A poem about a very old tree

*takes a deep breath* I don't have much experience writing poetry, so i'd love to hear what i'm doing right and/or wrong with the following poem. The title is one of those matchstick sentances from the writing activities forum meant to be a jumpstart for stories, and, well, I tried that, but I couldn't think of anything so I wrote a poem instead. I suppose it's about a very, very old tree.


The Tree Saw It All

From springs' first blossoms,
To winters' last chill,
From dawns' brightest light,
To nights' darkest hour,
The tree saw it all

From the birds' first call,
To the wolfs' last song,
From the first harvest moon,
To the last dying sunset,
The tree saw it all

From the first reckless fight,
To the last bloody battle,
From the first pale sunrise,
Through every age of this world,
The tree saw it all

It's not all that bad for a first poem. My biggest complaint is the punctuation for now But I'm proud of you! You actually have punctuation! *hugs poem* You wouldn't believe how often I see work without punctuation, It makes me want to cry.

You have no periods, which means this is all run on. and he commas look real...redundant. I'm not sure how to describe a better way to punctuate it though. I wrote an article Here Which may help you a wee bit.

You didn't rhyme, nice try, some people use rhyming as a crutch, bad bad bad! You, I assume, had a pattern? Try to create a pattern of syllables throughout the work. It'll help it flow.

As for content, its sort of dry. But, it was a first try. You really have to think of poetries content almost like a piece of fiction. Here is where my critique gets bad though, Because I'm not so sure how to fix up this kind of thing.

But, no matter what, my biggest suggestion is for you to read other peoples poems. That is always a good thing to do, look at poetry and how it is formed and the words that are used.

Hope this helped!

That was very helpful advice, thank you.

It was a good piece of work, I'll give you that much. I think that you could've been more creative with it though. The constant references to the sun showed me that. If you keep at it, it's going to come around.

I like the progression from plant, to animal, to human events, and also the different times of day. It speaks of different times in the world's development. I like the switch up on the last stanza from the 'from/to' pattern, it really brought out the next to last line.

I think you could go further with this poem, keep the references to the sun, use other times of day, and the challenge is to come up with first lines that keep with the theme.

Good job!

Nice poem, but it could use some work. I liked it. I liked your style.