That's very good advice for me to think about in the future.

Oh and thanks Matt .