Breathe

I haven't submitted anything in awhile...So, feel free to rip this to shreds!

Breathe

As I step into the new found world,
Finally bereft of winter's frozen grip,
I breathe,
And I find...

The tulips have been blooming,
Pushing through the mulch of earth,
Along with the other blooms of Life.

Birds have flown through the air,
Exalting in the freedom,
Newly found.

Being busy,
Nature is.
Withdrawn from the lethargy
Of frigid months.

I breathe all this,
Knowing that which cannot be:
There
Can
Be
Peace.

It should be I breathe* if you want to change that.
The tulips have been blooming,Pushing through the mulch of earth,Along with the other blooms of Life. < my favorite line!

I found this a wonderful, natural piece. It had great imagery. I could see the tulips pushing their way through the mulch. I saw the birds flying. Great job with that! It was inspiring. You have a talent. Keep it up. Just as the user above has said I feel that it should be "I Breathe" as well. Again, great job!

Thanks! I guess I did better than I thought...I did make some edits, though!

Hey again, RedBird!

As I step into the new found world,

First of all-
'the new found world' should probably 'a new found world'. The context now gives me the sort of impression that there is one new world that we must all emigrate too, which I don't think was the message that you were trying to get across.

Secondly, whether literal or not, there are tons of 'new found worlds' and they can all mean things to different people. They usually are there when a person undergoes an experience that is unfamiliar to them.

Finally bereft of Winter's frozen grip,

Winter should be lowercase.

I didn't find any other problems with the rest of the poem! It was absolutely beautiful, and much better then your last poem that I reviewed! I'm gold starring this.

I know that was terrible, but there you go.

I know people always get points for modesty, but this wasn't really necessary! Thanks for letting me review your poem!

This was great! The wording was magnificent, and the poem flowed beautifully.

Being busy,
Nature is.

This is the only part that seemed unfitting. It still worked, but seemed a little out of character compared to the rest.

I liked how certain words were capitalized that normally wouldn't be, giving them a new depth and personality, and overall a different meaning in the poem.

Great job!

There's some really beautiful imagery in this poem - such a sense of hope. I particularly love your first two stanzas. I am a little confused about the meaning in the last two stanzas, though. There are some grammatical issues that could be intentional, but they make the poem a little awkward. For example, "Being busy, Nature is..." This doesn't make a ton of sense. Could you just say something to the effect of "nature is busy"?

I adore that line "Withdrawn from the lethargy/ Of frigid months." Gorgeous. I also love the way you organized the line "There can be peace." Overall, great job! Not terrible at all.

RedBird wrote:Being busy,
Nature is.

Great piece, and that one line stands out too me. I'm sorry that you want the piece ripped to shreds, but I love it too much. Sorry .

Hey Redbird!

One thing that really seemed strange was the amount of passive voice vs. active voice and your use of adjectives and adverbs.

And, just in case I sound too much like a grammar textbook, what I mean is that when you say: "The tulips have been blooming," this is written passively. The active would be, "The tulips bloomed." No, it's not quite as delicate as you would like in this case, but you use too much of those "have done this" in your poem to really make it sparkle. As a poet, you want to present new images in startling ways... what else would propel you to write the last four lines like you did? You wished to use the structure of the poem to jar the reader and propel the reader out of his comfort zone and to smack the peace idea in his face. So why are you making the rest of the poem weak with the passive voice? You don't have to use the active voice always... but you do need to vary your poem to make it sparkle.

Also, let's talk about adjectives and adverbs! You have a lot in the first stanza, making it bumble and stumble all over itself. Why, why, why do you have to use the word "finally"? It's unpoetic at best, kills your entire poem at worse and... yeah. Avoid it in poetry. Please.

And... the last stanza. You contradict yourself. You say, "knowing which there cannot be" and then you say "there can be peace." Um. Which one?

So, because this critique so far has been a rant on grammatical stuff, let's talk about what you can do with this.

Reformat it. Focus less on cool structure and try to put your words across in the best way possible. I actually really the content... I'm kind of a sucker for spring and birds and peace and all that jazz. But I would love to see you put it in the prettiest way you can. And I think you can do a lot better.

RedBird wrote:Being busy,
Nature is.
Withdrawn from the lethargy
Of frigid months.

everyone pointed this out but I thought I'd suggest a way to fix it.

Being busy,
nature has withdrawn from
the lethargy of frigid months.

But then a four-line stanza is three lines, and it doesn't flow as well
But I'm sure you can tweak it around yourself.
And I agree with Snoink about passive voice, though I think your point was that these things in nature have been doing these things without your notice, and you "awake" to find that they have..
right? So I can see the verb tenses in that way.
A beautiful poem, lovely structure. Great job.

You used great adjetives and "As I step into the new found world,Finally bereft of winter's frozen grip,I breathe" is my favorite line! I even like the whole idea to it. Well, it's kind of rough but I still get it.^.6 I don't want to rip this to shreds because it's kind of cool. Nice job! keep writing!
~Skyy.