Youth Of Today

Entry by: macdonald

19th February 2016

Youth Of Today

I can still see that boy of eighteen,
Freshly liberated from childhoodâ€™s tethers,
Ungilded but shiny-limbed, bright-eyed
And brim-full of youthâ€™s magic fuel.
Thrusting onward, his hot passions into a future,
With gushing hormones the only tyranny
As he begins the heroes journey.

First person was his point of view,
A present tense of rising action,
Girls the hook and threads, supporting characters
All friends, some of whom he had yet to meet.
Time, a cheery companion by his side,
Showing not telling, the narrative arc.
The unspoken sub-plot that hidden, ticking clock.

But deaf anyway, to every anthem
Or testament of those who had gone before.
False prophets of reversal and complications,
Unacknowledged, rushing past
The what-ifâ€™s and paths untaken
To reach his dramatic need, a climax;
Passing on the genetic baton.

Iâ€™ve played every part since then,
Even this clichÃ©d denouement,
A stereotype of lean and slippered pantaloon,
Adrift on a stage of overloaded cognitive delirium,
A trivial celebrity dystopia screened live.
This clownish muddle, all plotlines unresolved,
Petering out, awaiting only its unwritten epilogue.

And every scene is strained revision,
Filtered through memoryâ€™s plastic sieve,
My epic reduced to anecdote.
Blood slowed, passion long spent now
On pensions and bowel movements, tomorrowâ€™s weather.
But I still dream, and of that time
When I played the youth of today.

Marker 1

What I liked about this piece: Good rhythm, some clever ideas, flows through a life and seems very relevant.
Favourite sentence: Girls the hook and threads, supporting characters all friends, some of whom he had yet to meet.
Feedback: It's a well thought out, well constructed piece. Generally pace is good although sometimes feels there are too many words. Nicely portrays the frustrated dreams of adulthood, perhaps not so much the youthful hopes!

Marker 2

What I liked about this piece: I liked the contrasting emotions of a typical (impatient, selfish) teen in the early verses and the retrospective (more mature) philosophical thoughts of the older character in the final stanza.
Favourite sentence: My epic reduced to anecdote.
Feedback: I felt this contained a clichÃ© (or three) too many to work properly. The oblique references to well-known poems (Frost, Shakespeare) are slightly awkward, and some of the word-pairings are obscure: what is 'cognitive delirium' or 'celebrity dystopia'? How can an epilogue be described as 'unwritten'? The flow and the rhythm of the verse is good, but the message is not clear.

Marker 3

What I liked about this piece: Well-written, flowed nicely. Made a change to read a good poem.
Favourite sentence: Freshly liberated from childhood's tethers
Feedback: I really enjoyed reading this. Obviously written by a very talented individual. My only slight negative point is that at times there were a few too many 'complicated' mixtures of nouns and adjectives, meaning I had to re-read several times to understand. In summary ... great piece!