American Teenager 2007

[TheLizard]

This was pretty much stream of consciousness. I can't tell if it's a complete mess or the best thing I've ever written.

A walking contradiction, loved and despised

By elders who tell us how life used to be

We don’t appreciate all they once prized

Shut up and they’ll tell us how to see:

Don’t worry yourself with our problems

You just stay wired and disconnected

These issues are bigger than you, we’ll solve them

You’re young, you’re calm, you’re collected

Just sleep while we don’t learn from our mistakes

Just blindly salute a flag

Just accept that this country was and is great

Just don’t trust a man wearing a rag

The world was here before we came

It will be here when we’re gone

Although it may be walking lame

We’ll be dead, and you’ll be left alone

No.

Our future is in the hands of incompetents

No.

We can’t wait for each generation to bring repentance

No.

Gone is the flower child

Gone is the punk, the wild

Here is the reckoning

Here is the final fling

We have to take it back

Let freedom ring?

Who will we be remembered as?

Or will we be the last around to remember?

[Lucky]

Tim, I know absolutely nothing about technically good writing. However, I read voraciously, and I know what I like. I post in response in this forum only when something really strikes me, and makes me feel. I really like this. Possibly S2V, or someone else with more knowledge than I could give you great critical feedback. All I can say is I think understand these feelings, and you have expressed them wonderfully.

This part I absolutely love...

" Gone is the flower child

Gone is the punk, the wild

Here is the reckoning

Here is the final fling

We have to take it back

Let freedom ring?

Who will we be remembered as?

Or will we be the last around to remember? "

[TheLizard]

Thanks Lucky! Someone likes it, that's good enough for me.

[skybluesky]

I never comment on other's writing, but I like this poem and I like the oppostion of phrase

You just stay wired and disconnected

[Steel2Velvet]

I feel it rich in heart-felt emotion and a great challenging theme, Tim. My one concern is that when multiple pronouns are used ("We" and "You"; "Them" and "Us") in a comparative or responsive manner, it is important that the author leave no question to the reader who is being addressed by whom and which side is making which statement. As author, Tim, you know who when the "You" is establishment or teens and the "We" is establishment and when it's teens, but the reader must follow their representative pronouns like a ball during a tennis match. Perhaps you could replace some of those pronouns with synonyms, or creatively come up with terminology to "flesh out" the two groups, or use quotation marks to denote one group is speaking to the other.

The basic fabric is rich, however. Just needs a bit more stitching.

[TheLizard]

Thanks, S2V. And you're absolutely right, as soon as I get the chance, I'll try to clean up some of that pronoun confusion.

[Shawna]

Tim... well done. I admit I had to read the first part twice, because I got a little discombobulated (I see S2V addressed that part already), but I really, really liked it once it sank in.

The part that gives me pause is the line, "Who will we be remembered as?"... doesn't seem to flow like the rest, and hanging the "as" is, what.. a dangling participle or something. It's a little herky to read. Can that be rearranged so the last word is "remembered"? "As whom will we be remembered," perhaps?

Overall, excellent IMHO.

[Rayzor]

I like it

For reasons everyone else has already patted you on the back about...

As far as anything else goes: I'm an idiot so I don't know anything about poetry, but I do agree with S2V cuz I got lost for a moment while reading. Nothing a re-read didn't fix tho!