Ranger21 Sep 2006

Q: 'And by reading someone else's experiences and knowing these feelings for ourselves, does this not make us relate to the poem so much more?'

A: No.

This is just a list of mildly emotive scenes and statements. If I put my shopping list here, would it suddenly become a marvellous piece of poetry just because lots of people have also made similar shopping lists? No it would not. The whole point of eliciting emotion is just that: that you *elicit* feelings. Hence the overriding purpose of the 'show, don't tell' guideline. If you say 'I have cried', so what? So have I, so has almost everyone else - but it's not making me feel like crying now. If you say 'I am ridiculously happy', it doesn't make me jump around for joy. Otherwise the following line should be the most emotionally evocative line in existence:

"I really, really love butchering puppies".

It doesn't do much except maybe make you laugh, does it? If, however, I was to write a few lines describing the wounds on said puppies, and their helplessness, then it might be more effective. Emotions have far more of an impact if the reader actually has to conjure them up on their own - which also has the added bonus of making the poem more 'personal' to the reader as well. This is why Dovina suggested keeping the more original ideas, so that the reader would actually have to work out what it might be like. By all means keep the message 'live life to the fullest' - a noble enough sentiment - but simply listing the things you've done in life doesn't motivate me to do those same things.