The Tree

It was just a tree,
A big tall beautiful tree,
Stuck between two countries.
Who started fighting,
For this tree.

They started with words,
Then a fist,
Then the guns,
Began hoarding in,

The shots fired,
The smoke roared,
But finally after months,
One country got smart,
And gave up.

The other country smiled,
And stuck their flag in the ground.

Then they looked up at the tree,
The tree they fought for,
That men had died for,
And they were taken aback,
By what they saw.

The leaves were half-gone,
Eaten by bullets.
The sky was covered in smoke,
And the grass was a bright menacing crimson.

Is this what they had fought for?
They looked out,
And saw masses of crimson bodies,
Each an innocent life taken for what,
A simple tree?

Hey there, Mickeys. Nice to make your acquaintance. I’m the one, the only, lilymoore! Hehe!

Anyways!

Okay, I like the idea that you’re going with in this poem. Representing the destructive powers of war through this frivolous fight over a tree. And that imagery, especially:

The leaves were half-gone,
Eaten by bullets.
The sky was covered in smoke,
And the grass was a bright menacing crimson.

Really grab ones attention.


But this does seem to lack a poetic feel to it. Obviously it is a free form kind of poem but even free forms have a sort of rhythm hidden in them. Right now, this almost reads more like prose that had been cut down to look poetic.

That’s not such a hard thing to fix. The key is to find a thesaurus, sit down, and shake up some of the vocabulary. Use alliteration and tricks like that and you can have a very powerful piece of poetry on your hands. You have a good start here, the backbones of the poem, it just needs some polishing.

Also, at the end of this, I found myself asking why exactly they were fighting over a tree in the first place. It seems like an odd thing to fight over. Symbolic, sure, but sort of odd when you look at the poem more literally.


Anyways, if you have any questions, feel free to PM me or leave a post on my wall. Scratch that, don't just feel free to do those things. I outright encourage that you do!

~lilymoore

I really like the meaning behind this poem. The tree is a great symbol for everything that humans frivolously go to war over. Like lilymoore I particularly enjoyed the imagery in the fifth stanza. My main criticism is that the final stanza directly states the meaning and intention of the poem, when the meaning should be interpreted by the reader.

I like the meaning and all but I felt it wasn't very...poetic. You had a good idea but I didn't feel like the best writing went into it.

Lovely idea.

I don't think the last stanza was necessary all. You can just delete it, because it repeats and that's all. I think you should also delve more deeply into the symbolism of the tree, and you have have to make a certain choice:

You have gone with two different ideas, either that the war was silly because it was just a tree, or that the tree was destroyed anyway by the war. Those ideas basically contradict each other as reasons against the war.

Think about the symbol itself: what does a tree represent? Life? Nature? The earth? Something else? If it was two countries, maybe make it a forest? If it is just one tree, make it between smaller parties, like two neighbours. I'd say go with the scaling up though.

I see that in the last stanza you try to make out a further emphasis on how many lives were lost, and so on. Try to do that by being a bit more emotive about the war itself in the poem. Maybe talk about an individual soldier? Just a suggestion.

I agree, it was a pointless war.... over a tree?
I thought that it had an element of childish description, but it goes well with it. The war seemed interesting, as it was all for a tree, and it would be great if you could write it in a bit more detail
Georgie x

Hey!

I liked this poem a lot; it had a good, relevant message with simple, understandable imagery. However, I think that that may work against it as well. Personally, I like there to be a little more work involved in understanding a poem, to have to think about it more, to get more from it on the second and third readings than I got at first glance. There's not much beneath the upper layer in this poem; it's like a pie with no filling. The pastry's very nice and it looks like a pie and it's got sugar on top and I can eat it and enjoy it just fine, but a great pie has a filling underneath the pastry that makes me dig deeper.

Okay, I squeezed that metaphor dry there. XD I hope that made sense, though. My creative writing tutor said something like that (only without the pie references), about how once a poem is open to multiple interpretations, it's started doing its job right.

PM me if none of that made sense, or if you have any questions!

I really liked this poem. It's stating how we are living now. If we keep fighting eventualy someday everything will be done and what we've fought for and died for will be meaningless. Great job. I enjoyed reading it. ^^

I've first got to say that I was quite pleasantly surprised by the story behind "The Tree".

The whole idea was great and the metaphor you used was genius.
As other reviewers have pointed out, you could have used some more adventurous vocabulary in the actual writing.
I really am impressed by the story and the way you presented it. I do think that with a bit of tweaking, you could have a really strong poem which will make people stop and think after reading it and also, the point you are making will be heard more clearly.

Overall: a great idea, it just needs a little tweaking.
thatboy

I loved this poem, your really did a good job with it!
The concept behind it was quite brilliant and the point of the poem is put across nicely.
Well I suck at poetry so I don't know how much my words matter but anyway I really enjoyed it!

This poem was truly inspiring, with its theme of non-violence. What is it really worth? I loved it. I was slightly to into the poem to make any grammatical changes, but nothing stuck out like a sore thumb to me. It was probably fine, but honestly keep writing poetry. This was legitimately inspiring. (:

I love your poem it's theme is so inspiring. I love the motto though i do agree it does have a childish edge to it.
Kitty

Very nice poem! I LOVE the point you made, although at the end of the poem instead of saying "Each an innocent life taken for what,A simple tree?" I would have changed the punctuation to "Each an innocent life taken for what? A simple tree." It seems to flow better that way. Other than that though you did great!

I really liked this, alot. It is poetic, tells a story, has meaning-it has everything that you'd want in a poem, quite frankly.

I can't exactly nitpick this a whole lot, BUT if you were to turn this into some kind of story, here are some tips.

Make much of it very humorous, like accentuate on the ridiculousness of them fighting over a tree, and the humor behind that.
Have a cast of characters that has each one with their own little quirks. Also have them interact with one another many times throughout the story.
When the flames do come into play, make it very dark and gruesome, to contrast with the earlier humor.

Follow those tips and you will more or less have Catch-22. It's up to you to decided whether that is good or bad.

Very nice. Over all, I really enjoyed the simpleness of the poem. Now I don't mean to say it wasn't intelligent or thoughful or thought-provoking. It was all those. But I find that over-complicating ideas is a problem that holds mosts artist and writers down, so it's quite refreshing to see someone who is able to put forward an inspiring poem such as this that is simple enough for the reader to understand. After, one of the biggest challenges is to make the reader understand your ideas. I think that you were very effective at portraying your idea in a fluid collection of words.
If you want my advice, the sencond line of the first stanza, the last word "countries" partially rhymes with the last word of the privious line "tree" which is confusing somewhat. If there is going to be something that sticks out like that, it should tie into another meaning through the realationship of the two lines, two words, and their meanings in general. Also in the third stanza, when you write "but finally after month, one country gave up" the amount of syllables makes the stanza a bit awkward. I particularly like when you use less sylables at the end with "And gave up." I somewhat forrget about the awkwardness privious to it.
Overall, very solid and well done. The begining seems to leave a bumpy, less fluid impression with me, and I it could be better. But that's just my opinion, I don't even write very much poetry, and don't think i'll ever be able to write poems like you. It's a very nice poem that is only lacking a bit of fine-tuning, and I think it feels very professional and has excellent imagery, partcularly in the last half.