Seventeen, what an age?

Question

Seventeen what an age in between insanity and your grave
Insanity meaning living with all of your kin
messing up your life and always at you making a grin
Then they take all your anguish and multiply it by two
But you're Seventeen what will you miss soon you'll be gone and they'll be yelling boo by the grave
I mean living in the world away from your kin
messing up your life and always giving you a grin
then it will take all your anguish and multiply it by four
So you'll be dead what will you miss soon you'll be gone and the earth will be yawning what a bore
Rain Love Wind and Rain
I'm going insane
Time to get some more
Bring it Out
and take it down
Put it on the floor
Show me How
to get some now
Boy is it a bore
Caress the Air
drag me there
God damn make it pour

Answer 1

Forgive my rudeness, but shut the hell up.

At 17, you are NOT some wise old soul who just FEEEEEEEELS things SOOOOOOOOO deeply and who is nearly 18 and DEAR GOD it's all just down hill from there.

The choice of whether to be happy or morose is entirely yours. The former takes just a modicum of work, whereas the latter is just lazy self-centeredness.

But just stop with this faux world weary act -- it's utterly asinine. You're 17 -- go out and run around and act goofy. It's you're last hurrah before adulthood sets in.

In closing, there's a great saying I've lived by for years: "We don't stop playing because we grow old -- we grow old because we stop playing."

It's your choice -- I sincerely hope you choose the fun one.

Answer 2

Since KS has taken the high road I'll take another crack at this.

Yeah, those years that border on independence really stink...

But this composition lends no insight into the real dilemmas of upper teen years because it is self-indulgent.

The sorry part is you have a sense for constructing a poem. You demonstrate the freedom of breaking out of form. When Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young came out with Suite: Judy Blue Eyes they took a huge risk in the changes that piece went through, and it was a big success.
You did the same thing here. Why don't you take some of that and make it work for you?

Also, limit what you write through the eyes of your experience, at least for now. Poetry about being between insanity and the grave from somebody your age doesn't ring true for the vast majority of people who will read it. I've read poems by 13-15 year olds on this site that are far more insightful and less angry.

Answer 3

Well, you listed this under "poetry", so I must assume this is a poem about teenage angst, correct?

First of all, it isn't a very good poem. Don't take that the wrong way, it's not that you didn't make a good effort, it's that you made a half-hearted one with a rant that I don't believe you really feel. Oh, I believe you have teenage angst, but what you really feel didn't make it to the page.

If you want to write a freeverse poem, or even a free verse "rant", you need to be concise, sharp, crisp, and edgy. You can say, "Bring on the rain and let it soak my adolescent sores until they scab over with experience!", but avoid the teenage drivel about life being "boring", about "death is around the corner", and "you'll be so sorry when I'm gone.", because the reality is that they really won't be all that sorry when you're out of the house...they'll worry about your safety, but they'll also be happy to have a chance to breathe without you yelling at them or "wanting" something all the time.
You're a teenager, and you are in a position to write about teenage angst in "real time", not from memory. You have a poet's heart, but appear to be unwilling to really let it out and find a way of saying what you really feel in such a way that the words mean more than they say...which is what the goal of poetry should be: to convey more than the information contained in the sum of the words. Paint with your words, don't write or rant.

Answer 4

Well, I prefer Arthur Rimbaud's poem "Novel":

I.
No one's serious at seventeen.--
On beautiful nights when beer and lemonade
And loud, blinding cafés are the last thing you need--
You stroll beneath green lindens on the promenade.

Lindens smell fine on fine June nights!
Sometimes the air is so sweet that you close your eyes;
The wind brings sounds--the town is near--
And carries scents of vineyards and beer. . .

II.
--Over there, framed by a branch
You can see a little patch of dark blue
Stung by a sinister star that fades
With faint quiverings, so small and white. . .

June nights! Seventeen!--Drink it in.
Sap is champagne, it goes to your head. . .
The mind wanders, you feel a kiss
On your lips, quivering like a living thing. . .

III.
The wild heart Crusoes through a thousand novels--
And when a young girl walks alluringly
Through a streetlamp's pale light, beneath the ominous shadow
Of her father's starched collar. . .

Because as she passes by, boot heels tapping,
She turns on a dime, eyes wide,
Finding you too sweet to resist. . .
--And cavatinas die on your lips.

IV.
You're in love. Off the market till August.
You're in love.--Your sonnets make Her laugh.
Your friends are gone, you're bad news.--
Then, one night, your beloved, writes. . .!

That night. . .you return to the blinding cafés;
You order beer or lemonade. . .
--No one's serious at seventeen
When lindens line the promenade.