I liked this piece, I think the title fits it well, kind of..I would suggest as a title..um..lemme think..*thinks*.."Void" I guess that would fit, but your title now fits as well.
"Driven by a heartless mind Powered by a mindless heart"
Those were my favorite lines, they had contrast. I think I relate to the mindless heart one, my heart is just retarded, haha. You fall to fast, you fall even harder in the end. Anywho great piece, good job, Take Care!
Hmmm, not bad. A psychological account of fear, I take it. I’ll have to admit, the lines you used describe the feeling in an interesting manner. Line 6, “An unheard voice,” is a good example. This phrase brings to mind all those times you’re doing god knows what in the basement, all lights off, as a faint noise starts to sound a bit too much like someone hidden around the corner. “An unheard voice,” sums that sentiment up exactly.
Lets see, I also thought lines 4-5 and lines 9-10 were both good couplets. I’m not sure if it was your intention or not, but they suggest the presence of two personages to me (****Ignore the following if it doesn't make sense****). If I regard this poem as the sensation of instilled fear, I can represent the personages. One figure, the aggressing figure, is imposing fright in the other. Thus, lines 4-5 can be construed as to convey this dynamic. I understand the aggressor as “driven by a heartless mind,” and the persona as “powered by a mindless heart.” The persona’s heart is “mindless” in the sense that it is beating rapidly owing to his nervousness.
As I see it, the above scheme can also be applied to lines 9-10. Here, the persona’s fright is “inspired by a cold heart,” which is of the ruthless, cold-hearted marauder. Also, the persona’s fear, as it were, is “fulfilled by a careless being.” Now whether the persona is a “careless being” because his rational succumbs to fear, or because he inspires his own fear by means of imagination, is uncertain.
Anyway, there were some criticisms I had which you probably want to know. As I said above, I thought the descriptions you gave of fear were imaginative while mindful of a certain actuality. However, these descriptions fail to provoke much imagery. This at the fault of the psychological angle you are coming from, which isn’t bad in itself, but your poem doesn’t really reach outside of this technique. If you were to revise, I think it would be a good idea to get rid of some or most of these emotive/mental details (i lines like “A beautiful misery” and “A satisfying depression”) and replace them with image-centered and physically explicative lines. In other words, don’t tell the reader what the persona is feeling; instead, create a tone and atmosphere that will convey this information subtly, yet effectively.
Overall, the premise of your poem and the style in which you wrote it are certainly with merit—there’s no doubt about that. Like I said, Fear ain’t that bad of a poem, but it will be stronger after revision.
Submission Name: Fear
